SS10: Mac to The Beach Cream Bronzer in Weekend

Yawn, eh? We've bronzers coming out the wazoo this time of the year as all the brands gear up for summer. But Mac's to The Beach Cream Bronzer, part of the forthcoming to The Beach collection which'll land on May 13th, is a little different for a couple of reasons.

BECAUSE LOOK AT THAT PACKAGING! Yowsa! This is casing I can get behind. With a printed-on seashell as opposed to a stick-on transfer that annoyed so many with the Dame Edna launch, and lovely glossy green casing, this is the sort of cute compact you'll happily pull out in public.

Now, on to the actual product, the second point of difference. Cream Bronzers are just that: a light, gel/cream as opposed to a powder, they come in two shades  - limited edition, of course - Beach Bronze and Weekend. The former is touted as a 'golden glow with soft gold finish', and what you see above is Weekend. Terrifyingly described as a 'mid-tone deep orange brown with soft pink pearl', this is, um, bronzy-brown. Sometimes Mac's descriptions are so high falutin' you'd be bamboozled from here to Tuesday and back.

Weekend is also what I've been trying and while, from the press release description, Beach Bronze sounds like it might be better suited to an Irish skintone, Weekend is not Oompa Loompa stuff. It's very very light, with a fine, siliconey feel, delivers a practically transparent finish and a light glow that's very softly shimmery. You really have to crane your neck to see the delicate sparkle particles, but they're there, albeit nano-sized. All good, I hate sparkly bronzer.

Here's the pan - it looks dense and heavy, but it's not. So, how would you apply this? Fingers are fine and it also gets along great with a brush like a Mac 187 or Gosh's Duo Fibre brush. If you wanted to give your skin a bit of a sun-kissed glow, you could lightly buff this all over, but I've tried it on the usual bronzer flash points, like temples, top of cheekbones and down the nose and the effect is super-subtle.

Because it's so light and the texture is creamy, you can work it for a bit too, always good if you're not happy with the placement.

In the pan and on the hand  - note, I have layered it quite thickly here so you can see the effect - spot the teeny weeny bits of sparkle?

So, price - these will be €26.50 and the pan is the same size as the Mineralize Skinfinish ones, meaning you'll get a few months out of this.  Stay tuned for some more on the rest of the to The Beach collection too!