The Body Shop Honey Bronze Collection

On Friday I was kindly invited to The Body Shop in Cork for the launch of their new Honey Bronze collection.  I got to meet with their celebrity makeup artist Karim Sattar, who was so lovely to me and gave me a mini make-over!  

The Body Shop have always been so supportive and good to me, I really love the brand and they have been a favourite of mine for many years.  When I was living in the UK, at one point I couldn't attend one of their events and they still sent me a goody bag in the post which I thought was so nice.  When I moved back to Ireland, blogger & company events were pretty non-existent and The Body Shop were the first to contact me about sending products to review.  I have always appreciated their generosity and unlike a lot of companies they are not pushy in the slightest and are open to all kinds of opinions about their products.  Not once have they asked me for a review, or a video/blog post on the products they send and for that I respect them a great deal!

picture courtesy of The Body Shop Ireland

I was so disappointed that I couldn't make the Dublin launch so you can imagine my excitement when Suzanne, their PR manager emailed me about the Cork one!  From the moment I arrived I was treated like a princess.  Karim, Suzanne and all the staff there were so warm and welcoming and I felt right at home!  I absolutely loved how Karim did my makeup, and I wish he could work his magic on me for my wedding day! ;) 

My goody bag!

I tried to recreate the look that Karim did on me, but I don't think it's quite as pretty.  If you like I will do a summer bronzey tutorial with my favourite products from the line, so just let me know!  In the meantime, here's what I got and my thoughts on the products:

The Body Shop Bronzing Gel for Face - €18.00

The Body Shop Bronze Shimmering Dry Oil - €25.95

The Body Shop Lip Nectar in Honey Bunch - €14.50

The Body Shop Bronzing Powder - €20.50

I am completely in love with all of these products!  I started out by using the Bronzing Powder (in shade 03) to contour my face using an angled brush.  This powder comes in 4 different shades and they are all matte, which is a big plus for me because I like my contour to be totally shimmer-free.  I found this so easy to apply and relatively fool-proof as it doesn't give the muddy look that some bronzers do if you go overboard and you can build this up to whatever shade of tan you want.  After that I used the Bronzing Gel on my cheeks and blended it upwards onto my cheekbones right on top of where I applied the powder.  The cool thing about these products is that you can layer gels over powders and you won't get patchy.  The gel gives a beautiful all-round healthy glow but you really need to blend, blend, blend because it is quite pigmented so a little goes a long way.  I used my fingers for this!  On my lips is the Lip Nectar in the shade Honey Bunch which is a scarily bright coral/orange.  At first I thought, no way am I going to be able to pull this off but I actually love it!  Karim layered this over their pink lip and cheek stain which looked amazing too.  

The Body Shop Lip Nectar in Honey Bunch

You can see from the swatch how pigmented it is!  I use this sparingly for a more natural look.  The formula is sticky and very long-lasting.  I wore this both to the beach yesterday and to Funderland the day before (haha!) and it was surprisingly good at staying in place!

Finally I applied some of my favourite product from the line, the Shimmering Dry Oil to my shoulders, arms and décolletage.  OMG...this stuff is amazing!  I am seriously looking forward to lathering it on for my wedding, hello beautiful sun-kissed shimmering arms & body!  This is made with fair trade honey and beeswax which not only makes it super moisturising but also keeps you smelling wonderful!  Even if you don't purchase this, you need to check it out at your local Body Shop store and get a whiff of the stuff...you will be hooked!  This also comes with a stopper so you don't have to worry about it all spilling out over your clothes when you apply it, and it has no colour or self-tanner in it - it's purely a moisturising oil with shimmer.  LOVE!

I can definitely see these products becoming staples in my summer beauty routine!  Let me know what you think and if you've tried these already how do you like them?  Thank you so much to The Body Shop, Karim and Suzanne for their kindness, generosity and support :)  I appreciate it so much!

Stay Stylish!

xoxo