Who doesn't love a good spring collection right? Essence is giving us new collections faster than what I can keep up with considering I'm still stuck at home most of the time. However, this one didn't get by that easily.
The Essence Bloom Baby, Bloom! collection looks very cute, spring appropriate and there are some great looking products. I did two rounds with this collection because majority of it is sold out everywhere so it took two trips to the drugstore to get everything I wanted to try.
In the collection, there's an eyeshadow pallete, glosses, highighters, blushlighter and a priming oil and I think I actually got everything. I have the pallete, one shade of the highlighter, the blushlighter, both glosses and the priming oil. I, once again, have a little trouble with the prices because I cannot remember them but everything was quite affordable and the most expensive was the pallete which was 209 Crowns. The packaging of this collection is very nice and the quaity of it feels a lot better compared to some of the previous collections.
Healthy Glow Primer Oil
I never really use oils in general because they're a little too heavy on my skin when it comes to skincare. This however is a primer oil so I assume that the texture should be lighter and I have problems with more matte foundations sometimes so I hope this oil could help me with those.
This oil has rice oil and vitamin E in it and you get 30ml. It comes in a bottle with a dropper and it smells very nice. I cannot tell what's the smell but it's not overwhelming or lingering. On the skin the oil feels very lightweight and not that oily but we'll see how it works with foundation.
I tried applying a light foundation on top of it and I was surprised because it didn't mess up the formula. I looked more dewy than usual for sure, but after a couple minutes my skin soaked up the oil and my complexion looked very smooth and glowy. I'm not sure about longevity of this product since I don't really have good opportunity to fully test it out but I like it so far.
Blushlighter
Essence has been making blushlighters like crazy nowadays and I honestly really like the gradient one which has a matte blush on one side which is transitioning into a highlighter. It's one of my favorite blushes for more natural days. This one looks a little more intense than these though. On the back, it says that this one is a metallic blushlighter in the shade 01 I Lilac You!. It's a purple-mauve toned shade which already looks very metallic in the pan but you cannot see any glitter at all.
When you actually apply it, it's way less intense than it looks in the pan. It's subtle pink-mauve-lilac color with a beautiful sheen. It's not very pigmented so you can build it up very well and it doesn't look crazy. I applied quite a couple layers of it in the try-on video and it still looked nice and didn't go patchy or too shiny. The effect this makes on the skin is very nice, I kinda wish they made a more peachy-pink shade.
Baked Highlighter
I have a weak spot for highighters and this one looks so pretty. It's a baked formula which is shaped like a rose, which is extremly cute. There were two shades but the first shade looked way too dark for me, but it was a very interesting taupe-bronzy glittery shade. I got the shade 02 Rose & Shine which is very pink-toned. The formula is very smooth and feels creamy but on the skin it's quite glittery.
The glitters don't fall off or make a mess. It's more of a uniform glitter formula where it applied very intense (like packed glitter would) but it doesn't look chunky on the skin. It's very hard to describe, hopefully you'll see it in the video. It's very pink and very beaming and beautiful, so if you're into subtle glow this one is not for you. But I really like the effect and it's probably the best pink highlighter I own right now.
Nectar Lipgloss
I was a little disappointed because I really thought these are going to be lip oils. However, after I tried them I wasn't disappointed anymore. These glosses come in two shades, I got both 01 Hibis-kiss and 02 Tulips On My Lips. They have vitamin E and jojoba oil and the packaging is just stunning. I love both of those shades. They are not very pigmented, they are very glossy and sheer and look super wet on the lips. They are very nourishing and a little bit sticky, because it's a thicker formula. However, it's not uncomfortable and if you apply them well and don't goop them on too much, they work perfectly fine. They smell very nice and they have a big but slim applicator, so they're very easy to apply. I think these are my favorite product from the whole collection.
Eyeshadow Pallete
I don't really gravitate towards eyeshadow palletes that much these days because I just cannot get enough use of the ones I already have. But this one looked very nice and Essence keeps improving their eyeshadow formula. According to the packaging, it has matte, metallic and glittery formula in it and the packaging feels very nice. It has 9 shades, I love the colorstory and you get 4 true mattes, 2 shimmery mattes, 2 metallics and one pressed glitter. Sometimes I cannot tell with Essence shadow if the shade is supposed to be matte or not. But some of these aren't quite matte but aren't shimmery enough to be a metallic. It's complicated.
I am usually a fan of the pressed glitters, because they are very beautiful just a little tricky to work with. There's a nice mixture of cool and warm tones in this pallete and the shimmer in the bottom middle is just STUNNING. I think the pallete was worth it just because of that shade honestly. To the touch they feel very smooth and soft but I'm a little worried about the pale mattes.
My worries were correct and the three lightest shades pretty much don't show up on me at all. I had problems with the Essence shadow pigmentation before but sometimes you're just not pale enough to pull off shades like this. They can be used for blending out the other shades though and they work fine for that. The other shades work perfectly fine, in the video I used all the shades in the pallete and honestly they work very well. I can see an improvement from the last pallete I purchased from Essence for sure. I was especially surprised by the teal-blue shade which applied very well and was very pigmented and even upon application.
Demo
I recorded a little video playing with this whole collection, so you can see the products in action. I used all the mentioned products and added some more affordable products to make is a full face.
I created two eyelooks and used every single shade from the pallete so you can see how they perform. The shimmers were really nice and applied very well with a brush, however the very pale mattes aren't really showing up at all I think. I still used them to blend out certain shades but overall, they are a little bit wasteful in my opinion and there could've been more shades with better payoff. I really like the shimmers and even the pressed glitter is really pretty. I like that it's multi-colored so you can really pair it with many different looks.
Overall, I don't think I hated anything from what I've tried. I am not used to using oils under my foundation so that was new, but this oil is really not heavy and once you let it sink in a little bit, it feels very nice on the skin and it didn't feel slippery at all. I was a lot more glowy though so keep that in mind that your foundation will probably look very dewy.
The blushlighter is more subtle than it looks, it gives your cheeks a nice glow and flush of color at the same time. I don't think I'll reach for it very often but it's nice for a very glowy look. Same thing with the highlighter, I won't probably use it all the time but the formula is on point. It's a baked highlighter and not only is it beautiful in the pan but it's also stunning on the cheeks. It's very intense and also pretty glittery and it gives incredible pink shift. I am into a good pink duochrome highlighter sometimes and this one is really nice.
I like the glosses as I already stated but they are a little more on the sticky side. That also has an advantage because they last a very long time on the lips and it's hard to take them off. But if you're like me and you like to bathe your lips in nourishment all day, this will be a great gloss for you.
Final thoughts
If you feel like picking up anything from the collection, I would say go for it. The eyeshadow pallete could be a bit better in my opinion just because the lightest shades don't show up well on my skintone. The glosses are amazing, just bare in mind that they're quite sticky and very wet looking. The blushlighter and highlighter are kind of standard. They are very nice in quality and in formula so if they speak to you, sure I would recommend. The oil is great in my opinion because there are not many oil primers in the drugstore and in stores in general. So if you have very dry skin, this could be your new favorite primer because it really makes you skin feel amazing.
Overall, I really enjoyed testing this whole collection, filming the demo video and just playing around with some new makeup. Thank you for reading and let me know if you picked up anything from this collection and if you like it.