Mini Essence Haul

Sadly today I ended up caving and breaking my No Make Up Buy Ban. Although I do have a very good reason why I ended up caving. Last week I got word that my aunt died from her battle with cancer and her funeral was today.

My aunt and her family live in Ottawa which is roughly 2- 2 1/2 hours away from me. So my sister and I were constantly checking the weather on the weekend to figure out if we would be going or not because it was forecasted that there would be freezing rain here (Montreal) and there. Up until this morning it was basically okay lets wait and see what the weather would be like. Thankfully the weather was nice enough that we decided to make the drive up.

I was up since about 4am this morning getting ready and packing a bag just in case we ran into bad weather and had to stay over night. Thankfully that didn’t happen the weather was perfect until tonight.

I made it a point that we weren’t going to stop until we got into Ottawa and near the church that the funeral was at. Well this wasn’t going to be a 2 1/2 hour trip, it turned into nearly a 3 hour trip. The roads were wet and I was driving between 80 and 100 m/h. We made it just in time.

The service was beautiful and it was nice to see all my first cousins (10 of them), second cousins (10+ of them) and third cousins (just a few of them so far) and the reception was fun because we got to laugh over so many crazy things we did as kids and my aunts fantastic spaghetti sause.

Before leaving Ottawa I really needed some retail therapy because I was tired and stressed out and honestly not looking forward to my drive back to Montreal because I had no idea what kind of weather we were going to run into etc. This was the first time in many years that I have driven that long so my back was sore and I had a headache. Not pictured is the tylenol that I bought.

Thankfully on the main road we were on they didn’t have a mall only groceries stores, restaurants, gas stations and pharmacies so we stopped into Shoppers Drug Mart (Pharmaprix here in Quebec) and I quickly headed to the Essence display because up until that point I didn’t realize that selected Pharmaprix here in Montreal have them. (I discovered that there is roughly a handful close to me now carry this line)

If your not familiar with Essence they are a company based out of Germany that make affordable make up that you can only buy in stores. When I say affordable I mean everything is basically under $5.

Here is what I picked up.

 ~Stay with me long lasting lip gloss. This is suppose to be a new item. I got one in the shade 08 Deep Rose. It was more like a sheer color for me. What I really like is the applicator has a roller kind of brush that makes application easy. It was a nice gloss and it wasn’t sticky. This is available in siz shades..

~The next one is XXXL Shine lip gloss. Its in the shade 07 Big Night Out. Its available in fourteen shades. This had a hint of color which I liked since it wasn’t something that wasn’t bright.  I loved that it wasn’t sticky and I am sure this will be used quite a bit.

~If you know me, you know that one of my favorite scents is Strawberry so when I spotted the Sweet Strawberry and Strawberry Smoothie I knew I had to pick them up. I love the texture and the smell of them and I am kind of partial to the smoothie more but they are perfect to throw in your purse.

Although I have to say that when I got home and was looking at everything, I first thought that I had picked up two sweet strawberries and was disappointed but upon closer inspection I realized that I did get one of each.

 I was in total heaven when I saw this little three pack of mini glosses. How can you not love something that has New York on it? I am a total New York addict and I always look for things with that on it.

 I don’t know what the shades are so I will just describe them. The first one is a pink, the second one is a pink glitter/shimmer and the final one is a clear one. I haven’t tried these yet but as soon as I do I will probably do a post about them. I figured with what I have opened and used already I should be good for a little while.

 Finally the last few things I bought was the cute pink essence sharpener. One is a regular size sharpener and the other side is for a chubbier pencil. Lately I have been getting  a few eye liner/ lip liner pencils and I thought it was time I picked up a sharpener.

I also picked up these cute little quads. They are roughly about the size of our $1 coin.

The first quad is from the Cherry Blossom Girl collection. Its the 01 Dreaming Under a Cherry Tree. The shades are peach, nude, brown and red. Although it doesn’t really look red in the picture or in person. I thought this would be a perfect spring look with many ways to wear it. It has a shimmer and matte finish to them.

The other quad is 12 Purple Day. This is just like the other quad with shimmer and matte shades. The colors are purple, pinkish purple, a dark grey and a silver. This one also has great color options. I am sure both quads can be mixed and matched with each other.

I honestly wanted to buy more from the essence line but I purposely said to myself that I will only pay cash and not use my credit card to avoid over spending and that worked for me.

This little retail therapy helped ease the stress and made the drive home more fun although I’m not sure if it was having my little bag filled with items or the delicious Tim Horton’s coffee I had picked up.

Have you ever tried Essence before? What are your thoughts? What should I be on the look out for?