Essence Hugs & Kisses and New Catrice Eyeshadows

For Valentine's Day, Essence has released this Hugs & Kisses collection. Essence seems to be very fond of bright lime in its recent collections.

"Love at first sight? Guaranteed! With the new trend edition “Hugs & Kisses”, all the girls are sure to fall in love with the cool and colorful beauty products by Essence in January and February 2013. The colors in this trend edition are super fun and will definitely put you in the mood for Valentine’s Day: bright lemon and pink combined with intensive red and purple are guaranteed to impress! Love struck or not, these unique products will make your heart go boom: an eyeshadow palette and a blush in a great l.o.v.e. design, lashes, stylish lip products and an awesome eau de toilette – the it-pieces in the “hugs & kisses” collection are sure to make the hearts of all trendsetters beat a little bit faster. xoxo essence!"

It's quite a varied collection that includes a fragrance, an eyeshadow quad, four nail polishes and four glitter top coats, nail stickers, false lashes, lip scrub, two lip tint and a blush with a 'LOVE' print.

I also found the Vintage District collection on display, but sadly it was missing the Multi-Color Blush 01 It's Popul-art, which was the only piece that I was interested in.


Also new on the shelves is New In Town, which includes new eyeshadows, nail polishes in purple and fluorescent green, plus an All-in-one BB Cream in two shades, and Stays No Matter What 24h Volume Mascara.

Came home with these lovelies.

Glitter Topper polishes in 01 More Than Words (left) and 02 Dreams For Sale (right).


Glitter Eyeliners in 01 With X's and o's (purple and silver holographic) and 02 Love's Out To Get You (white holographic).


Duo Lipstick & Gloss in 01 Vintage Peach.


Both Essence and its more grown-up sister brand, Catrice have just refreshed their line-ups with a massive slew of new products - see details on Essence here and Catrice here. From Catrice, I picked up the new Absolute Nude Eyeshadow Palette, and two Absolute Eye Color Mono in 640 Don't Touch My Mosserati and 650 Petrol Shop Boys. Like Essence, Catrice comes up with the most amusing shade names!

Absolute Nude contains 6g and is made in China.

The eyeshadows come in a clear lucite packaging, very similar to Shu Uemura's previous eyeshadow singles. Don't Touch My Mosserati is a rich metallic mossy green with gold reflects.

Petrol Shop Boys, which is made in Poland, is a satin muted turquoise with sparse silver reflects. This feels dryer and less velvety to touch than Don't Touch My Mosserati, which is made in Germany. These hold 2g of product, which is generous compared to MAC's 1.5g.