"It's not me, it's you. And seriously, knock it off already."

...or, the saga of my break up with one of my bronzers.

When I started out this week, I'd planned that this week at BBoB, we'd be talking about CC Creams. I'd just spent two weeks going over BB Creams, it seemed like the next logical step. I didn't have any cleverly alliterated titles, like "Battle of the BB Creams" or "BB Cream Battle Royale" (you only saw that one if you follow me on twitter...), but I'd figure it out.

And then I realized I had a problem.

I'd been kind of panning foundations lately, crabbing that they were all grabbing up my bronzer. Now typically, if you have problems with your foundation grabbing up color, I'd ask if you were well exfoliated and moisturized. And typically, people would say no to one of those questions. But I use moisturizer every morning and night, an exfoliating face wash, and an exfoliating scrub in the shower. I got "exfoliated and moisturized" on lock.

So that means I've got a different problem.

It wasn't the foundation, I'd changed out my foundation multiple times over and still had this problem. It wasn't the primer, because I'd changed that out multiple times over as well.

That means my problem came down to one of these guys:

The brush is the "Heavenly Face" brush from Bare Escentuals. And the ELF Contouring Blush and Bronzing Powder duo in "Turks and Caicos", a very pretty light and dark bronzing duo, that was surprisingly hard to get a nice picture of:

Pretty, right? 

So Monday, I do my makeup. Wet N Wild Cover All Primer, Yes To Grapefruit CC Cream (which, for the sake of equal comparison, I used the remainder of the week), the ELF bronzer, and the Bare Minerals brush.

I looked like this:

See the problem? You can notice in particular over the right eyebrow (left as you're looking at the photo). Despite actually blending fairly well, I'm visibly splotchy.

So...guys. I'm cool with being a lot of things. But I'm not cool with being orange. So I narrowed down my trouble starters, and tried to figure out which was which.

The next day, I got up, and used the same face wash, same moisturizer, same CC Cream, same bronzer duo...but a different brush. I came up with this:

So, OK. That's getting there. But it's still not quite right. And please to notice, how my face is several shades lighter than my neck? Yeah, we got lots of problems here.

(For the record, I actually don't know what that silver glimmer under my eye is. It was in every picture I took that day.)

So today, I took another shot at it. This time, I went back to the Heavenly Face brush, but used a different bronzer. POP Beauty was the lucky guy. And sidebar, POP Beauty bronzer completely changed the way I look at bronzer. I recommend. But that's a story for another day. At any rate, today - same face wash, moisturizer, foundation, primer, new bronzer. Please to enjoy;

And we've nailed it. I actually could have stood to go with a little more bronzer in this case, but notice? My skin doesn't look splotchy and uneven? And my face and my neck are the same color?

I try to keep all these pictures the same - I sit by the same window in the house, it's always at the same time of day, tried to keep my look similar, everything. I think the white maybe washed me out a little (or at least I'm going to tell myself that, cause holy cow, I look pale in this picture, haha...).

So I do believe the problem causer is the "Turks and Caicos" contouring duo from ELF. Heavenly Face brush, you live to tell another day. I like that brush a lot - brushes, if you pay attention to them, really tell you what you're supposed to do with it. Short, concentrated bristles - like the Heavenly Face brush has - provide short, concentrated bursts of color. I typically use this brush for powder, or for like, my highlight and contour jobs. It's a great brush for buffing as well. I do recommend the brush.

I dearly want to recommend this bronzer as well. I like ELF products as a general rule - I think their studio line (the black) is better than the basic (white) line, and I'd put their mineral line up next to whatever you've got. Their line is a little hit and miss - for my entertainment dollar, they do their best work in powders, but unfortunately, this bronzer and my skin just aren't jiving right now. Moving on with things - I've been on a bronzer buying binge lately, mercy knows I've got more than enough of them to get me by!

So, ELF contouring blush and bronzing duo? It's not me, it's you. And seriously, knock it off already.

I've tried other ELF products, and had considerably better luck. I recommend!