Review: 13rushes x Esqa Cheek Bundle (Aphrodite)

Our collaboration with ESQA Cosmetics is finally here! 

We’ve been a big fan of ESQA’s products and in case you’re not familiar with them, here’s a quick overview of ESQA

“ESQA is the first and leading Vegan cosmetics brand in Indonesia, born from two beautiful best friends, Cindy and Kezia. Since moving back to Indonesia from their studies in Los Angeles, they wanted to create affordable glam cosmetics with chic packaging that are formulated without harsh ingredients. ESQA was born to develop innovative products that are the cutting edge in the international makeup scene”

ESQA is one of Indonesia’s hottest beauty brand at the moment. If you check their website out, you’ll notice that many of the items are out of stock. When I first discovered them three years ago, I personally fell in love with their range of products because they were all really wearable colors that felt comfortable on my skin. Their matte liquid lips were also the first ones that didn’t make my lips peel. Fast forward to today, I’m excited that we’ve finally brought them into Singapore through this limited edition bundle and hope you guys will love this collaboration as much as I do.

Let’s check out my review of the 13rushes x Esqa bundle below. Hopefully this post will answer most of your queries! 

The bundle

The 13rushes X Esqa bundle contains two items: 

• Firstly the Contour and Highlight Dual: a double ended brush that you can use for blush, contour and highlighter.
• Secondly the Goddess Cheek Palette Palette: a blush, bronzer, and highlighter palette which contains three full-size powders.

 

Double-ended brush

We’ve created our first double ended brush for ESQA’s goddess cheek palette. Which explains the rose gold ferrule and white handle!

This brush alone is sufficient for applying bronzer, contouring makeup, blush and highlighter. It also works well with both liquid and powder textures.

Big chubby side

Let’s talk about the bigger fluffy end of this tool. The bigger brush has crescent shape that fits both the apples of the cheeks and under your jawline perfectly. If you want to minimize the number of brushes you wash, you can use one side of this brush to apply your blush, and the other side to contour. How convenient! While this brush was created primarily for blushing and contouring, I’ve also tried used this brush to apply both liquid foundation and pressed powder. The results were pretty good too!

Just be careful not to use the same brush to apply liquids and powders at the same time. Residual products on the brush may cause makeup to cake up. 

If you're using the same brush for different powders, you can easily remove the color from the brush by rubbing the brush over a dry nylon sponge such as the one from Makeup Forever:

I also discovered that the regular nylon scourer for washing dishes works too. Try that out if you're not too particular!

Small tapered end

Now let’s flip the Contour and Highlight dual over. You’ll find small tapered brush that’s precise yet fluffy at the same time.This tapered brush is just a tad smaller than our best-selling Precision Highlighter (u.p $19). I like how it deposits just the right amount of pigments for natural-looking results. Use the highlighting brush to illuminate the tops of cheekbones, brow bone, Cupid’s bow, and chin. It’s also awesome for patting a bit of powder on the undereyes. 

Cheek Palette

Let’s move on to take a closer look at the cheek palette:

Here's a helpful swatch from Monica's review on the Beauty Wimp. Click on the link if you prefer a Bahasa version of the review.

Housed in a sleek and compact packaging, the Aphrodite palette contains a champagne highlighter, a warm toned peachy pink matte blush and a neutral matte contouring powder. This palette is suitable for fair to medium skin tone. The shades in this palette beautifully complements South East Asian skin tone (most of us are a little warmer, with  olive and yellow undertones). We will be releasing another bundle for darker skin tone once ESQA restocks! 

Blush

The most universally flattering, can't-go-wrong blush shade? Peach. A peach blusher has orange and yellow tones, so it enhances the natural flush for most Asian skin tones. I also liked that this blush does not contain any shimmer, which means its great for everyone! Glitter may look pretty and give you an instant jazz. But it painfully accentuates the pores and bumps on our skin, making our face blotchier than they originally are. For most of us who are not blessed with perfect complexion, it’s safer to opt for a matte blusher instead. 

Contour

The contouring shade in this palette does not contain any orange tone, which is fantastic news as orange-toned contouring products can turn out really awkward for fairer skintones. It’s a neutral contouring shade, and has a grey undertone. Because your contour is supposed to look like a shadow, matte products with a gray undertone work well for most skin tones. While these gray contouring colors may look flat in the pan, they add dimension to the face in a natural way when applied under the cheekbones, along the sides of the nose and along the jawline. All in all i love how natural this contouring shade is!

Highlight

This champagne highlighter contains finely milled shimmer that adds a natural glow on all skin tones. Champagne is a lighter shade of gold highlighter so it will work even on pale skins too. It's a little softer than gold highlighters, and perfect if you wish to add a subtle highlight without going overboard.

The goddess cheek palette is an essential go-to palette that you’ll reach for again and again. I found the shades in to be extremely natural and beautifully low-key. They bring out a soft healthy glow on my skin instead of screaming that “I’m wearing makeup”. All 3 shades are smooth, buildable and blendable. They are not overpoweringly intense on the first application, which is great because this gives you more control over your application. I was able to gradually layer the products on for extra intensity. They are also easy to work with and lasted well on my skin over time.

Watch our quick video here to learn more about how to use the palette with our brush.

ESQA x 13rushes Cheek Bundle from 13rushes on Vimeo.

Thank you for staying till the end of this review! As a token of appreciation, here's $2 off this bundle. Enter "REVIEW2" to enjoy this promotion (: If you wish to purchase this bundle, click on this link: https://www.13rushes.com/products/esqa-x-13rushes-cheek-bundle