Essence Limited Edition Circus Circus Collection & Product Reviews.

Hi lovelies!

Those of you who follow me on Instagram and Twitter know how excited I was ten days ago when I popped into my local Priceline store and found they had just put out the Essence Circus Collection! Now, this collection was actually put out in December 2011/January 2012 in Europe, but it took a whole year to get to our Australian shores (but never mind, let's just be glad it got here in the first place).

I immediately sent images winging out into the webosphere (and if that's not a proper word, it should be) and that immediately started a flurry of messages and photos winging back and forth over the next few days as people went dashing to their nearest Priceline stores, excitedly sharing swatches and things they'd bought!

Now, as much as I love Essence, I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with their limited edition collections, they tend to sell out really quickly (and not restocked), and because the products are not sealed properly, people have often put grubby little paws into brand new products, so when you go in to buy something, you often find that it's been tampered with and put back on the shelves.

You can therefore imagine my excitement when I went in and realised I was actually one of the first few people (if not the first ever), to be greeted with this gorgeously displayed array of products!

The collection encompasses the following items:

- Stay All Day Shadows in It's Magic (gold), Raise The Curtain For (greenish taupe) and My Sparkling Acrobat (graphite). RRP $5.50
- Liquid Eyeliners in It's Magic (gold) and My Sparkling Acrobat (graphite). RRP $4.50
- Circus Circus EDT perfume spray. RRP $9.50
- Nail stickers in Come In, One and All and Big Top. (can't recall pricing, sorry)
- Lip lacquers (liquid lipstick) in Applause,Applause (pinkish red) and My Glammy Acrobat (fuchsia)
- It's Magic lip topper (gold lip gloss). RRP $3.95
- It's Magic highlighter powder (warm gold) RRP $5.95
- 3 dual ended polishes in My Sparkling Acrobat (black/gold glitter), Applause Applause (red/red glitter) and Cotton Candy (pink/pink glitter). (can't recall pricing, sorry)

Now, I managed to resist the polishes, despite being very tempted, because I've got some similar ones at home. There was one called Don't Feed The Tiger that was released overseas, a stunning gold polish and black/gold glitter combination, which I would have snapped up in a second, but it doesn't seem to be on sale here! Luckily for all of you, one of my beautiful blogger friends, Vita from Making Up For My Age, did, and she was kind enough to let me use her swatches here (don't forget to check out her blog, she has some ah-may-zing polish posts)!

Applause Applause
(image courtesy of Vita from Making Up For My Age)

My Sparkling Acrobat 
(image courtesy of Vita from Making Up For My Age)

Cotton Candy
(image courtesy of Vita from Making Up For My Age)

What I did pick up was the gold liquid liner and fuchsia gloss.

L-R: highlighting powder, gold eyeliner, fuchsia gloss and cream shadow.

The liquid liner is really opaque and the brush is very easy to work with, so I can't wait to try and recreate the 'freckled' look from Illamasqua's Í'mPerfect campaign with it.

The fuchsia gloss is also really pretty and surprisingly opaque, it really is a liquid lipstick instead of a gloss. It's also a lot darker on the lips than it is in the tube!

I then went back a couple of days later and picked up the taupe cream shadow (I love the stay all day shadows as they never crease on me, even without a primer), but it's just a shame that the little pot is a little tricky to work with and not as sanitary as a tube! Aside from that, though, the colour is incredibly gorgeous and the formula is very easy to work with, I've already used it about four times as a basic shadow when I'm running low on time! I think this will work well on most skintones, both cool and warm.

The final product I picked up was the gold highlighter powder, this looks really wonderful on my warm toned skin. It's also not too glittery, but instead, gives me a nice glow!

In the shade.

In direct daylight.

This limited edition has to be my favourite so far from all the collections that Essence has released. I love how unique everything is, and how pretty the packaging is! If you're keen to pick up some of the item

What did you think of the collection, lovelies? Do you think you'll be running out there to pick a couple of items up, or have you already?

Much love,
MM.
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