Rainy Day Swatches: Essence Metal Glam Trend Edition

Brisbane’s awful weather has really upset my plans for clear photos, so instead of my very exciting post about a high end dupe, we have some swatches of Essence’s latest trend edition, Metal Glam.

I was very excited to getting my paws on this collection as it features both a liquid blush and a highlighter!

Source: http://www.essence.eu/au/trend-editions/metal-glam/

As you can see, this trend edition also features nailpolishes $2.95 (including one glitter topper $3.50 ), lipgloss $3.50, some stick on beauty accessories and nail stickers/polishes $3.50 and new metal glam eyeshadows $4.25.

Miss K grabbed the nailpolishes, but I had eyes only for that blush ($4.95) and the highlighter ($5.35)

Our little haul!

Here we have the blush in shade Glam-me in artificial light, it comes off as a peachy/coral tone with quite a bit of shimmer. I think pairing this with a dewy look would be a bad idea, as i could give the appearance of oily skin. Its a gorgeous colour on my pale skin, and would give a nice flush of shimmer to darker skintones

The highlighter in Gold-Digger is just as gorgeous, the powder is finely milled and applies like a dream. Like any highlighter with heavy shimmer, you need to be careful with application, but for the price, I can definitely recommend this one.

Last but not least, the nailpolishes. These suprised me, as you can see in my swtches below, the glitter topper looks very green toned, but when applied over a base colour, it turns true gold. I am currently wearing the bronze colour:Steel-ing the Scene, and am happy to report that it is opaque in one coat. The brush size on these is excellent and I had no application issues.

L-R Steel-ing the Scene, Steel-ing the Scene (Yep, they have the same name) and Gold Digger

Add in one dodgy mani for effect

 

Overall, I am very happy with my purchases. Metal Glam is Priceline exclusive and limited edition, so get them while you can!
Let me know if you’ve purchased these and loved or hated them

-Miss A

 

 

Swatches from Essence “Tribal Summer” Trend Edition

Finally, after stalking two separate Targets for what feels like forever, I found an untouched display of the new Essence “Tribal Summer” trend edition. (In the Indooroopilly Target, I have also spotted it in the Brisbane CBD Target)

Essence has only really come on to my radar in the last year or so, and while I love their inexpensive products, the lack of attention that many stores put in their displays annoys me (though, unkempt makeup displays annoy me in general). Also, their lack of tamper proof packaging means that unlike a lot of the “drugstore” products you can get here, there is a serious risk of contamination of these products.

I grabbed the liquid blush, the two lipsticks, and one of the nail polishes (though I may go back for more, the $2.75 price point is irresistible)

First up the blush, in the shade Waka Waka ($4.25) is not exactly what I would call a “Liquid” as you can see in the photo below, it has more of a gel type consistency. Once blended, it gives a lovely pink flush to the skin- I’m looking forward to experimenting with this, as I usually shy away from non powder blushes.

I grabbed the polish in Inti Inka ($2.75) as Miss K has a mild *cough* serious *cough* infatuation with the colour yellow, so I was being a nice housemate and grabbed it to add to our polish stash. Its a lovely shade of yellow (The essence website describes it as gold..uh no), bright without being fluorescent and is mostly opaque in two coats.

 

The lipsticks in the shades 1 Na Rock and 2 Waka Waka ($4.10) were my main target for this hunt, after seeing them online, I just needed them. I wasn’t disappointed; the shades are gorgeous, and the pigmentation is great;it could be a little heavier, but with their glossy finish it looks fine. I haven’t done a proper wear time test of these yet, but I expect I will only get probably 4 or so hours before another application is needed. In my preliminary wear test of Waka Waka it held up quite well, and even after drinking out of a water-bottle, the colour was still good and the wear was minimal; after 2 hours I needed to touch up the inner areas of my mouth (caused by eating and drinking)

Na-rock
Natural light, light application (2 coats max)

Waka Waka
Natural light, light application (2 coats max)

The things available that I didn’t grab were; Feather hair extensions (not for me, $4.25), tip painters (at $5.35 for a pack of 3 in pretty average colours, I passed), bronzer (looked lovely, but I hardly use bronzer already, $5.35 ), the other nail polishes ($2.75), blotting papers ($3.50), and finally, the loose pigments ($4.25).

I thought about grabbing the pigments before walking away, but decided that I really needed to work on my brush technique before grabbing something like that. I imagine they are going to fly off the shelves along with the rest of the collection, so If you see something you were thinking about getting, don’t hesitate! (Another essence pet peeve, lack of trend edition stock. Me and My Icecream anyone? )

Good luck finding it if you’re after it (If you see Metal Glam, let me know!!)
-Miss A