Essence Ice Ice Baby and Kalinka Beauty

The Essence Ice Ice Baby and Kalinka Beauty collections are in stores over here now. Ice Ice Baby sounded promising with iridescent and holographic shades but the eyeshadows didn't seem that special when swatched. I did pick up the Shimmer Powder with the snowflake design, a shimmery mint nail polish and the cable clip.





The Russian-themed Kalinka Beauty collection includes lip cream duos, hair mascaras, nail polishes and single false lashes.

The only item that caught my eye was the shimmery peach Kalinka Beauty blush in 01 East Side Story.

Essence Metal Glam and Beauty Beats Collections

Two new Essence collections just launched over here in Switzerland. The first is Metal Glam for creating glamorous looks in the run-up to the festive season.

The Metal Glam eyeshadows (in 8 shades) are a new addition to the permanent range. The four shades in this collection are part of the permanent line. When swatched, these were less metallic and rich than I had expected so they did not tempt me at all.

The Gold Topper 01 Steel-ing The Scene is a clear polish containing irregular gold flakes for jazzing up any nail polish.

The collection also includes four nail polishes with a metallic finish.

The Stick On Jewels are basically tattoo stickers.

Stick On Eye Liners in gold and silver.

The cream blush 01 Glam-Me is a pretty peachy highlighter with a soft gleam.

The obligatory Highlighter Powder 01 Gold Digger is described as a "light, almost white-gold highlighting powder with a soft cream texture and subtle shimmer pigments gives your face a fresh and glamorous glow". I purchased this and the cream blush, both of which were just under 5 Swiss francs each.

Lipglosses in 01 Petal To The Metal, 02 Best Dressed and 03 Glam-Me.

The second collection is Beauty Beats, a tie-in with Justin Bieber's Believe tour (*GAG*).

Yet another shimmer powder. This one is 01 Swaaag!.

Lipglosses in 01 Groupie At Heart, 02 Eenie Meenie and 03 I'm Backstage. The pale mint lipgloss 03 I'm Backstage was the only product in this collection that looked remotely interesting.

Paperprint manicure in 6 designs. The collection also includes a paperprint manicure transfer solution.

Blush in 01 Groupie At Heart.

Mono Eyeshadows in 01 Baby, Baby, Ooh!, 02 I'm Backstage and 03 As Long As You Love Me.


Essence will be releasing a Superheroes collection of nail products next in November.

Essence Oktoberfest

Spotted the new Essence Oktoberfest collection at my supermarket earlier this week.

essence mog di – that’s bavarian and means “essence likes you”! our new trend edition “oktoberfest” is all about the largest fair in the world. It’s finally time to dust off your dirndls and lederhosen and present them on the “wiesn”, the site of the ultimate german festival. The cute products in this trend edition ensure that all girls are perfectly equipped: charming designs with hearts, ribbons, pretzels and checkers combined with a range of colours including green, blue, purple, red, greyish brown, soft rosé and nude create a true oktoberfest flair.

The collection includes a couple of accessories like bracelets with a pretzel charm, and a heart-shaped velvet purse. The gingham print compacts are the eyeshadow and lipgloss sets.

Guess it was just a matter of time before Essence did a much more affordable version of Paperself and I have to say these Paper Lashes 01 der berg ruft are rather cute.

There are actually four nail polish shades in this collection but two were already sold out.

Multicolor Blush 01 fesches madl! has a cute design but the matte shades didn't appeal to me.

Nail Art Stickers 01 munich calling

Eyeshadow & Lipgloss Set 01 i mog di! and 02 mogst mi?. These are made in China.


I didn't pick up anything from Oktoberfest but I'm looking forward to seeing the Be Loud and Metal Glam collections.

Essence Me & My Ice Cream

At Manor yesterday, I found the new Essence Me & My Ice Cream collection in charming pastel tones. See the collection details here.

Scream: ice cream! There’s nothing more refreshing than a fruity or creamy ice cream on a hot summer’s day. Essence invites you to make a quick stop at an ice cream cart in july 2013 with the trend edition “me & my ice cream”. Soft sorbet shades like beige, vanilla, apricot, pink, lavender and mint as well as awesome products in a cool retro look will melt your heart. look forward to eyeshadows in soft nuances with a marbled texture, three lip balms with a color twirl, a creamy blush, shimmer pearls with perfectly aligned shades and nail polishes in gorgeous pastel tones.

I couldn't resist hauling pretty much all of the collection except for the nail polishes and lip balms. The Shimmer Pearls 01 I-CY U (CHF5.25, 14g) are a melange of pastel lavender, mint, yellow and peachy pink balls. These are made in Taiwan.

The shimmer is very refined and subtle, similar to Guerlain Meteorites so it won't look like obvious glitter bits on the face.

The baked Eye Shadows in 01 Cone Head, 02 Icylicious and 03 Always in My Mint (CHF4.50) are made in Italy.



The Hand Wipes (CHF2.25, 15 pieces) have a strawberry ice cream fragrance that is very artificially sweet, reminding me of Strawberry Shortcake for some reason.


The Nail Topping Sticker 01 Rainbow Sprinkles (CHF3.50) contains 16 stickers, quite an odd number but perhaps some of the stickers can be split into two if your nails are relatively short.


Cream blush 01 Ice Bomb (CHF4.50)

I also came across the Ticket To Paradise collection that was pretty much wiped out. The three shimmery cream eyeshadows in this looked promising but there was no stock left aside from the much abused testers. See the collection details here and some swatches on Parokeets.

Below is the Guerilla Gardening collection released earlier in May. I snapped these some weeks ago but never got around to posting it. It includes cream blushes, eyeshadows, lipglosses, nail polishes, a tiny fan brush for nails and nail effect powder for creating a velvet finish. See the collection details here.