Essence Circus Circus Collection

In late December I bought a cream eyeshadow from Essence's Limited Edition Circus Circus Collection. I was really impressed with the one I purchased 01 It's Magic, a gorgeous shimmery gold shade. I have been using this all over my lid with a dark brown in the crease (beautiful!). I found with this eyeshadow that it's best to wear a primer underneath I've been using my Urban Decay Primer Potion. Recently I went back to have a peek at the other products available in this collection. In the bigger stores alot of the stock was gone, so this must of been very popular. My local pharmacy had a a quite a bit left after browsing for a while, I left with these Circus Circus products.

Circus Circus Highlighter Powder in 01 It's Magic

This is one of the products from the collection I didn't see in bigger stores. How cute is it? No wonder it sold out fast. I love how everything in this collection is circus related, like look at the big top. You may be able to see that the powder in my compact is slightly lopsided. That's because all the highlighting powders in my pharmacy were broken. I was surprised the powder wasn't completely shattered. The lovely sales assistant glued the metal pan back into the compact for me (What good customer service!). I don't have too many highlighter powders in my makeup collection. At €3.49 for this I couldn't really go wrong.

Circus Circus Cream Eyeshadow in 02 Raise The Curtain For... & 03 My Sparkling Acrobat

Having loved It's Magic, I had high hopes for both of these cream eyeshadows. Raise The Curtain For... is a lovely shimmery taupe shade which I like. I haven't been using it much as it's more of a going out shade in my opinion. This cream eyeshadow is up there with my prior Circus Circus cream shadow purchase. I wish I could be as happy about My Sparkling Acrobat but being quite frank I don't like it. It just doesn't seem to sit on my lid as well as the other two cream eyeshadows in this collection. The colour in the pot is also different to that on the skin. Maybe My Sparkling Acrobat will grow on me but at the moment not l'm not loving it.

Essence Circus Circus Eau De Toilette
Before I smelt the tester in store I wasn't expecting anything special from this fragrance. After smelling it though I instantly fell in love. I was so disappointed when I seen there was none left on the stand. When I was at the till, a sales assistant kindly informed me that one was put on hold and the person never came back. She asked me "Did I want it?" Of course I didn't say no.  This fragrance has a light sweet scent that I like alot. Saying that it wouldn't be a fragrance I'd use everyday and the scent may not appeal to most people. I'd recommend going into a shop to have a sniff  before you buy it. The packaging stays with the circus theme and looks so pretty. The bottle is a generous 50ml size and comes with a spritzer which will look so cute on my dresser. Not a perfume I'd carry around in my bag on a regular basis, knowing my luck the bottle would more than likely break on me. Now for the price, this Eau De Toilette cost me €7.49. Yes you have to love Essence!

I can't tell you how much I love this brand. Everything is such a bargain and sometimes I find their products better than some high end brands out there. I'd highly recommend checking out their full range of products. The Circus Circus Collection was Limited Edition and was launched in December. I've still seen some of the products still in stores so catch them while you can.

Have you tried any products from the Circus Circus Collection?

Laura<3

More Sale Bits and My Online Purchases!

After finally making it into the Lush Sale on Saturday, I was surprised to see how much of their sale gift sets were left. All there Christmas stock was half price which was really good. When one of the sales assistants told me it was the last day of the Sale, of course I went a tiny bit mad, who wouldn't. I bought two gift sets that I thought were amazing value.

For the price this set contains so many great products. I've never tried Candy Cane and Vanilla Dee-Lite. I've heard so many nice things about the latter so I'm looking forward to using it. After smelling it only once I'm already in love with the scent, very yummy! The tin box everything comes in is super cute, I'll definitely find something to store in this. The Lush staff were so helpful as all of the Christmas Delights Tins on the sale floor were damaged. When they seen this they got me one from the stockroom which was so nice.

Wow!! Twelve products in total in Northern Lights. The reason I went for the two above gift sets is because they both contain shower products which is hard to find. I've tried most of the products in Northern Lights previously bar a few. I like how it contains more Snow Fairy Shower Gel, my favourite! I've enough to last me well into this year. Again I love the box all the products come in, going to use it to store all my Lush goodies. Glows in the dark too which is something you don't see often.

My Mom got me the Buche De Noel Cleanser. Let's be honest this product doesn't look very appealing. Is it even supposed to look like this? I can't say I liked the smell either but it has grown on me a little. I've read so many great reviews on Buche De Noel so I'll  let you know what I think!

While I was in town I also popped into Muji as I wanted to get some makeup storage. After getting new shelves put into my room last year, I wanted to get some storage drawers to organise my makeup into.

I got this set of acrylic drawers. As you can see alot fits into them, just what I needed. I previously purchased a two drawer unit with a flip top lid from Muji so this sits under it perfectly.

This open box came with a divider which leaves me with twelve sections for my lip products and other miscellaneous products. I really like this as it's way easier to find what I'm looking for. If you would like to see a full makeup storage post leave a comment below!

My Asos and Beauty Bay orders arrived! I placed both orders before New Years, but with the holiday post I only received them now.

 

From Asos, I got three Nars products. Unfortunately when I received my order, they had sent me the incorrect eyeshadow duo. The Asos Customer Service team couldn't of been more helpful. Within four days I received the correct eyeshadow duo, Silk Road and I couldn't of been happier. I haven't got a chance to play around with these yet but when I have I'll do a review.

From Beautybay.com, I bought the Original Sin Eyeshadow Primer Potion Duo set. You all know how much I love this product it's been included in so many of my past favourites. My current Urban Decay Primer Potion is almost empty, when I seen this on Beautybay.com a few weeks back I thought it was great value. One tube instore would set me back €20, while this set with two cost me €26.50. Bargain!


Congrats if you made it down this far, I wasn't expecting the post to be so long.

Laura <3

Wish I Never Bought It!! #2 Too Faced Shadow Insurance

I haven't done one of these posts in forever but I think this product deserves one. I had such high hopes for the Too Faced Eyeshadow Insurance after hearing so many rave reviews. Unfortunately I was left really disappointed by this product. Back in June I purchased the Look Of Love makeup set which included the eyeshadow primer as part of the set. I bought Urban Decay's Eyeshadow Primer Potion (new packaging) at the same time which I'm a big fan of.

Using eyeshadow primers is a big part of my everyday makeup routine as I have quite oily eyelids. If I don't use a primer, my eyeshadow is going to be gone/badly creased by the end of the day. When I bought Eyeshadow Insurance I thought it was going to give Urban Decay's Primer potion a run for it's money.  Not a chance! I found it's consistency to be a big let down, for some reason it was very watery. The product just sits on my eyelid and takes forever to blend in, which I really don't need if I'm in a hurry. I've only used this a handful of times since I bought it, which shows just how unimpressed I was by the results.

For the price, €19.70 I don't think I'll be purchasing this again. Perhaps it was a part of a bad patch, but I have my doubts. If you were going to buy a eyeshadow primer I'd recommend the Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion. Not only is this my favourite product it's also cheaper (€17.30).

 What's your favourite eyeshadow primer? Did anyone have the same problem with Eyeshadow Insurance?

Laura<3