Essence Cherry Blossom Collection

I saw the Essence Cherry Blossom stand at Priceline on Tuesday and I immediately picked up a few of the items as the stand had just been set up and it looked like no one had touched anything yet. I took a sneaky shot of the stand for you guys ;)

Essence stand after I bought a few things from it :)

A few things from the collection caught my eye but I didn't want to waste money buying the whole collection so I only have a few things to review.... As you can see, the stand only had one tester available and that was just the blush. No wonder the Essence stands are always wrecked as it's so tempting for people to open the new stuff to test!

First up is the blush...

Essence Cherry Blossom Girl Blush

I took photos of the swatches in Priceline...

Under store lighting

In the shadows of the store lighting

The left swatch is what the blush looks like when it's blended together. The middle one is a light pink (right hand side of the blush) and the far right is the orangey-apricot (left hand side of the blush). It's a very sheer blush and I had to layer it on really thickly.

I also picked up the It's Peach Not Cherry Lipstick pencil. This was a really disappointing purchase as I thought that it would be similar to the Clinique chubby sticks or the Revlon Just Bitten Kissable Balm Stains. Instead, it's very chunky and really really soft. It clumps up on my lips and doesn't provide an even colour. I picked up an extra one of these and the Cherry Cherry Girl (red) version of this for a swap that I'm doing but I might just refund them as the quality just isn't there...

I think that the lipstick pencil might improve if I put it in the fridge to harden up as it currently feels like I'm rubbing wax or animal fat on my lips when I use this... Avoid this lipstick pencil like the plague! Did they not test these on people before they released them?!

It's Peach Not Cherry Lipstick Pencil

It's Peach Not Cherry Lipstick Pencil Swatch

I was beginning to lose faith in Essence but the collection was redeemed by the nail polish! I'm sooooo in love with the formula and I'm normally not a nail polish person...

It's Peach Not Cherry Nail Polish

Please excuse the
rushed application... I promise
that it's not the "rude" finger :P

Holy smokes! This polish really blew me away! It took 2 thin coats for it to become opaque and it's a orangey-apricot colour. It's definitely a colour that I could wear all summer :) The thing that blew me away about it was that it dries SO FREAKING FAST! I hate painting my nails as I'm too impatient to wait for it to dry but this one dried in a matter of minutes.

I put one coat on, took a few photos, came back to put another coat on, read a few blog posts and it was dry... like so dry that my finger didn't leave a finger print on the polish!!!! And I didn't even use a base or top coat!!! (I was in too much of a hurry to get the photos done while the sun was still up).

Pick. This. Up. Now!

What are some of the better Essence products that you've tried? I'm going to be raiding the Essence nail polishes the next time I'm at Priceline :P