I bought the Advent Calendar by essence cosmetics for the 2016 X-Mas season. It was full of full sized regular (meaning non-limited) essence products, so there’ll be a couple reviews of essence products coming up. The products have a special wintery design, but can be purchased in the normal design at counters.
So one of the first items was this face powder: all about matt fixing compact powder. They’ve got a whole all about matte line, I always buy the blotting paper. Other than that I haven’t paid much attention to it because usually I am all about the glow instead.
The fixing compact powder looks stark white, but it’s actually an one size fits all transparent setting powder.
I tried to swatch it anyway. XD Out of all the pics I took, this was the only one where you could see something. Here it looks like a bit of white against my skin. I swatched it heavily with my finger to achieve that. Usually you would apply it with a big fluffy brush all over your face. So I’m pretty sure it should work for all skin tones and not make your face look lighter. Although, being as pale as I am I cannot give you a 100% guarantee.
What this powder does do, however, is mattify the face. You do not need a lot of powder to achieve it, either, so that’s good. So it does exactly what it says on the tin. On the back description it also claims the finish will last all day long. Well, all makeup items claim that don’t they?
Usually I reach for a more glowy finishing powder. With that, my nose gets shiny after about three hours, which is completely normal. (That’s what I have the all about matte blotting paper for.) Without any sort of powder at all, my nose gets shiny at the same time, but worse.
With this powder, the matte finish does not last longer. I still get shiny after three hours, the same as with my dewy powder. The difference is that with the matte powder my whole face is mattified and then the T-zone gets shiny, making the shine a lot more visible. When I wear a dewy finish, the shine is simply not as noticeable. This is why I will still prefer my dewy finishing powders over matte ones.
So in a nutshell, yes, the all about matte fixing compact powder gives a matte finish, but it does not make makeup last longer. It all depends on which kind of finish you prefer. 🙂
Dandygal 
it is a brilliant powder. I had picked it up whilst shopping at Wilkinson, just to try…. I’ve gone through three of them I think!!
It does the job really well, even on dark skin and without leaving residue. xx
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hurray, so it is properly transparent, good to know 🙂
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