essence

These Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadows Could Teach a Class in Perseverance, But Could Use Some Help Blending In

July 6th, 2012 by Karen 15 Comments

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow

“Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Be on the lookout for cheap makeup thrills. Repeat, cheap makeup thrills.

“Suspect was last seen shimmering on eyelids for $2.99. I repeat, $2.99. Over.”

With the Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadows, shimmery, long-lasting color is just 299 pennies away.

These pigmented cream shadows are great for quick washes of shimmery color, and they cling like crazy to my skin. On my combination dry/oily lids, I get from 7-8 hours with primer and 5-6 without.

Not bad for $2.99, but I think they’d be even better if it weren’t for a few things…

The texture

Seems a little hit or miss. Of the four shades I’ve tried, 09 For Fairies feels the best — almost like a mousse. It’s soft and fluffy and just glides across my lids.

The other three shades, however, 01 Coppy Right (great name!), 02 Glammy Goes To, and 07 JM-ME Blue, feel denser and drier to me, which makes them a tad tougher to blend and apply.

Blending

I’d hoped to be able to easily blend a few of these colors together in the same looks, but they have a tense relationship… The colors don’t transition well, or at least easily, into each other.

If all I’m doing is softening the edges of a single shade on my lids, no problem — the blending goes a little better — but they’re still not as easy to blend as a MAC Paint Pot or Benefit Creaseless Cream (although they’re an awful lot less expensive).

Layering

Tricky! Apply a milligram too much, and these begin to appear heavy and caked, and almost too metallic. For me with these, one thin, single layer works best.

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow
From the left: 02 Glammy Goes To, 09 For Fairies, 01 Coppy Right and 07 JM-ME Blue

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow swatches
From the left: 01 Coppy Right, 02 Glammy Goes To, 07 JM-ME Blue and 09 For Fairies

essence stay all day long lasting eyeshadow
Wearing 01 Coppy Right
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Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadow

July 5th, 2012 by Karen 9 Comments

Essence Stay All Day Long Lasting Eyeshadows, $2.99 each. Available now at drugstores, Ulta and online at ulta.com.

Wallets and Pockets Won’t Protest These Two New Essence Mini Lipgloss Sets

August 1st, 2011 by Karen 50 Comments

essence mini lipgloss set

When you find a man who’ll carry your lipgloss for you in his pocket without protest, you best hold on to that boy! I’m dead serious.

Most of the dudes I dated before El Hub were pretty rigid about what they’d put in their pockets. Keys went here, wallet and phone went there — there was a system at work, and they didn’t like it when things disrupted the system.

The keepers, though, won’t mind holding your gloss for you, even if it messes up their routine.

Which brings me to these two new Essence Mini Lipgloss Sets ($2.99 each). I wouldn’t be surprised if the peeps at Essence had male/female pocket politics in mind when they dreamed up these tiny tubes of sheer, long-wearing lipgloss. Dudes might even appreciate how streamlined (and pocket friendly) they are.

Essence makes what I feel are some of the best drugstore lipglosses out there today (have you tried their Stay With Me Lipglosses? Fantastic!), and these non-sticky newcomers are right up there with the best of ’em in terms of value and quality.

Don’t let their diminutive stature deceive you. These tiny tubes are towering titans of hydrating, durable gloss. The six micro-glosses that come in the Devil’s Love & Kisses and Angel’s Kisses in Heaven Sets (three tubes per set) even last me through a meal.

essence mini lipgloss set boxes
Devil’s Love & Kisses Set on the left and Angel’s Kisses in Heaven Set on the right

essence mini lipgloss set boxes open
Devil’s Love & Kisses Set on the left and Angel’s Kisses in Heaven Set on the right
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Dear Essence Quattro Eyeshadow: I’ve Got Nothing But XOXO’s for You

July 28th, 2011 by Karen 25 Comments

The Essence Quattro Eyeshadow palette in XOXO reminds me of Mariah Carey’s performance in Precious.

Why? Because it’s also shockingly good.

Let’s be honest — after Glitter, for which Mimi won a Razzie Award for Worst Actress despite basically playing herself in the film, I didn’t really expect much from her return to the big screen, but as a die-hard fan (I still have the Vision of Love single floating around here somewhere…on tape), I had to give her a second chance.

Yes, that IS Padma from Top Chef.

And I’m very glad I did. 🙂

I thought Mimi’s performance as a social worker in Precious, like the $2.99 Essence Quattro Eyeshadow palette in XOXO I tried today, was actually, well, pretty darn good!

