First impressions: ESSENCE - The Glow Must Go On palette

Hello! Do you like Essence cosmetics as much as I do? Do you love their limited editions as well? Because if you do, this post is perfect for you! Today I will be talking about my first impressions using one of the palettes from the Beauty Bloggers Secrets limited edition. There are four available and the one that attracted me the most is called The Glow Must Go On, a bronzing and highlighting palette! If you want to know if it impressed me or not, read on!

The entire collection presents four different palettes as well as four different nail polishes and a bag. I only bought the palette, without the nail polish. Four different bloggers collaborated with Essence and created with them four different palettes. The Glow Must Go On palette was created in collaboration with Serena from Beautylab.nl! You can check out her blog post about the palette here!

This was  love at first sight! I was really impressed with the design, the colour selection, the little mirror on the inside and the whole oriental vibe! The packaging is simple cardboard box, but it's light and sturdy at the same time, plus includes magnetic closure. It's easy to transport and small enough to fit into any make up bag. The release of this palette is perfectly timed with the beginning of summer season!

The palette will help you add some glow to your tan or just warm up your face before you get out into the sun. The palette includes one highlighter, two eyeshadows and three bronzers in the middle. It also includes a small mirror and a small brush to help you apply the products.  It basically includes almost everything you could ever want in one palette and to me it seems like a perfect "getaway" palette for holidays!  You can also use the glowing highlighter or bronzers on your eyes, to add them some more shine.

The bronzing block in the middle consists of three shades that can be mixed together or applied separately. There are other similar bronzers, like for example by Sleek, but none of them are available at such a price plus include some extra products to cover your whole look.

The little brush is useful for let's say touch ups or applying the highlighter. Otherwise it's too big and flat to use on your eyes and too small to use on your face. Personally, I prefer to use it for touch ups only. 

The two eyeshadows included are cinnamon eyeshadow, in a strong burnt tree orange shade and sandalwood eyeshadow,  a medium dark brown eyeshadow. I must say I was drawn to the sandalwood shade as it's really chocolaty and seems very rich. As it turned out the cinnamon shade is very much a brick orange, but doesn't apply as well as the darker shade. It's more dusty, the pigmentation isn't the best but can be built up a bit. It really didn't impress me as much as the sandalwood shade, which I was able to wear on my lids, in my crease or apply it with a wet brush as an eyeliner. Both shades are matte and can also be used as bronzers if you feel like mixing things up a bit. The cinnamon shade has been mostly used as a transition shade or in the inner corners, as I don't like how orange it looks on my eyes. 

The honey glow highlighter looks very light and pale in the palette. It includes some silvery shimmer which is very fine but still visible. The glow this gives is a bit more on the frosty side but with golden reflect. I love to use the highlighter as it's very well pigmented and you don't need much to achieve the desired look. The bronzer shades have good pigmentation and are very glowy. They feel silky smooth and aren't dusty. I like that I don't need much of the product to achieve a warm look on my face. The bronzers are in pink gold, bronze and copper shade. The finish of the bronzer is super metallic and looks very well on warmer skin tones. Brunettes with yellow undertone will love this! The highlighter and the bronzer shades are all very soft and buildable as well as very blendable. 

Lasting power on my eyes was really good, especially because I used my usual eye shadow primers under, either by Avon or Urban Decay. On my face these products seem to last a decent amount of time, however, the first time I used this it was hot like hell and I melted along with everything on my face, so hot weather and primers and Urban Decay Allnighter didn't help much. On usual days, this performs well, again with the help of a good primer, foundation and setting spray, this lasted me about 5 hours before I noticed any changes.

Top to bottom - pink gold, bronze, copper bronzer

From left to right: highlighter, cinnamon, sandalwood

Personally I love everything about the palette and I am not big on highlighters and bronzers at all. I feel like this will be my favourite go to product this summer as it offers  some lovely combinations and glowy looks for evening cocktails or saturday parties. The design got my attention and the price convinced me into purchasing this palette (about 5 euros), but the shades and the usefulness of the palette really impressed me. All I can say is great job Essence & Serena! I hope there will be more collabs like these in the future! 

Hope this review was helpful to you! If you do decide to try these palettes, let me know how they fared with you!

Thanks for reading!

Love, UniqaPoly