Essence stay with me lipgloss - Me and my ice-cream, Candy bar

With the recent 'Essence Explosion' here in Australia, I have been drawn more and more to Target where the tiny little Essence stand hides in the corner, outdone by it's competition like Maybelline and Revlon. The thing is though, as a beauty blogger you tend to notice the smaller teams in the game and have background knowledge about the brand that perhaps others haven't. This is a real shame in my case though, because I know how damn good their products are (thankyou youtube and millions of blog posts) but the stand is never stocked and all the products are always opened with the product smushed or spread everywhere.

Nevertheless I still make it my mission to double check every time I go to Target in case there is that lipstick I am desperate for or that eyeshadow I am in love with. It just so happened that this time I went, these two little beauties were sitting there waiting for me. They were even sealed and everything!

So, I am going to tell you about my newest Essence friends - The 'Stay with me long lasting lipglosses.'

I picked up the shades 'Me and my Ice-cream' and 'Candy bar.' After some serious testing, I have come to the conclusion that I really like Candy bar - the coral/red colour. 'Me and my Ice-cream' is okay but it is a bit of a nothing kind of colour. Nothing special. More like a clear gloss, although I do think on darker ladies it would probably show up, although it might be unflattering.

There are a few things that make these lipglosses different from others. The first is the sweet marshmallow kind of smell that the lipsticks have too. Clearly this is an Essence thing. The second is the applicator which is shaped a bit like an hourglass. I personally don't mind it - it makes it easier to apply gloss on the bottom lip but harder on the top - but I imagine this would really bother some people. I also, for some reason, really like the packaging of these glosses. They are nice and compact and look quite good with their shiny tubes and sleek black lids. They're nice.

The formula is really quite commendable with it's smooth, non sticky texture. It really does feel lovely to have this gloss on your lips and is the perfect consistency in my eyes . It distributes evenly over the lips, doesn't accentuate and flaky bits and doesn't sink into lines.

Candy bar is very nicely pigmented - enough to give bare lips a signficant amount of colour, but over a lipstick only slightly alters the lipstick shade. Me and my ice-cream is one of those glosses that doesn't really have a colour and on the lips gives no noticeable colour change.Candy bar tints the lips, almost stains them I suppose, which I really like. It means that I can wear it without a lipstick and I get the added bonus of colour even once the gloss is gone.

These lipglosses do claim to stay on the lips for a long time as of course indicated by the name. Do they stay on? Yes, they sure do but they lose their gloss and shine relatively early on. The tint stays on for a very long time - even after eating I still noticed the tint from Candy bar on my lips. I do feel as though it loses its glossy shine pretty quickly though.

I really love how they have no glitter or sparkles in them. I have noticed that cheaper brands often make lipglosses containing chunks of glitter - something that would be attractive to a three year old perhaps, but I myself have grown out of that for everyday wear. These lipglosses are completely block colour - no shimmer, no nothing - which I am a big fan of.

I must also mention that they only cost four dollars. FOUR!

I love these glosses alone or with other lip products. My Savvy one still beats it in the 'best lipgloss' competition but these are pretty high up there. I give it 9 out of 10.