Essence: Merry Berry -haul & swatches-

As you might have figured by now, I am absolutely, utterly and undeniably obsessed with Christmas. Keeping that in might, you might be able to understand why I fell in love with every single product in the Essence Merry Berry LE the moment I saw it.

Last week the collection appeared in some stores, and I made it my sole life mission to get my hands on it. (Big thanks to my boyfriend, who actually had a whole crusade in Ljubljana, searching for it, but eventually I found the collection on an unplanned shopping trip with my mum).

This time, there was no standing in front of the stand, trying to figure out what to get. Determined to have everything, I only left behind the individual lashes and nail design tape (mainly because I have enough of both already at home). 

It took every bit of strength in me to resist swatching everything the moment I got home, but now I have finally taken pictures of all the products.

The collection should be available through November and the start of December, and here is a little haul and a bit of first impressions to help you decide what to get.

Starting with a beautiful array of festive colored nail polishes, there are four colorful polishes and a top coat in the collection. I only played around with them a bit, but they really impressed me. 

Every single color is really pigmented and smooth, and a single coat is enough to achieve full opacity. They all dry to a lovely high-shine finish and look amazing on the nails. Since I haven’t worn them long enough to form an opinion about their staying power, I’ll have to report about it later.

01 I <3 my golden pumps

It's a gorgeous top coat with small golden leaves and works beautifully over every shade in the collection. This will, without a doubt a must-have staple for me during the festive season. 

01 the masked ball

The darkest shade in the collection is a gorgeous, muted purple with a cream finish. It looks very sleek and classy on the nails and I know I’ll be reaching for it a lot.

04 red rocks

This one (at least in my opinion) doesn’t really stay true to its name, but it is a wonderful pink with a slight red undertone. It will be amazing for the days when you need want something to bright up your day. 

03 pink & perfect 

Again, not really a pink shade, but an absolutely gorgeous bright berry, a shade that I know I will be reaching for not just in festive season, but all year ‘round. 

02 purple with purpose

This one is the only one that has a lot of tiny purple shimmer running through it, and it makes it look so festive and luxurious on the nails. 

Hair Fragrance 01 I love my golden pumps

The concept of a hair fragrance is not that popular in our drugstores and I was happy to see it appear in this Christmas LE. Not expecting too much, I was incredibly excited to realize that the scent is strongly reminiscing of one of my favorite winter perfume –Fantasy by Britney Spears. The fact that the product is packed full of tiny golden shimmer only makes it that much better. 

Scented Gold Dust Powder 01 I love my golden pumps

This lovely golden little bottle is without the doubt one of the main stars of the collection. It look so cute and old-school and will be a gorgeous decoration piece in by beauty collection. Also, it is a perfect piece for adding something extra when getting ready for a Christmas party, because everyone needs a bit of golden sparkle. It is gently scented with nice warming notes of vanilla and makes your skin look all sparkly and festive.

Despite the fact that I always think of red lipstick when it comes to Christmas, I love the color selection of lipsticks that Essence presented for their Christmas collection. 

While the darkest color immediately spiked my interest, the other two were unlike any other color in my collection, and that’s why I got all three. Even though the packaging looks very similar to traditional Essence lipsticks, I really like the colored tubes with a bit of gold detail, very festive and pretty!

03 red rocks

While I don’t find this to be a red, but rather a bright pink with red undertones, I really like the shade

of this lipstick. It’s very opaque, and the texture is very smooth and easy to apply. Even though it looks like a cream finish at first, it late transforms to a pretty semi-matte finish. When the color fades, you are left with a lovely even stain on the lips.

02 pink & perfect

This pretty bright berry also has a lovely texture and a similar finish to the previous one. The stain you are left with looks really pretty on the lips, and I know I will be reaching for it a lot.

01 let’s the berry-tales begin

Looking at the shade in the tube, I’d expecti it to be a bit more dark, but this lipstick applies to the lips as a beautiful dark berry color. It is slightly more sheer than the previous two, probably because of the different finish, but can easily be build up to a full opaque look. It looks gorgeous on the lips and will be a staple in my festive makeup stash. While I wish this was made in a matte finish, it looks lovely even with a bit of shine, and can still be blotted with a napkin to get a pretty matte berry stain on the lips.







Highlighter powder 01 i love my golden pumps

Un pièce de résistance of this collection, at least for me, is the incredibly gorgeous highlighting powder. While the packaging is really understated and not at all impressive, I feel like the gorgeous design on the product itself is worthy of a high-end brand. With a golden champagne shade it will perfectly compliment the Christmas shades and light up any makeup look. It is quite sparkly with lots of tiny golden shimmer, but honestly, there can never be too much sparkle in the festive season.





Last, but not least, there are two single eyeshadows available in the collection, and even though I usually reach for palettes over single eyeshadows, these two found a way into my shopping basket.

Packaged in a small little pot and equipped with a lovely design, these seemes like the perfect on-the-go items that would fit perfectly in any makeup bag.



The light shade in 01 the perfect dress is a beautyful shimmery taupe. The shade and pigmentation would be perfect for everyday use, as the no-makeup makeup look. Even though I feel like the Essence collections are always targeted towards younger audience, this shade would be perfect for a bit more mature ladies as well, because the shade brings a lot of light to the eyes and the face.

The darker shade in 02 the masked ball is a lovely muted purple. While the shade is a bit more powdery than the light shade, it works as a nice crease shade. With a bit of a primer, it would be the perfect shade to create a smokey eye look.





Overall, the collection has me widely impressed. Being used to the LE where not all the items excell in the formulation departement, I'd say that Essence have outdone themselves on this one!

Are you planning on getting anything from this collection?

Thanks for reading and see you in my next post!

Rawr,

your Beautysaur