Essence Ticket to Paradise - Tropical Heat Shimmer Powder Swatches & Review

Purchased by me

Hey lovelies,

Budget friendly highlighters can be hard to find, but this little number from Essence makes the quest well worth it. Tropical Heat Shimmer Powder comes from the limited edition Ticket to Paradise collection which has been floating around New Zealand shelves for a while now - although I haven't been to my closest Essence stand to check that it's still there in the past month or so.

Confession: I totally bought this because I cannot resist powders with gorgeous embossed designs like this. Well, not when they won't dent my wallet! I believe Tropical Heat was $6.19 or $6.39NZD - incredibly good value for a substantial amount of product (10g).

Swatched heavily (left) and sheered out (right) on bare skin under daylight bulbs

Tropical Heat is a light golden bronze with buildable colour pay off. Because of the golden hues, it'd be workable as either a highlighter or bronzer on varying skintones - I wear it as either of them interchangeably, which I'll show in the FOTD photos below. I like that it doesn't emphasise pores and although shimmery for a bronzer, doesn't look strange when used that way!

The texture is soft and finely milled without being powdery. It doesn't have the thin, dry texture that I've experienced with some cheap highlighters, instead it goes on smoothly and sits beautifully on the skin, blending out easily. Tropical Heat lasts for nine hours on me.