Essence Soft Touch Mousse and Cream to Powder Highlighter- Product Review

This past Friday I went past the Red Square store in Canal Walk to pick up a new foundation and I ended up walking out with the Essence Soft Touch Mousse in the shade Matte Sand or no 1 as well as their Cream to Powder Highlighter in the cream/ white shade (they also have a light pink shade).

First off I have no idea why I considered a highlighter quite frankly I think I am just too pale for contouring as every highlighter I find just blends into my skin and doesn’t make a difference and every countering shade I find is just too dark but I went against my better judgement and purchased this product anyway, hope still lingers on I guess.

 First off the product I didn’t like….this is the first Essence product that I have bought and would not even consider buying again- it is a cream to powder but I found the product to just be plain sticky and I did not like the feeling of it on my skin.

It also did nothing of the sort with regards to highlighting my skin at all, now this could just be because I am pale or just because I am not a professional and maybe I just have no idea how to highlight correctly but it left nothing noticeable as far as a shimmer/ glow was concerned on my skin so honestly I have no use for this product it was a complete miss and I will probably end up giving it to someone else.

Now on to the Soft Touch Mousse…..

First off I love the fact that I am not the palest shade in the Essence range- yay me, It’s not that I mind being pale, I just find that the palest shades tend to have an orange or yellow undertone that often gives off a sickly colour in certain lighting or when the product gets older it tends to go more yellow/ orange than other shades, I am not sure why or if anyone else has the same issue but I was very happy when I tested their shades and came out as Matt Sand which as far as I can tell when swatching all their colours is the 2^nd to lightest shades next to the Ivory shade no 4.

So I used this product over the weekend and I was very happy with it, the product is a mousse so I decided to try using a foundation brush to apply it, I tend to use my fingers with a liquid foundation otherwise it just doesn’t blend properly but this time the brush worked really well (Beautique Foundation Brush), the product itself was really light and blended so well into my skin it felt like a powder on my skin which I really liked, it didn’t flake or lie atop the skin as many mousse foundations do, all in all I was very happy with this product, it stayed well, it worked really well with my skin tones and it didn’t feel or look obvious that I was wearing any foundation- I do not like to look like I am wearing any sort of foundation and this is often why I prefer to go for a colour corrector as well as a liquid foundation as I found the powders and mousses sometimes become flaky or just plain obvious on your skin and don’t blend or stay particularly well.

This mousse set me back R69.95 which is pretty cheap, as I have said before Essence is on the lower level of a budget which is great considering the quality of the product which in my opinion is excellent and on par with many higher end brands.

So there you have it one product that I completely loved and one that was a complete miss for me, as I said it may just be me I am not saying that the highlighter will be a miss for everyone and it definitely wont stop me from continuing to buy essence which now represents the bulk of my make-up collection and will continue as such, I really love their products and what they stand for including that they are Cruelty Free and in most product cases they are vegan- no I am not Vegan but it matters to a lot of other people I know so I appreciate it.

In any case I hope everyone is keeping warm on this very cold and wet winter’s day and that everyone had a great weekend.