I'm a beauty editor – this £1 bronzer is my best kept secret to glowy summer skin

Looking for a bargain product that performs better than its designer alternative? Is the new Pope an old, follicly challenged Catholic guy? Well, good news, I'm here to tell you about a bronzer that costs £1. It's Make Up Gallery Good To Glow Matte Bronzer and it's from Poundland.
Don't expect a beautiful bag with paper tissue and ribbons – the packaging is more basic than bougie. And no sales assistant will sit you down on an unfeasibly high stool and transform you into a goddess in an attempt to flog it to you. You can't even easily buy it online. Nope, for your inconvenience you have to go to a Poundland shop, queue at a till and hand over one hundred of your pennies. I warrant this will be less than it costs you to park (though I'm thinking that once in there you may find yourself in need of some laundry pegs and er, ornamental hedgehogs). I digress.
What makes this product excellent is its very cheapness. Let me explain. For most high- end brands a big justification for their product's expense is pigment intensity, as this gives better 'pay off'. That's a beauty term that means the shade in the tube/palette/pencil will be the same on your face. And the colour lasts longer. These are obviously good things.
Bronzer is an outlier here, though. I don't want mine to be too intense. Why? Because if it's highly pigmented I have to be careful about its placement. Patchiness is a concern. I have to blend. And blend again.
I don't have the time, inclination or eyesight for this. I want to buff it on and go. I want my bronzer to have (are you ready for more beauty speak?) a 'diffuse' effect; ie, go all over my face and create a sheer, glowy veil.
This product is matte, which is key to a natural look (let's leave the sparkles to showgirls and the under-20s) and is finely milled, which is not always the case with cheaper products. This means it doesn't sit in pores.
To get the best from this bronzer, I would use a fluffy brush (I like the Real Techniques Powder Brush, £12 at boots.com). Start behind the ears and sweep it along and under the jawline to create definition. Buff it around the temples, along the high point of the cheekbones and across the nose. Finally, I like to give everything a big all-over swoosh (technical term). Then – ta da! – I have what the French call a bonne-mine look (AKA 'I've been to the Côte d'Azur for a week and drunk only fizzy water').
Now what can we do with all the money we've saved? Twenty ornamental hedgehogs, anyone?

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