Where Mariah nailed nuanced emotion, Essence nailed long-wearing eyeshadow, and both of them deserve a round of applause.

My track record with Essence’s other eyeshadows hasn’t always been great. I find many of their singles to be quite pretty, but I’ve experienced mediocre wear time and some fallout from them beneath my eyes.

The colors in the XOXO quad, however, seem to be cut from a different (and better) cloth.
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Someone at Essence Deserves a Raise for These $2.49 Essence Lipsticks

July 24th, 2011 by Karen 29 Comments

essence lipstick kiss you

The Loch Ness Monster and Bigfoot are questionable, but the monster who steals socks from the dryer? — totally real. And he has a side job stealing lipsticks from legal assistants who ride the bus to work. For serious!

Back when I worked in one of San Francisco’s cubicle jungles, I used to ride the 38AX Geary Express to work, and on more than one occasion, somewhere between the time I’d step out of my apartment and sit down at my desk at work, I’d lose at least one tube of lipstick.

It was the weirdest thing! — like I was being targeted by a makeup pickpocket.

But now I know the truth: monster. 🙂

The silver lining to being the frequent victim of a makeup monster was that it gave me an excuse to go to one of the four Walgreens stores near work to get a tube of “emergency lipstick.”

I wish these Essence Lipsticks had been around back then because, GURL, they’re kind of amazing (and only $2.49 each)!

These cuties come in 10 colors, some with matte and some with shimmer finishes. Each one comes in a tube the same color as the lipstick inside, which actually really helps locate a particular color. The packaging feels pretty sturdy, too, which is a nice change of pace from the flimsy lipstick packaging that many budget lines use.

Right now I’m stuck on Kiss You, a shimmery cool pink with silver glitter. The consistency’s thin, and wear time is only about three hours, but that’s fairly typical of a lipstick that isn’t billed as long wearing.

Kiss You has a lightweight, smooth, slick texture that feels wonderful on my lips, and based on the reviews on ulta.com, the other colors should, too. I don’t mind the faint vanilla flavor and scent, but for the record, both of them fade fast.

Kiss You also layers well, so it’s easy to take from sheer up to opaque coverage, but no matter how many layers I wear, it doesn’t dry out my lips.

Oh, and have I mentioned that these are just $2.49 each?

$2.49!

essence lipstick kiss you
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Essence Multi-Colour Blush Is Wearing Stripes To the Party But Can’t Stay for Long

July 6th, 2011 by Karen 45 Comments

If something has stripes, I’m usually totally into it…

But when it comes to these $2.49 Essence Multi-Colour Blushes, well, let’s just say that their cute stripes and great price are just about the best things they have going for ’em.

I give the two available shades, pale pink Fashionista and pale peach How Cute Is That, major points for looking cute on a budget, but their knees buckle beside the performance of rock stars from the Essence line, like the fantastic Gel Eyeliners.

Fashionista (left) and How Cute Is That (right)

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For the Price, These $3.49 Essence Gel Eyeliners Have MAC Fluidline Whipped

July 5th, 2011 by Karen 86 Comments

essence gel eyeliner

Essence continues to rock me like a hurricane (and take the drugstore makeup world by storm). What fab, little steals these pigmented, long-wearing Gel Eyeliners are! They come in three shades — matte black Midnight in Paris, shimmery taupe London Baby and shimmery purple Berlin Rocks — and cost a mere $3.49 each.

The fluffy texture of this shoestring wedding of whipped mousse and $15 MAC Fluidline doesn’t hold these back at all. In fact, with the Sonia Kashuk bent brush, I find them surprisingly easy to apply, and since they’re also quick drying — like, in less than a minute — I finish lining with them in less time than it takes to say, “Ben McKenzie is hot!”

Well, ya know. 🙂

And even without the help of my trusty NARS Pro Prime Smudge Eyeshadow Base, they stay put all day long without creasing or fading.

essence gel eyeliner

essence gel eyeliner
Midnight in Paris on the left; London Baby on the right
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I Really Want to Care for These $1.99 Essence Caring Lip Balms (Really, I Do)

July 2nd, 2011 by Karen 17 Comments

I really wanted to be Loving, Laughing, Hoping and Dreaming about the four $1.99 Essence Caring Lip Balms, because they have so much promise to be cool.

Four of them for less than $8? Incredible! Just look at them in their adorable duds.

Each of them has a different color and scent, and the two I tried — Loving, a clear vanilla-scented balm with subtle glitter; and Dreaming, a sheer peach that smells faintly of fruit punch — feel soft, non-sticky and smooth.

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