REVIEW: E.L.F. Warm Bronzer and Golden Bronzer... "Bronzer"? Not so much.

All right, it's Saturday at last! DH and I slept in until 10:30 (ah, I remember back when I slept in 'til noon, but when your usual wake-up time is 5:30, five hours later is probably enough!)  On days when I can sleep in I don't really need much help from makeup to achieve a bright-eyed, glowing face, but for the other 300 days in a year it helps to turn to bronzer, blush, and highlighter/illuminator.
Fridays can be the worst.  I have the long week of sleep deprivation behind me, so I thought I would give these E.L.F. bronzers in Warm and Golden a whirl.

Sorry, they look identical in this picture! Warm is on the left, Golden on the right. 

Allow me to get right to the point.  IMHO, these are NOT bronzers.  For me, a bronzer doesn't just impart a glow, but it darkens the skin (preferably to a natural, tan color, though many lean orange).  On the plus side, neither of these had orange to them.  Each quadrant shade looked a bit different from the others when swatched.  When swirled and heavily swatched Golden definitely looked less pinky-peach than Warm, however...

E.L.F. Warm Bronzer, each quadrant swatched then swirled together to the right

E.L.F. Golden Bronzer, each quadrant swatched then swirled together to the right

I'm only NC25 and I haven't really gotten a tan this summer... these barely show up!  At least, they are a little bit different from each other.

Top Row is Golden, Bottom Row is Warm

I couldn't get the level of pigmentation shown on my hand to translate to my cheeks with any myriad of brushes (even eyeshadow brushes), and the hand swatches are all finger-rubbings, and nobody wants to finger-rub their face products!

On my cheeks, I couldn't tell one bronzer from the other, as their difference in depth was so minor.  Both did, however, impart a fine shimmer glow that I tried out a few ways:  applied just to cheeks, applied all over, and applied just as highlight on cheekbones.  I'd recommend these just on the tops of cheekbones, but you really don't need both of them.  If you want an all over sheen to the face, these actually do a decent job of that while evening out skintone imperfections though it's definitely a made-up look I'd save for evening.  The powders' sheen surprisingly didn't highlight my pores or fine lines much (I think they  managed to achieve more of a "blurred imperfections" effect).  On cheeks, it looks like I covered my blush with my regular facepowder to mute it.  This is actually useful to correct an accidental over-application of a pigmented blush (I tested this to see if it would work with Illamasqua Lover, and it worked a charm).  An anti-clowncheeks solution!

The packaging seems nice and sturdy, the mirror is large, and these look like they cost more than $3 for sure.  They were simply categorized improperly, if you ask me.  They make really good highlighting/finishing powders in the spirit of YSL Touche Eclat.  You don't need these if you have a separate powder highlighter, but I still think it's nice to have one of them.