After Kiko released the stunning Romantic Rebel collection, Essence pulled all the stops as well and released probably the most impressive collection so far, but definitely at least this year. It's not just the packaging that caught my (and probably other people's) eye, but the colour selection is actually so much prettier in person than it was on the press release. For one lipsticks completely passed me by when I saw them online, but they turned out to be just my colours. I got five bits from this collection, two nail polishes with the matching lipsticks and the hair mist. There are several other products available, the most visually interesting one is the scented gold dust powder, also the highlighter looked pretty and the gold topper, which is the product Essence releases traditionally every year.
Lipsticks
02 pink & perfect and 03 red rocks
2.49 €
It's kind of a norm that Essence releases much better lipsticks in their limited editions than they are in their regular lines and these are no exceptions. In fact, I'd go as far as calling these pretty good and you know how unimpressed I am about Essence's lipsticks. The feeling of the formula is the same as at at their regular Longlasting lipsticks, so a light, creamy formula that is almost full-coverage (needs about two layers), but the staying power is much, much better, especially at the 02 pink & perfect shade, which actually leaves a stain. The latter also survives lunch and only a portion of the colour rubs off, but it still looks even. I am genuinely impressed, at least as far as my experience with this brand goes. Now why can't Essence have such lipsticks in their standard line? Red Rocks is a bit less impressive in terms of staying power, but it's still much better that Longlasting ones. There is another shade in this collection called 01 let’s the berry-tales begin and it's the darkest in the bunch, but I found it too purple. Ana got almost the entire collection and you can check it out here.
02 pink & perfect
It's a fuchsia shade, that has that tinge of purple, but it doesn't match the tube (nor the nails polish of course). It's somewhere between cool and a warm toned, it actually depends on your undertone how it will end up looking, but on me it's already more on the cool side. As I said in my description of the formula above, this shade stains. I pair it with Longlasting pencil 03 Yummy Berry, which is a bit different, but for fixing up the edges it works just fine. The corresponding nail polish is much darker and more purple, but these still look good together.
03 Red Rocks
This one looks miles away from what they described it in the press release, therefore the name is highly confusing. It's not red at all, in fact it's a beautiful magenta. It reminds me a bit of Mac's All Fired up and I adore such shades. I think they should include this in their standard line. The official description also says it's a matte and that's also a lie. All the lipsticks have the same creamy formula.
Nail Polish
03 pink & perfect and 04 red rocks
Müller, € 1.49
Starting out with the obvious, the packaging is of course absolutely divine. It's not the first time Cosnova made such bottles, also Revlon's Parfumerie are very similar, and I just love this oriental ball cap design. The cap actually isn't hard to hold at all, which is something I was a bit concerned about. The brushes are a bit wider than usual and cut very straight, the latter is a bit annoying to me, but not too much. I have to say these are hard to apply without making a mess, it's the slightly wider brush in combination with the thicker formula that is causing me problems on my narrow nails. Otherwise they both look excellent on the nails.
03 pink & perfect
I looove this colour. It's so me. I speak often how much I love warm purple shades and this one is perfect. It's similar to Bahama Mama by Essie, but a shade or two lighter and not as vampy. The formula is thick as I said before and very pigmented, so one coat gets you perfect full coverage and it evens itself out. However, it's more prudent to not use thick coats like me, but do two thin coats, to avoid a mess.
04 red rocks
This one is already a bit closer to red than the lipstick, but I'm again on the fence of actually calling it red. There is a lot of pink in it, so it ends up looking almost summery. I think Essence had at least one similar shade BBC Pink Heat from the Bondi Beach Collection TE (2011) and the formulas are very alike as well. It's again a very pigmented formula, but thinner than pink & perfect. One coat does leave you with almost full coverage and an even finish, but the ends still peak though a bit.
Hair fragrance
01 I Love my Golden Pumps
I never owned such a product before, so I just got it out of curiosity. It's meant also as a sort of a leave-in conditioner plus a hair frangrance, but judging from the ingredients, not much effort was put into realizing the hair care idea. Ok, so they stuck in some glycerine, but why is alcohol in the second place? Anyway, there is also some shimmer inside, which is actually very easy to miss do to small quantity. The scent might remind old Essence fans of the Vampire Love fragrance (you remember that Twillight collection from 2011?) and it's a fruity-gourmand scent, with an emphasis mostly on juicy fruit (I think it's kiwi) and some warm sugary base. It's very teenagey, but cute. In regards to being similar to Fantasy - I compared the two side by side and yes, it has that vibe, but it's fruitier and it has almost none of that vanilla/cupcake note in it. Due to the fact it's meant also as a hair care product, it's not as light as an actual fragrance, but it's also nowhere near to an intensive care. Ingredients here.
Müller, 3.79€
Did you get anything from this collection or do you plan to?
Btw, kolekcija bo zelo kmalu tudi Click2Chic, če se katera boji, da jo bo kompletno zgrešila v trgovinah, ampak menda bo na voljo povsod kjer so stojala.
Have a great day!
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