Kathryn's Loves: The Essence Wanna Bee My Honey? Collection Review & Swatches

I love a new Essence collection and releases as they are one of my favourite drugstore brands here in the UK. I have featured endless products here on my blog and so when I saw the Essence Wanna Bee My Honey? Collection, I knew I had to try it out. There are other products in the collection – a total of eight – but here in the UK, I could only get my hands on two of them. Other items in the collection include an All Over Balm, Reusable Makeup Remover Pads, a Colour Changing Glow Lipstick, an Eyeshadow Brush, a Highlighter Brush and a Luminizing Primer. I really wish I was able to get more of the collection as it looks lovely.

The first product I was able to get was the Essence Wanna Bee My Honey? Mattifying Fixing Powder (£2.99), which comes in just the one shade, 01 You’re The Bees Knees! And is a translucent powder. The Powder comes in cardboard packaging and has a little elastic band you keep the compact closed with. The formula smells of honey, so that is super sweet, and the powder itself features a honeycomb design and the script, ‘bee my honey’ and overall, this is a very cute product. The Mattifying Fixing Powder is to be used to set the makeup after you have applied your foundation, to keep it in place for the whole day. If you have super dry skin, then I don’t think this product would be suitable for you, but if you do have oily skin or tend to get an oily T-Zone later in the day, then I would definitely recommend you trying this out. When you’re applying the powder, it does feel very soft and lightweight, so you don’t feel like you have the powder on and there is zero cakiness or texture to the skin once applied either.

The star of the show is without doubt, the Essence Wanna Bee My Honey? Eyeshadow & Highlighter Palette (£7.99). It has the same packaging theme as the Fixing Powder, with that brown cardboard look, decorated with gold honeycomb and bee illustrations. It is a neat, petite palette and inside it features six eyeshadows and two highlighters in a honeycomb pattern. The six eyeshadows include matte, shimmer and metallic finishes, and there is a cream matte, ochre matte, light gold shimmer, yellow gold metallic, pale yellow shimmer and a bold gold metallic. I like the variation this palette gives you, despite being a small palette, with the different textures and gold and yellow tones. The highlighters are both much bigger pans and you receive a light, pale champagne highlighter, and a warmer, gold toned highlighter and you can of course use them on their own on the cheeks, or even use them on the eyelids too. I love the formula of both the eyeshadows and the highlighters, which are almost creamy to the touch and they are all highly pigmented, even the cream matte. As with the Fixing Powder, this also has a delicate honey scent to it, and I think for the quality and price, you really can’t go wrong with this collection.