Amanda Harrington Face Illuminating Bronzing Mist

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There are so many bronzing and tanning products on the market right now and while formulas have vastly improved overall, it’s still a pretty hit and miss market.

I recently tried a new collection from a very well known Australian tanning brand and couldn’t quite believe how exceptionally orange the products left my face – in contrast I couldn’t have had a more different experience with the Amanda Harrington Face Illuminating Bronzing Mist.

For a bit of background info, Amanda Harrington is a Makeup and Body Artist, with plenty of experience on film sets and photo shoots sculpting bodies using painting and contouring techniques. With more than 10,000 faux tans under her belt, the tanning expert went ahead and launched her own brand, which features gradual tans, luxury brushes, glycolic exfoliating products, bronzing mousses and the facial mists. While the gradual tanning products are one-size-fits-all, the facial Illuminating Bronzing Mist and Illuminating Bronzing Mousse are available in three variations, depending on your natural complexion and undertones. Natural Rose is designed for fairer skins with a cool undertone – perfect for redheads and classic English Rose complexions. Natural Honey is good for medium skin with yellow or peach/golden undertones that may still be fair in Winter but warms up in Summer. If you tan easily but also burn if you’re not careful, Natural Honey is for you. Natural Olive was developed for darker skin tones, think Mediterranean and black skin. If you don’t burn/very rarely burn and go beautifully deep in the sun, this shade has your name on it.

I knew straight away that I would be a Natural Honey girl, but Natural Rose would probably do the trick too. The colour leans brown, rather than orange, and looks really impressively natural. To use the mist, either spray it onto your hand (wear the included gloves if you can, though it does rinse away easily with soap and water – just don’t leave it too long or it will start to develop!) and dab the colour onto a brush or spritz directly onto a brush. You want to use a brush that is fluffy with a bit of density to it, so you can use it to buff and contour. You can buy a couple of special brushes from the Amanda Harrington brand, which I hope to invest in eventually, but for now I’m just using a Real Techniques multitasking brush. Once you’ve got some of the mist on the brush, you can either buff all over or contour/ focus on specific points like you would with your regular bronzer. I like to apply it on the high points of my forehead (blending into hairline), my cheeks, nose and just under my jaw, the go in again and sort of buff and blend all over. I'm wearing the mist in all of these images - in the last one you can see the colour on the top of my hand after I've used it as a makeshift palette!

You’ll be left with a natural, pretty and healthy looking instant glow while a gradual colour builds underneath. In terms of scent, the Illuminating Mist smells a bit like frangipanis, and I honestly don’t detect any of that tell-tale fake tan scent at all! 

The light-reflecting bronzing mist is actually good for the skin too as it contains collagen, green tea and CQ10. It also has a bit of Retinyl Palmitate (Vitamin A) in the mix, which I wasn’t aware of until researching for this article – something to bear in mind if you are pregnant and consciously avoiding Vit A.

I also have the Amanda Harrington Perfect Face Ultimate Gradual Tan which is a good base to apply before the Bronzing Mist. It’s also got a cooling, minty scent and feel to it which I find very refreshing. It’s probably the most subtle gradual tanner I’ve tried – often gradual tanning products are just regular fake tan in disguise – so I definitely recommend it, along with the mist, if you would like a truly buildable, natural colour.

The Amanda Harrington Face Illuminating Bronzing Mist is £28 for 75ml (I use around 3 sprays each time) and the Ultimate Gradual Tan is £23 for 75ml.