little white truths

I wrote a review on this product back in August 2014 (see here if you're interested) when I'd only just started blogging and had no idea what I was doing. 

While my photos back then gave a reasonable representation of the product, they weren't great so I've had in my mind for a while now that I would slowly start rewriting a few of my earlier posts and including better photos for any products I still owned and could photograph again.

This is the first product I've decided to re-review, and I'll hopefully do a few more edits of other posts throughout the year.

The other benefit of editing earlier posts, of course, is that I've owned these products for a lot longer now so I may be able to note an extra comment or two on my old products that I didn't note before, since you can learn more things about your stuff over time. 

And while I've read my earlier post and nothing has changed in terms of my feelings of this product, I feel more equipped to write this review and structure it in a better way.

Anyhoo. Enough preamble ; ). Let's have a look at the product.

I love the packaging of this product and that's one of the reasons I've kept it, rather than passing it on: Mememe packaging is usually sweet without being tacky, and this product is no exception (and who doesn't love angels ; ) ).

I have it out on my display shelves and I do love the look of the little pebbles in the container and also the box itself. Problem is, while these are called 'luxury bronzing rocks', they only really work for me as eyeshadows - and I have better shadow formulas in these colours so I don't use them, but more on all that below.

• These luxury bronzing rocks were sent from above to give a bronzed and sun-kissed glow for the complexion 
• Each boutique pot holds a generous offering of hand-crafted rocks in three tones - gold, bronze and copper, mixed to ensure a truly sun-kissed complexion (I only got bronze and gold in mine)
• Cruelty free
• To use: apply in generous sweeps and dust over cheeks, nose and décolletage for a beautiful glow
• RRP $36.95 AUD for 27g (there's no way I got that much product in my tub, which was more than half-empty when I got it)

There's a swatch above, gold on the left and bronze on the right. I didn't get the copper colour (and I've swatched every pebble in the tub to confirm that) so I've no idea what happened there.

You can see the shades are super shimmery, so I'm not sure if many people would use these as bronzers. Some might be able to use them as highlighters, but they emphasise pores so I can't do that.

Wearing the product on my eyes and cheeks:

They do make pretty eyeshadows (below I've got the bronze on the lashline and the gold in the crease), but I have puffy/hooded eyes so I can only use them on the lashline and I have dedicated eyeshadows in these colours that adhere better than these do.

I love the concept of this bronzer - multi-coloured pebbles that look pretty and fun - but in practice it's not for me and I've never used it much until now, after adding it to my Project Pan list so I'd get through it and it wouldn't go to waste.

While these are called 'luxury bronzing rocks', they're far too sparkly to use for bronzing (at least for me), and as mentioned, they also emphasise pores so they're not something I can use for highlighting. If pores/texture issues aren't problematic for you, you might be able to highlight with this, but I reckon plenty of better, more finely milled highlighters exist so I wouldn't buy it for that purpose alone.

Also as mentioned, I should have received a third colour (copper) in my tub, which I definitely didn't (I've swatched every rock in there) - plus the Mememe website picture shows a box that's brimming with product, which it's definitely not. 

I've only been through two rocks and you can see from the above photos that the container is more than half-empty. If I hadn't bought this bronzer from the Bellabox shop on sale and with points, I might have attempted to return it - but I had too much on at the time to go through that process, and I'm not sure Bellabox would have accepted the return anyway.

Another problem with this product is that it applies patchily and doesn't blend well, meaning it's hard to work with. I don't like wasting time on products like that (I suspect most people are the same!) and the results aren't good enough anyway to put in the extra effort. The gold colour is a touch easier to work with - more finely milled and blendable - but it's still not great.

In my experience these rocks work best as eyeshadows, but I have dedicated eyeshadows in similar shades so I'd much rather use those and I've rarely reached for these for that purpose. Having said this, I have removed a bronze and gold rock in the past and placed them in a small container for travel, so they're good for that at least because you can save space. 

I've also used the product to dust over my collarbones and shoulders in summer (because for some reason I can handle noticeable glitter on my body but not on my face - weird, I know!), but I wasn't using them enough for that so I've found another purpose for them and brought them into Project Pan 2016 so I can get through them before they go rancid.