Essence Makeup Review......

Goodmorning ladies,

As you might have read in my previous posts, I have been on holiday in Catania for 3 weeks. I took advantage of the fact that prices tend to be slightly lower there and did some shopping. I planned to buy a lot of makeup because I need to grow my collection as I need more basic makeup staples. But as it always happens to me I start seeing the prices high and tell myself I will buy another time or from somewhere else, and then I end up not buying whatever I needed.

In Malta there aren't so many makeup brands available. In fact, we don't have MAC, Makeup Forever, Bobby Brown, Laura Mercier and many other cheap drugstore brands. In Catania there were few of these but still looked expensive to me. I wanted to try new drugstore brands which were also affordable and the only ones I found to be interesting is ESSENCE.

I bought the following Essence makeup items:

• Essence Colour & Go quick drying nail polish in shade 53 You belong to me (minty shade)
• Essence Multi Dimension XXXL Shine nail polish in shade 62 Must-Have (charcoal grey)
• Essence Nail Art Special Effect! topper in shade 04 Mystic Mermaid (silver glitters)
• Essence Bronzing Compact Powder Matt in shade 02 Love to be matt
• Essence Silky Touch Blush in shade 30 Secret it girl (peach)
• Essence Eyeshadow in shade 25 Go All Girlie Shimmer Effect (pink)
• Essence XXXL Shine Lipgloss in shade 04 Rising Star (pink)

From the nail polishes I only tried the first which is the minty one and I must say that it really surprised me as the quality looks very good. It has a nice consistency which makes it easy to apply. It dries quickly and it has a nice finish. But most importantly it lasted one entire week which seems a lot to me. I will tell you more about the other 2 nail polish in my nail of the week posts. These 2 nail polish costed me only 99 cents each as the were on sale. You can view my nail of the week post for the minty nail polish here http://alessiapearl.blogspot.com/2011/09/summer-nail-of-week-7.html.

The bronzing powder was really cheap as it only costed 3.49 euros and it is not that small (10g). The colour is not the best for my skin as it looks a little too dark and too brown. However, it looks fine if I apply just a little. It is very pigmented as all the other Essence powder products I bought. It is matte which is better for a bronzer as you want to sculpt your face by shaping your cheekbones and temples and not illuminate them.

The blush is a pink with a peachy undertone. I have been wanting a peachy blush for a long time and I am glad I have this now until I can find the ideal peach for my skintone. It is also very pigmented so I only apply a little because it can me look funny otherwise. I like the combination of this blush with the essence bronzing powder especially for summer. In fact, it is very shimmery and it reflect golden light because it has some gold glitters in it. The price of the blush was 2.49 euros.

The eyeshadow is a nice light pink which is also very shimmery. So it is great to illuminate the eyes by using it on the entire lid or just in the inner corner. I used this together with a darker pink in the crease to achieve a soft pink makeup look and I also used it with a very light brown in the crease to create a romantic fall makeup look. This was a bargain because it was on sale for only 99 cents of a euro.

The lipgloss is light but very glossy and shimmery. It almost has a lilac undertone. I would advice you to apply it lightly in the morning not to look to shimmery. I really needed a light pink lipgloss so I was very happy to get this for only 2.29 euros.

All this makeup was bought from Coin.

Hope you found this post interesting and helpful.

AlessiaPearl.