Whooom! Boooom!!! Eyeshadow and Nail Polish Review

To be honest, in the past the only thing that appealed to me about Essence Cosmetics were their mini bottles of $0.99 nail polish. I had seen the large assortment of cosmetics but with my past history of using inexpensive cosmetics, I was wary. That is until I saw this mono eyeshadow:

These products are from the Essence trend edition Whooom! Boooom!!!  The artwork on this totally sucked me in. It reminded me of a Lichtenstein, and me being a huge fan of 60's pop art, I had to have this. So I bought all four of their mono eyeshadows.

(From Left to Right: (1)Chacalaca, (2)Cream Canvas, (3)Muse Marylin, (4)You've Got the Art)

Now my pictures don't do these colors justice at all. They are all bright and highly saturated in color (with the exception of Cream Canvas but it's a GREAT neutral). I did experience some fall out with these shadows but no more than higher end shadows.



(1) Chacalaca


First up, Chacalaca. I LOVE this name! I grew up in an area that is native to the Chacalaca bird. And growing up, I thought it was a made up name that my goofy parents made up.  Now the eyeshadow is a beautiful navy blue with silver, aqua and lavendar shimmer bits(?). The shimmer really doesn't show up once applied on any of these shades (think of Physicians Formula Powders in their Happy Boosters line). The only time I saw an amp of shimmer is when I swatched these colors using a wet brush (look for swatches at the end of post). I used them wearing an eyeshadow primer so I can't say whether or not they crease.



(2) Cream Canvas


Cream Canvas, this is my favorite of the four for my own selfish reasons. For some reason it's coming up a little more pink/peach here than it actually is. It's closer to the color in the pic where you see all four shades. And it is the exact same shade of my face! I loved it so much that I used it as powder. And it worked like a dream. I think I might even go back to the store as soon as I finish posting this. It did a stellar job at covering any freckles and broken capillaries on my face.

(3)Muse Marilyn

Muse Marilyn, this is a soft violet purple, almost a mauve. The color pay off is vibrant yet soft at the same time. If you want to venture into bolder colors, but are afraid of saturation, this would be a good shade to start out with.




(4)You've Got the Art

You've Got the Art - again, the lighting here is making it look way different. This is a great chartreuse (green/yellow) shade. If you've seen/have Sally Hansen nail polish in Chartreuse Chase, it's the exact same color.  I don't often see this color as a single. Normally when I see this type of color it is offered in a duo or quad. I was really excited to see what this color would look like on my lids, but sadly it came out more yellow than green (a really pretty shade of yellow).

This is the look that I came up with using ONLY those four shades (and mascara). Even the liner! The liner is Chacalaca using a wet liner brush. As you can see, Cream Canvas is invisible on my skin. I almost didn't post this pic because I BADLY need to pluck my eyebrows. I'm so embarrassed.

Dry Swatch

Wet Swatch

You can see from the wet and dry swatch that the shimmer in the shades is much more apparent when wet. I actually preferred these shadows wet. They had much more shimmer and depth to them. They seemed to come alive.

Chacalaca Nail Polish

Now for the one polish I picked up in, of course, Chacalaca. This was the only color that really drew me in. The others seemed to be dupes of stuff I already owned. When I brought it home I thought for a second that it might be the exact same color as their Just Rock It nail color, but upon closer inspection, Chacalaca is much more blue violet while Just Rock It leans more navy.  I also love this color because it is the same color as my bedroom walls. This is a very opaque finish. I only used two coats. But the formula was kinda wonky. While the formula was neither think nor runny, the polish on my thumb and middle finger bubbled like crazy. I don't know, maybe I got a bad bottle. I will keep it around for awhile though and see if it improves.

All in all, I really liked the eyeshadows. I would defiantly recommend checking them out.  And I am really thinking about going back to purchase the cream liners in the same shades and checking out the rest of the Essence line.  Though I'll probably skip on another bottle of polish.

Have you tried these products yet? What did you think of them?

Disclaimer: I did not receive any monetary value for this review.  I purchased these products with my own money. All thoughts and opinions are soley my own.