stila one step bronze Review & Swatches

stila one step bronze makes a lot of claims!  It claims to warm, enhance, illuminate, and brighten your skintone while also diminishing the appearance of sun spots.  Futhermore, this serum says it primes the skin while nourishing it with a "youth revival bio-available mineral complex from Arclay".  It also claims to minimizes pores, diminish the look of fine lines and wrinkles, hydrate and balance skin, and control oil.  Way to get my expectations up, stila!  I do like multi-taskers, and one step bronze did deliver for me in several areas.

It does indeed warm my skin tone and provide a nice hint of  all-over color without leaving any lines of demarcation or appearing too obvious.  The texture is a light mousse that blends easily and feels good on the skin, leaving no greasy after feel, which is mucho important to me.  It also did quite well as a primer, making it easy to blend the BB cream I'm currently using and even prolonging it's wear.  I did not have as much of an issue with the BB cream settling into my pores.

I've got extremely oily skin and I think it did help a bit with oil control.  I was concerned about its shimmer, but found that after applying my BB cream there was no obvious shimmer bits visible, but instead a nice glowing/highlighting effect, which is more apparent in the sun.

I like the packaging and find that one pump dispenses just the right amount for full facial coverage.  I'm also a bit fascinated with how those coils look, for some reason.

stila one step bronze retails for $36, which at first glance seems a bit steep.  Given it's multitasking qualities, however, the price does seem somewhat more justifiable.  I doubt I would have investigated this product if it had not been part of my June Birchbox, but I've got to say it's now going to be my go to primer for the summer!

Ingredients:  Water/Aqua, Cyclopentasiloxane, Propylene Glycol, Octyldodecyl Neopentanoate, Peg/Ppg-18/18 Dimethicone, Dimethicone, Phytantriol, Phenoxyethanol, Aluminum Hydroxide, Stearic Acid, Boron Nitride, Glycerin, Palmitic Acid, Dextrin Palmitate, Sodium Dehydroacetate, Magnesium Ascorbyl Phosphate, Retinyl Palmitate, Tocopheryl Acetate, Tocopherol, Tetrahexyldecyl Ascorbate, Triethoxycaprylylsilane, Butylene Glycol, Sodium Hyaluronate, Magnesium Chloride, Potassium Chloride, Sodium Chloride, Zinc Chloride, Lysine, Panax Ginseng Root Extract, Ginkgo Biloba Leaf Extract, Anthemis Nobilis Flower Extract, Camellia Oleifera Leaf Extract, Montmorillonite*, Illite*, Kaolin*, Methylparaben, Propylparaben, May Contain (+/-) Mica, Titanium Dioxide (Ci 77891), Zinc Oxide (Ci 77947), Iron Oxides (Ci 77491, Ci 77492, Ci 77499)

Disclosure:  stila one step bronze was part of my June Birchbox, which I subscribe to for $10/mo.