Essence Limited Edition Dark Romance Collection and Product Reviews (plus details on an Instagram giveaway)!

Hi lovelies!

Another day, another gorgeous limited edition collection from our favourite budget brand...Essence Cosmetics! The Dark Romance Collection is exclusive to Priceline, and truth be told, I wanted it even sight unseen purely because of the name! Fortunately, I managed to fall in love with most of the products just based on how beautiful they were, and purchase my pick of the lot. It was really exciting to see the whole collection available, as the limited edition collections sell out so quickly, but disappointing to see that the store had only received a couple of each item, which explains why the collections sell out so quickly! They did say they'd be receiving new stock in again soon, so do check back often if you missed out on the first batch.

(Taken from the Essence Australia website)

Anyhow, without further ado, let me introduce you to a few items from the Dark Romance Collection. I actually purchased these before they had been set up on the display stand, so I don't have any photos of the stand. I also didn't purchase all the items available from the collection; there are two different eyeliners, three other polish shades, another eyeshadow quad, body tattoos and a different blush available in addition to the products I'm about to show you.

I purchased the cream highlighter in Light Up! ($5.35), nail art decoration kit ($4.50), lipsticks in Red Romance and Painted Love ($3.50 each), lipglosses in Light Up! and Black Shadow ($3.50 each), polish in Dark Night Starlight ($3.25), velvet mousse blush in Red Romance ($4.50) and eyeshadow quad in Mystery Glam ($5.35).

Items purchased from the Essence Dark Romance Collection.

Keep reading after the jump!

I haven't tried the nail art kit yet but I did swatch the 'sparkling' finish polish in Dark Night Starlight, and was quite pleased with the result. It's almost a one coater (but out of habit, I always use two), and applies as a dark purple polish with blue tones. Removal was also really easy with this, stay tuned for a NOTD post to follow shortly.

Nail art kit and polish in Dark Night Starlight.

The lipsticks were love at first swipe! They apply quite sheer and balmy with the first swipe, but it's really easy to build up for more pigmentation. Painted Love is a deep berry that's perfect for the cold weather we're having, while Red Romance is a bright cherry red that tends towards coral in some lighting. Both feel amazing on the lips and are incredibly comfortable to wear.

 L-R: Lipsticks in Painted Love and Red Romance.

Now, I'm not usually a gloss girl, but as soon as I laid eyes on the two glosses in this collection, I knew I had to have them!

These are iridescent glosses which smell a little fruity (like rockmelon, as a matter of fact), and are meant to be applied on top of lipsticks. Think of these as the lip equivalent of holographic polishes! They have tiny microglitter particles which give ridiculous shine on lips (but without the gritty feel), so if you like shine, these are a must for you! Both glosses are non-sticky and application is very simple with the 'hourglass' shaped applicator included.

Lipsticks in Painted Love and Red Romance, lipglosses in Black Shadow and Light Up!.

The cream highlighter is soft and glides easily over cheeks for the perfect glow. A heavy swatch results in an iridescent pink, but it softens and becomes less noticeable when blended out.

Clockwise L-R: Eyeshadow quad in Mystery Glam, cream highlighter in Light Up! and velvet mousse blush in Red Romance.

Swatches of the lipsticks, lip glosses and cream highlighter are included below.

Swatches, L-R: Lipsticks in Painted Love and Red Romance, lipglosses in Black Shadow and Light Up!, and cream highlighter in Light Up!.

In case you were wondering where the swatches for the eyeshadow quad and cream blush were, I decided to save them for my first Instagram giveaway - and trust me, it was especially hard to resist keeping the shadow quad for myself! I also purchased duplicates of the Light Up! gloss and Painted Love lipstick (the ones swatched above are my own), so there'll be four items from the limited edition Dark Romance collection up for grabs, everything you need for a new winter look! All items are brand new and untouched. As is typical with Essence products, none of the products were sold sealed, so after some deliberation, I decided to take photos of the shadow quad and cream blush open after posting a sneak preview and receiving some reader requests to see the shades, but I obviously haven't touched them in any other way.

All you have to do to enter this giveaway is pop over to Instagram and follow the prompts. Too easy!

EDIT: This giveaway is now CLOSED.

If you don't have Instagram, don't fret, I will have a new giveaway up soon just for you!

What do you think of this collection, lovelies? Were you as drawn to it as I was?

Much love,
MM.
x