While we were celebrating beauty in the month of May, I had a mini luxury haul from Lancome, privee, Carolina Herrera, paco Rabanne and YSL. This haul consists of 2 fragrances which I love, 3 lip colors and one nail polish I consider a great addition to my dressing table. If you will like to get details of these products and also read my unbiased reviews of these products, keep reading!
Fragrances
I chose to start with the scents since I already did an unboxing video for one of them on Instagram. That is the Olympea Intense by Paco Rabanne.
Olympea Intense by Paco Rabanne
What the Company says: A sensual salty-vanilla newly fused with deep amber.
My Opinion: The bottle is beautiful, another perfume bottle I will be keeping to decorate when I move houses. It is like the Olympea bottle but as you can see, this is dark brown and not translucent like Olympea. I love the scent. It has this sweet but strong scent, just like every woman should be- sweet and strong!
The other fragrance is from Carolina Herrera, the brand that has Good Girl. This is my first fragrance from the brand’s collection and it is called Privee.
Privee by Carolina Herrera
What the brand says: CH Privée captures the enigmatic femininity of a woman. Delicate, sophisticated, and utterly alluring. A daring blend of feminine leather notes wrapped in a cloud of musk. CH Privée doesn’t give everything away at once.
My Opinion: When I looked up the meaning of privee, I saw it was a french word for private or personal and this fragrance certainly exudes that with the scent. From the bottle, you can already tell that it is a leather fragrance and I really love the cute bottle. I guess the size that I got makes it even cuter, wrapped in red leather with charms in the letter C and H which stands for Carolina Herrera. Other notes of the fragrance is vanilla and then there is what you call patchouli as well. On first spray, you may not catch the strength associated with the smell which is why some say it doesn’t reveal its true scent on first spray. Give it time and the scent reveals itself.
Lip Makeup
Like I mentioned earlier, I have 3 of these- one is a lip stain by YSL, the other is a lip gloss by YSL and the last is a lipstick by Lancome (I got this from the lipstick garden at the Mercedes-Benz Beauty Business Week).
The lipstain by YSL is called Baby Doll Kiss and Blush. I got the shade 01- fuschia desinvolte which is fuschia pink, not just any pink.
Baby doll Kiss and Blush by YSL
It sits well on my skin and it is matte. It is gentle on the lips with the soft brush and moisturizes the lips. On first application, it does appear faint but after reapplication, the color pops. So, if you want it soft, it is completely up to you to build it up to the intensity that you want. The brand says that it can be used as a blush. So, I checked it up online and found a video by Huda Beauty that actually confirms that.
The other one which I said is a glossy stain by YSL as well, is in the shade 32- Rouge Avant Gardiste which is wine.
YSLGloss stain
For me, this is an okay product to use during the harmattan if you need to apply colour to your lips at that time. It is sticky and shiny which isn’t exactly my kind of lip colour which is why I have decided to give it to my mum.
The last one by Lancome is in the shade 350B.
Lancome rouge in love
From this image, it appears red but upon application, it appears peach.
swatch of Lancome rouge in love 350B
Now, this is another moisturizing lip colour but I will keeping this for myself still cos I seem to like the shade. Let’s see how it looks on me after a few more tries. Besides, I just found a way to make my glossy lip colours feel matte (using tanslucent finishing or setting powder).
Nail Polish
Now my friends will tell you, I am a sucker for manicures and in recent times, I have been building my own collection of nail colours and even pre designed nails. When I got this nail polish, I was just glad to be able to replace my fuschia pink nail polish that had dried up. It was from an entirely different brand. My love for this one increased when I tested it on my nails and discovered that it was matte.
YSL
I had a wawu moment there. It dries real fast for someone like me that paints my nails and feels the need to keep it moving. I don’t have to worry that it has smudged. It lasted about 2 weeks before it started to peel and that is without a top coat. So, imagine if I actually use a top coat, I won’t have to worry about changing my polish for maybe 4weeks. Now that it is old, it appears to have a bit of shine. I have to find the top coat and maybe shop in biro blue. I bet it will sit nicely with my skin tone.
So, that is what I have for you thus far and you can shop all the products from Beauty Bar by Essenza. Beauty Bar is located inside of The Palms Shopping Complex in Lekki. Note that everyone has a product type that they love. So, before you jump into any conclusions, you need to actually try out these products to be certain that they work for you. Especially the lip colours. I have picked my favouite of the 3 and it fits me well. So, if you have my skin tone, go for it. For all the others, you need to decide if you like your lip color real shiny and if those shades suit your skin color. For the fragrance, every lady deserves a bottle. Infact, there is the Invictus intense which is for the men. I had miniature bottles of that at some point and I liked the intensity. It was real strong and should definitely last a longer time.
If you have used any of these products, I will love to know what your experience was and if you haven’t yet, please do visit Beauty Bar by Essenza. The thing is, athorised beauty stores usually have testers. I know that you can probably try to shop else where but that is one of the cool things about shopping with authorized retailers. Also, you get to shop the real deal. No worries about counterfeit. If you shop the product and it doesn’t do what it says or it goes wrong, it is the name of their store on the line, something that they certainly guard against. So, go shopping or trying this week and let me know what you think!
All images were shot with Samsung Galaxy S8
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