Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow review

If you’re looking for an effortless product to level up your contour game, you need to read my Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow review.

Charlotte Tilbury is one of my fave makeup brands ever. It’s totally worth the hype and price point. So when I was looking for a new powder contour product, I instantly thought of Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow.

I’ve been using this contour and highlighter duo for a while now ready for this in-depth review with swatches. Do the powders feel weightless on the skin? What’s the contour shade like? Are the shades easy to blend? I’ll answer everything in this review.

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What is Charlotte Tilbury?

Charlotte Tilbury is a legendary makeup artist known for creating sultry, feminine and gorgeous makeup looks. After more than 20 years in the industry working with plenty of celebrities, Charlotte launched her own cosmetics line – Charlotte Tilbury. The Charlotte Tilbury Matte Revolution Pillow Talk Lipstick is one of the best-selling lipsticks in the world.

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow claims

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow claims to help you slim, sculpt, shorten, trim and highlight your features. It’s designed for you to take what you were born with and maximise your assets with clever shading and illuminating – a trick that Charlotte’s celebrity clients can’t get enough of! The powders promise to be subtle, buildable, blendable, and flattering.

How to use the contour and highlighter palette

There are 2 shades in the palette – ‘sculpt’ and ‘highlight’. Charlotte advises you to apply ‘sculpt’ to the hollows of the cheeks, forehead and jawline, and ‘highlight’ above the cheekbones, on the nose and cupid’s bow.

Ultimately, use ‘sculpt’ for anywhere that you want to define and sculpt, and ‘highlight’ for areas that you want to catch the light.

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow Light to Medium swatches

For an indication of how Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow might perform and the colours, I swatched both powders in the palette. These swatches are done on my bare arm, without primer. As always, swatches are just an indication of the formula of certain products, but the full experience is what counts most.

Here are my swatches of the Light to Medium palette:

The shades swatched beautifully with a buttery soft texture. Each powder is very finely milled, so the powders felt super lightweight and silky. No chunkiness in sight! The colours also look so pretty from the swatches. The highlighter is very subtle in a gorgeous champagne shade, so it’s wearable in the daytime.

Makeup look using the contour

And, of course, to truly show you how the product works, I did a makeup look using the shade ‘sculpt’ from Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow. The highlighter swatch is a great indication of how the highlighter looks on the skin, soft and subtle. However, I wanted to show you what the contour looks like after I buffed it into my skin.

I did a foxy eyes sort of look. Disclaimer, I did use a cream contour underneath because I’m trying to use it up as my 2022 project pan. Check it out:

I specifically used the contour around my temples/forehead, nose, and under my cheekbones for more definition. I applied bronzer on my cheekbones to bring some more warmth back to my face.

As you can see, the contour is soft and subtle but helps sculpt my face. I think it looks great.

Honest review

Below, I’m going to break my Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow review into different sections for easy reading.

Shade range

The highlighter and contour palette comes in 2 shades: Light to Medium and Medium to Dark.

There’s 100% scope to release more shades of these palettes. For example, if you had a light-medium complexion, you’d have to build up the contour shade a lot more than someone with a lighter complexion. This makes it more expensive, as you’re using more product to achieve the same look.

Charlotte Tilbury needs to release a deeper duo, as the contour shade in the Medium to Dark palette is likely going to be too light for deeper complexions.

The ‘sculpt’ and ‘highlight’ shades are perfect for my complexion. The champagne highlighter doesn’t pull too icy or yellow on my skin and sits somewhere in the middle. Similarly, the contour is a perfect neutral shade that doesn’t look too orange or ashy on my skin.

Packaging

Of course, Charlotte Tilbury always kills it with the packaging. Filmstar Bronze & Glow is no exception. The beautiful rose gold packaging, Charlotte Tilbury logo, inside mirror, and overall heavy feeling are all giving luxe vibes. I love reviewing Charlotte Tilbury products as they always photograph beautifully. This palette doesn’t feel like it’s going to break if you took it away with you; it’s sturdy.

Texture

The texture of the contour and highlighter powders is stunning. They’re finely milled so they melt into the skin effortlessly, with no heaviness or cakiness. They feel silky smooth and super soft, so they’re great to work with. I’m obsessed with Charlotte Tilbury’s powder formula – it’s definitely my favourite powder texture out there. That’s why I love the Charlotte Tilbury Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder so much.

Ease of use

Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow is incredibly easy to use. The powders are very easy to build. When you build the contour, for example, it never disturbs your base products or looks patchy in parts. They’re also so easy to blend. The lightest of hands will buff the powders into your skin effortlessly. I hate powders that cling to drier parts of your skin, as it creates unnecessary texture. But this highlighter and contour and duo simply smooth over the skin.

Lasting power

Not only do the powders feel great on the skin, but they also have fantastic lasting power. The highlighter has slightly more longevity than the contour. On my skin, the contour wears very well for about 6 hours before starting to fade. Even when the contour starts fading, it still looks lovely on the skin. The highlighter stays put until you’re literally ready to take it off. Even if it’s 10 hours!

Where to buy

Retailing for £49, you can buy Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow from feelunique.

This is pricey, of course. But I truly believe this palette is worth the money as both the highlighter and contour are wonderful. They deliver in every area: packaging, longevity, ease of use, texture, and how they look on my skin. I highly doubt you could find such amazing quality in the drugstore.

Do I recommend Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow?

100%. Charlotte Tilbury Filmstar Bronze & Glow is the best contour product I’ve tried so far, and the highlighter is gorgeous as well. It makes contouring and highlighting such a seamless, foolproof process.

Rating: 5 stars

If you’re looking for a new contour and highlighter, I highly recommend checking out this palette!

What are your thoughts on Charlotte Tilbury? Do you love it like me, or do you prefer other brands? I’m keen to hear from you in the comments.

Sarah Sarsby is the owner of A Woman's Confidence. With over 5 years' experience of writing in the fields of beauty and lifestyle, Sarah is passionate about all things content, makeup, skincare, wellness, and lifestyle. She has oily skin, is obsessed with lip gloss, and loves cookie dough.