essence - me & my icecream collection

With the temperatures up in the 30's today (seriously!)*, essence's me and my icecream mini collection is a welcome breeze; a complete set of products that could easily comprise your entire summer makeup "wardrobe", and for under twenty quid!

* no, seriously!  really!!  honestly!

BB Cream in 02/Natural

I try to wear very little (makeup!) in the summer.  With all of the fantastic (and welcome) warm and sunny weather at the moment, no one wants to wear heavy foundations, but it's a great idea to wear some kind of barrier cream.  Some of us are fortunate enough to get away with a barrier of just moisturiser and/or SPF, but for those of us who need a little bit of a lightweight coverage, there's the likes of tinted moisturisers (simple: add some moisturiser to your own favourite foundation to sheer-it out and hey presto, free tinted moisturiser) or BB/CC/DD creams.  essence's BB Cream (€4.99 too, how bad!) provides a non-comedogenic, lightweight and sheer coverage that will still hide minor imperfections.  Wear it just where you need it (for me, on my rosacea-prone cheeks) and you're good to go.

After that, I don't like to wear much of anything else at all.  In the summer I tend to favour a few simple makeup looks - for the day either (a) absolutely nothing whatsoever, or (b) a tiny injection of cream-based products to keep that healthy glow going.  In the evenings, a bronzed look, with golds and bronzes and a really smouldering, smokey, sexy, messy, divil-may-care eye, done with nothing more than one Kohl pencil and lots of abandon :-)  essence's kajal pencils are only €1.29, are great pencils for the price and reasonably lasting and come in a good range of summer shades including these two brighter colours if that's what takes your fancy.

Waterproof mascara is a must if you plan on swimming (and I certainly do this weekend!)   I unfortunately have not been blessed with luscious lashes, so I always wear mascara, and if you want to prevent the dreaded panda eyes, then waterproof is the way to go.  In general, I don't advise waterproof mascara every day of the week; it's a little harder to remove and therefore a little harder on your lashes, but this is the summer (finally, we have a summer in Ireland!) and needs must :-)  essence's stays no matter what 24h waterproof volume mascara is only €3.79 and guarantees volume for up to 24 hours.  I haven't used this one yet but I'm definitely going to try it out, as I end-of-life'd 4 waterproof mascaras over the weekend.

As I mentioned, I love cream products in the summer as they keep that healthy glow going, and essence have the perfect answer for that - at €3.49 their cream blush me & my ice cream (great summer name too!) is a cream-to-powder finish with an intensive apricot shade.  And corals/peach/apricot shades are perfect to create the illusion of a flash of sun-baked colour, or to accentuate that tan you already have.

L -> R: 01/ice, ice baby    02/icylicious    03/ben & cherries

Almost there.  Summertime + sunshining + a matte lippie?  Not for me.  Much as I love my highly pigmented matte lippie I am not going to be wearing it in the summer.  Traditionally for me it's all about the gloss and the glitter in the evenings, and a slightly less obvious lip in the day, usually I just use a lip balm.  essence's me & my ice cream lip balm is €2.49 (eeeek, I will definitely be purchasing!) and there are three different color combinations: 01/ice, ice baby, 02/icylicious and 03/ben & cherries).  They are full of lip-pampering goodies like shea butter and jojoba oil and are faintly scented.

L -> R: 01/ben & cherries, 02/always in my mint, 03/ice, ice baby and 04/icylicious

Last but not least - the gorgeous new pastel, ice-cream inspired, summer nail polish shades at €2.29: 01/ben & cherries, 02/always in my mint, 03/ice, ice baby and 04/icylicious and to keep your hands feeling fresh all day long, essence have brought out hand wipes for €1.59.  Probably not something I'm going to purchase as they have a strawberry ice cream fragrance, but I can see these appealing to a younger demographic than I :-)

I wasn't too bothered until I saw the cute packaging :-)

And that's it - light blemish cover, lip balm, a waterproof mascara and a cream cheek product (don't forget you can always add this to your eyes too, although it will slip, but that's an ok look too in my opinion).  Hardly high maintanance and it'll take less time to do this than it would've taken to read through this.  Add your kajal eyeliner for night time eyes and a splash of colour to the nails and you're sorted.  And all of this for the princely sum of €18.34 - a whole set of summer makeup for less than €20 - how bad!

This trend collection also features shimmering pearls (for highlighting, in pastel shades), nail stickers (which look like icecream sprinkles, or "hundreds & thousands" as my granny used to call them) and three baked eyeshadows (beige marbled with either caramel, apricot or mint shades).  Look here for information on this collection while available.