Review and Swatches: Essence Fun Fair TE (Blush&Nail Powder)

Trying a new product before it hits the store is a blessing and curse at the same time. Blessing, because you can try it before anyone else and curse, because if you like it you can’t talk about it until it comes in stores. For the last month I was testing two products from Essence Fun Fair collection that just came in our stores and I’m so happy I can finally write this review. I received a blush Ring Around the Rosy and cotton candy nails Sugar for My Honey from Slovenian Essence team. I have to admit that at the beginning when I received both products I didn’t expect to like any of them. These powder things for nails were never my favourite and Essence blush reminded me too much on one other blush I have and don’t really like, but boy I was wrong. Blush even ended up on the list of my favourite summer blushes.

Blush Ring Around the Rosy comes in a round plastic transparent packaging that’s quite typical for Essence, and it’s not really fancy, but sturdy enough to carry it around in a makeup bag. For the price 3,29 € you get 4 g of a product. The blush is a metallic pink and in the packaging it actually looks like it contains a whole bunch of shimmer and I was really afraid how it’ll look on the cheeks, but it transfers nicely and there’s no shimmer, only a nice metallic sheen that looks beautiful on cheeks. When I received this blush it reminded me on Maybelline 201 and I was really afraid that it’ll look the same, but it doesn’t. While by Maybelline mostly transfers on cheeks the shimmer that looks overwhelming, Essence blush has more of a metallic look. It gives pretty pink colour to the cheeks and a nice highlighting glow. With this blush I never use a highlighter, because it gives enough shine to the cheeks. The texture of the blush is very silky and soft and it applies and blends easily. Its colour payoff is really nice and I really like how it looks on me, although I think that this blush won’t be to everyone’s taste, because it looks a lot like Barbi pink on cheeks. The duration time depends from the amount of the blush I apply - if I don’t apply it really intense it’ll fade away in few hours, but if I apply it really intensive it can last even a whole day (I personally like intensive blush look).

Cotton candy nails product was actually a surprise for me, because I didn’t expect to like it. Of course I can’t say it’s an amazing product, because it has its flaws, but the look I achieved with it on my nails was beautiful. I thought that this a pure cotton powder, but it’s actually a mixture of cotton and glitter. It’s in mint colour which is one of my favourite colours and I’m really happy that I didn’t get the pink one, which wouldn’t be useful to me, since I don’t really wear pink on my nails. The usage of this product is very easy. First you have to choose a nail polish that you’ll use as a base for the powder. The best decision is of course a polish in the same shade as the powder is, otherwise the difference between powder and nail polish will be too visible and it won’t look as nice. Apply two coats of selected nail polish and immediately, when the polish is still wet, sprinkle the product on nails. That way it’ll stick to the nails very well and it won’t fall off as it would if the polish would be dry. I was actually doing each nail separately, and that way I ensured that the polish wasn’t dry when I sprinkled the powder on a nail. The final effect was really nice, it actually looked very similar to the effect that textured nail polishes give, except that it was softer on touch. I don’t recommend using a top coat, because it’ll ruin the effect. When you’re sprinkling the dust on your nails, it also ends up on cuticles, but it’s easy to remove with nail polish remover. I really liked how this dust looked on my nails, but I can’t say that this is a product I’ll use often on my nails – I’ll probably use it only for special occasions. First reason is that it gets dirty very fast and it’s hard to clean. I was doing a makeup the next day and a bit of foundation ended on my nails, but I couldn’t clean it out. The second reason is that most of the powder went off from most of my nails already on the next day, after I washed my hands few times. Now I’m not sure if the dust didn’t stick well enough or what was wrong, but I had to change my manicure next day, because I wasn’t really happy with the situation on my nails. If I ignore these two flaws, the cotton-glitter powder really gives a beautiful effect to the nails. But I’m not sure this effect is enough to recommend this product. If you like using powder for nails, go for it, otherwise skip it. The packaging contains 1,3 g of product and it costs 2,79 €.