Back in early 2000's, Esolis was a short-lived brand of skin care and makeup targeting Asian women in North America. It was very strange, as the catalogue just showed up at my door step one day. Obviously, someone had been selling demographic information...and my address!!!! Anyways, I was very excited of course, because growing up, I've never known any makeup or skin care within the borders of North America that was geared towards Asian skin.
***Picture from design:timlink.
Unfortunately, though, upon trial my mother, my sister and I all agreed Esolis was a total and complete flop. Actually, my mother even jokingly concluded it was a fraud! While the products were marketed as mid to high-end, their quality was below drugstore items and their packaging plastic-y and cheap. Eventually, Esolis's target market shared our opinion and the brand disappeared shortly afterwards, after they have extorted a good amount from me and my sister, of course!
Luckily, I did manage to find one gem - the Esolis Lip Tint SPF 16 in Vivid Red. Mind you, not all shades are made equal, even in the same line of product. There are only several shades available in this line, and I have tried 2 - Innocence and Vivid Red. I don't understand why they called these lip tints, because they are quite pigmented lipsticks! Anyway, the Innocence was pure crap! It is a very pretty pearly pink with gold opalescent shimmers, but the formula was worse than candle wax! It was so horrifically drying it bled my lips after 1 day's wear. Needless to say, in the trash bin it went.
The Vivid Red, however, was completely different! The formula was creamy and soft, and best of all, it was the perfect red I've been searching for all my life - a yellow based red with hints of orange (although it looks more blue-base in the picture, I know...)! And it was so pigmented all I had to do was to swipe on some lip balm, dab the lipstick in the middle of my lower lip and press my lips together to get juicy watermelon lips!
The Lip Tint SPF 15 line also had a shade called Orange Mod, and now that I'm in an orange craze I regretted not getting that color too. The formula might fail me like Innocence, but then again it might wow me like Vivid Red. Oh well. The what-if's and the should-have's. Too late for them now...
i found an old catalog of theirs in my junk, and searched for them to see what they were up to... looks like they are out of business. nice catalogs though, rather upscale looking.
ReplyDeleteHi Anonymous,
ReplyDeletethanks for visiting!
yeah, they tanked back in 2004. trust me, they look upscale, but the stuff's pure crap. i got only a couple of decent items from them and everything else's just not worth the hype, much less the price. sorry to be brutally honest but i'm kinda glad they tanked, actually. folks like us can't afford to be robbed all the time :D
I just found this entry, I know it's really old lol. But it's really weird because esolis worked really well for me. Actually it was the best product for my skin for 2 yrs. I was really sad that it went out of business. Even my friends said my skin looked really good. My skin doesn't take well to American or European products :p
ReplyDeleteI thought the prices were OK. The prices were the same as any other Korean item I've purchased like IOPE, Laneige, ISAKNOX, so I guess for me I guess the price was like any other Asian product.
Hi lala!
ReplyDeleteIt's okay. You can leave comments on any post here :)
Wow, so I guess it's just a matter of how your skin reacts to the products then. I use Laneige and Isaknox too, but I think both brands are worth the price (well, Isaknox is a tad too expensive...) because their products feel better in quality. I like Laneige makeup too. Somehow, the Esolis stuff were just not quite there for me.
Well, that's just my 2 cents anyway. I'm sorry the brand went away when it was working well for you. I'd hate it if my favorite stuff got discontinued. Did you ever find another brand of products that work out for you just as well? What are you using now?
Thanks for stopping by :)
yea.. i really liked esolis "oil control pore refiner." worked amazingly for my skin. does anyone know of any other brands that has an oil control pore refiner similar to esolis' products?
ReplyDeletei find alot of other ones overly dry my skin or just causes my skin to be more oily...
Hi there Anonymous!
ReplyDeleteI didn't try Esolis' Oil Control Pore Refiner, but I have used Shiseido Pureness Matifying Moisturizer Oil-free and the Pore Minimizing Cooling Essence several years ago when my skin was more on the oily side and they kept my skin from getting oil slick all the time. You can see the whole Pureness line from the link below.
http://www.sca.shiseido.com/index.cfm?select=catalog/index.cfm?brand=4