I’ve been a fan of light contouring for awhile: I love how it can add dimension to the face while giving you a pretty, polished every day look. It’s recommended that you use a cool/ashy brown color to contour, but I’m from the (old) school of JLo and prefer to warm up my skin with a matte bronzer. After months of walking past the display, I finally picked up NYX’s Matte Bronzer in Deep Tan ($8.99) to test out.

It comes in a compact, and the formula is silky and blends easily. There are 5 shades (though I only ever see 3 in my local Ulta), and initially I thought that it wasn’t going to show up on my skin, but brushes are everything. I alternate between a Real Techniques’ contour brush and a Sonia Kashuk blush brush that I’ve had for years, so I can build up to just a hint of color of go full on bronzed goddess.

Depending on the look I’m going for, I sometimes use this like a base shade on my cheeks to give more depth to my highlighter and a peachy blush. When it’s mixed with a shimmery bronzer?? The cheek glow is insane.

A bronzer like this will give you a glow that will define but not overly chisel your features, and allow you to cut down on products + skip blush if you want. I still keep a shimmery one in my makeup bag (sometimes you want an extra pop of color on the cheeks), but on most days, I can do a quick contour  (swoop your brush in the shape of a backwards 3 so that you add color to temples, hollows of the cheeks, and jawlines), define my brows and swipe on some mascara and be good to go.

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