Essence Cubanita TE

Today I'm going to talk about the new Cubanita TE by Essence, which is already in stores. I really like this trend edition. Lately, I wasn't really excited about their collections, but this one immediately cought my eye. Both, highlighter and the banana powder were on my wishlist. I heard great things about the highlighter and I also wanted to try the banana powder and see if it really is so good.

The Jumbo Highlighter is called 01 Mi Corazón and it comes in a round plastic packaging with a clear lid. There is 20g of product, which should last you a very long time. You can buy it for 3.99€.

As soon as you open it, you can detect the scent, it smells like their bronzer, but I'm not sure what it is. The packaging is quite sturdy, but I have a feeling the lid would quickly break, but then again, the bronzer has the same packaging, I have been using it on daily basis for years and the lid broke only a couple of weeks ago.

I really like the design on the highlighter, a simple pattern of palm tree leaves. The formula of the highlighter is soft and just enough pigmented so you don't need to be fully careful when applying it. Essence says this is a golden highlighter with intense metallic shine and I would agree. It's perfect for my tanned skin, it looks so nice and glowy on top of the cheek bones. It sort of blends into the skin and it looks super pretty. It also lasts the entire day, at the end of the day it's just a bit faded. Very impressed by this one. For those of you who love theBalm's Mary-Lou Manizer, Petra compared both of the highlighters and they look like a dupe, but Essence highlighter is a lot more affordable.

The Baking & Banana Powder comes in a shade 01 Vivin' La Vida Banana. If you are not sure what the banana powder is, it's mostly for color correcting redness and neutralizing dark under eye circles. They are great for setting the concealer, so it doesn't crease. 

The packaging is round and plastic, it comes with a powder puff so you can apply the powder with it and so that the powder doesn't come out of the holes and makes a mess if you move it around. The puff is also very soft, a bit softer that I'm used to. You get 7g of products for 3.99€. It has a very subtle scent, that I don't really notice and it isn't as nice as by the highlighter.

Lately, I have been loving loose powders, but I never had a loose banana powder, so I guess it's mostly the colour that it's different.  It is yellow and it blends into the skin perfectly, on my skin I can't really notice it (my skin has a yellow undertone) if I apply it lightly. It lasts the entire day without problems. I have been testing it on the seaside when it was really hot and I was sweating a lot, and it stayed on. I mostly used it on top of the concealer, but I also tried baking and it works great for that too, but it does look a bit more yellow on the skin, but nothing I would notice if I didn't know it was there. It covers my dark under eyes a bit and it sets the concealer so it doesn't get into the fine lines.

The cosmetics bag is called 01 La Banana Cubana, you can buy it for 3.29€.  It's quite big actually, you could store your daily makeup in it if you don't bring too much with you. It seems very well made, the zipper closes well. But I did notice it gets dirty quick because it is a light off-white shade.

I absolutely love everything I got to try, in my opinion, this is one of the best trend editions by Essence in years. It's fun, summery and the products are great. I definitely recommend all of them, but if you only want one thing, I would say go for the highlighter, you won't regret it.

Thank you for reading!

*Products were sent to me