The naïve consumer can always count on Christmas, Easter and other religious occasions to frantically run to the mall to get the goods together at the very last minute. They can also count on the annual Black Friday sale as well as Bath & Body Works having their five for 5$ hand sanitizer promotion, which is oh-so not for a temporary time only, as they try to make them believe. The real deal, however, is the make-up celebration of the year: Guerlain's annual summer collection add-on bronzer.
Each year Guerlain releases two special bronzers (special as in 'pretty embossment, I'm not worth using it'), one of them being part of the core Terracotta collection (Terracotta, this year's Terracotta bronzer is the gorgeous, golden "Sun in the City" multi-purpose highlighter) and the other one available for sale a little after both the Terracotta and the main summer collections have come out. Thus I'd like to name it 'The Bronze' (kill me for that pun, please), a collection consisting of one, pricey product - the earth-coloured compact powder. Last year's pretty bronzer - known as the 'Mosaic Compact Powder' - is still available and guess what, I ordered it along with the one I'll present you in this epic piece of blogging.
My personal highlight of the year is that time around early September when the first images of the upcoming Guerlain Christmas collection leak. I'd usually freak out and tweet at least a billion times about how stunning everything looks. Next to that you can sure count the seconds between official announcement and my frantic tweeting when it comes to the seasonal bronzer. And just when I thought Guerlain couldn't come up with yet another, better design, they surprise me and take my breath away again.
Literally. Despite being a fan of the normally 'slight' violet scent, I almost passed out when I sniffed the Terra Soleia (69$) powder, the violet scent has a strong presence and even killed my nostrils for a second or two. Imagine the usual Guerlain scent but sixteen times 'worse' (or better, depending on how you like it). Once applied with a brush, the scent quickly fades yet is as strong as a light eau de toilette.
Direct sunlight, no flash
Flashlight
The powder itself is gorgeous, of course, despite being rather glittery than shimmery. Even though the powder has no overlay, the first thing one will get out of the pan is a massive amount of shimmer particles. There's no real 'base' colour to it, which makes it useless as a bronzer, rather as a highlighter. I personally don't care because it's not about the product to me but it's an object of desire to complete my collection. At 69$ that's definitely a ridiculous splurge, but the product does what it does, the pan has a ginormous size and the design is fabulous.