Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Quickie Contour Stick Review

When I picked up the November issue of Elle magazine it came with a freebie Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Quickie Contour Stick. Benefit Cosmetic's Hoola Bronzer powder is one of their bestsellers and combined with the popularity of contour videos on Youtube, Benefit wanted to satisfy their fans and created a cream stick version. The Hoola Quickie stick is a cream to powder formula and the stick makes it easier to draw the lines on your face. This is my first cream bronzer/contour because I find that many of them contain Ozokerite wax which I think I'm allergic to as it always stings my cheeks.

While people do use a warm toned brown to shape their faces for a bronze summer glow, true contouring should be done with a cool toned brown that mimics grey shadows to create angles and to slim the face. Therefore I think the description 'bronzer' it more accurate than 'contour' because the brown is warm toned.

Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Quickie Contour Stick comes in a gold tube which has small brown vertical lines to give it a bamboo-like appearance for an exotic, summer holiday vibe. The contour stick makes it easy and quick to apply, you just 'draw' it onto your skin- under the cheekbones, around your hairline and along the edges of the nose. I wouldn't say the stick is very delicate but I have read that the stick can break or fall off but if it happens you can try using the same method of fixing a broken lipstick in this tutorial here or decant the contour stick into a small container.  I found it easier to apply this directly onto the skin and then use my fingers to blend it. It's quite pigmented so you don't need a lot, so don't go crazy drawing big, long contour lines all over your face because then you'll have to do a lot of blending! Benefit Cosmetics claim that their cream to powder formula 'blends seamlessly for a soft natural matte finish' and I agree it's easy to work with and the matte finish looks very natural on the skin. If you're fragrance sensitive then don't worry as there is no real scent to this contour stick.

The colour suits my Mediterranean skin tone well and does not pull orange, but I think it would look too muddy or orange on very pale skin tones. I'm surprised they haven't made a Hoola Lite stick to match their Hoola Lite powder. Also this shade probably won't show up on women of colour.

This wears off after about 6 hours on me but I do have a habit of resting my face in my hands which probably doesn't help! If you have oily skin or want it to last all day/night then setting it with powder will help, such as Benefit Cosmetics Hoola Powder or a good setting spray. I've not tested this in the summer so I don't know how it fares on hot, sweaty days.

It does contain a lot of silicones which I only noticed looking at the ingredients (not from the texture of the product) specifically Dimethicone,Vinyl Dimethicone Crosspolymer and Triethoxysilylethyl Polydimethylsiloxyethyl Dimethicone which is something to aware of if you are allergic to silicones.

Benefit Cosmetic's Quickie Contour Stick is compact and you don't need a brush so it's good for on the go. I do really like this bronzer/contour stick, it hasn't broken me out and it is the first matte cream bronzer I've seen that doesn't contain Ozokerite wax. It's also really easy to use and the colour complements my skin tone. It is a bit pricey at £24 (which is almost the same price as some foundations) but I will buy the full size when I run out because I don't have anything similar and I haven't seen any other cream bronzers that do not contain Okerite wax. The only improvements I can suggest is that it would be better if they had more shades.

The Full Sized Benefit Cosmetics Quickie Contour Stick is 8.5 Net wt 0.3 oz and retails for £24. It's available at Benefit Cosmetics, Feel Unique , Boots and Selfridges.