Tuesday

E.L.F Haul & Swatches!

This came a couple of weeks back (although it did take a whole week to get here! I'm blaming the snow ¬_¬). I seized on the free shipping and eye shadow palette offer ELF ran to order a few items I hadn't got around to trying yet (I could probably open an ELF shop with all the stuff I have from them!).

First off, I really love the secure boxes they send their orders in and how everything is so neatly packed. I've ordered from them at least 6 times and nothing's ever been damaged in the post.























All laid out....

Word is the Makeup Mist & Set is the poor man's MAC Fix +...I haven't tried the MAC version so I'll have to let you know how I get on and whether it extends the wear of my makeup...I'm sceptical. 

Individual lashes are something I've never tried, and I think it could all go horribly wrong so I don't mind experimenting with expensive ones.  The Eye Widener is just a plain white pencil to use on my lower waterline.  At the moment I'm using an ancient stubby Rimmel white kohl pencil so it was due for an upgrade!



I was delighted to receive the free 'neutrals' eye shadow palette rather than the smoky ones as some of the browns looked delicious and I wasn't wrong! There's also a cute mirror in the lid.


And swatched...


I'm not hugely impressed with the quality of the eyeshadows, they are a bit loose and chalky but would work fine over a good primer.  It's a great set to keep in my desk at work for a last minute transformation!


I resisted the Shimmering Facial Whips for ages but for £1.50 I thought why not?! Below is the shade 'Lilac Petal' - now it may just be me but I can't even see a trace of Lilac!  It's a very pigmented creamy highlighter and a little goes a very long way! For those with dull complexions it would be useful to mix in with moisturiser or foundation for a bit of a glow, but it would be very easy to overdo it with this stuff!  It does smell like Orange Blossom as promised however!  I don't know how much use I will make out of this product but I don't regret picking it up.


I picked up the studio line primer for my friend's birthday a few months ago and she's really been enjoying it so I ordered one for myself too.  I haven't used primers much recently as I have very oily skin and they can tend to make the shine a bit worse, but my friend reports back that this one keeps your skin matte for ages!

The consistency is quite similar to Smashbox's Photo Finish primer, which I bought with high hopes but was disappointed by.  I'll do a full review on this one for you soon.


I actually picked up two of the mineral lipsticks and it's LOVE.  The colour, pigmentation, texture, packaging, everything - for the price (£3.50) - is fantastic!  This one here is Cheerful Cherry, a very deep berry red, but I also picked up Barely Bitten which is rapidly becoming my all-time-favourite red lippy (Sorry Viva Glam Cyndi!).

Sorry for the messy application, I just swiped it on...

Now this was the one dud purchase.  I knew I shouldn't have ordered it as the bristles looked similar in the image online to a brush I received with an ELF mineral powder set a while back and which frankly was crap.  But it was only £1.50 and I needed to reach a certain basket value to get the free shipping (worth £3) so I bunged it in as I am a sucker for an angled brush.  It's not as awful as I thought it would be, and I'll probably keep it at work for emergency blusher applications, but if I were you there are much better products on the ELF website to spend your money on! Their £1.50 eye shadow brushes are actually pretty amazing - they brought to me my favourite e/s blending brush!  It tends to be out of stock a lot!



So there you have it.  I will do a fuller review on the primer and the mist and do a separate post of Barely Bitten mineral lipstick with swatches comparing it to VG Cyndi as I'm so in love with it!

What's your favourite ELF product of the moment?

27 comments:

  1. ah I'm glad you did this as I was hoping to get a few bits from elf with my Christmas money but wasn't sure what products to get, I was going to get the eyeshadow pallette but don't think I will now, love your blog by the way :) xxx

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  2. I am loving the Makeup mist & set! I can easily compare it to Urban Decay's All Nighter spray.

    Just don't spray it directly on your face, spray it up into the air and let it fall on your face!

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  3. I love ELF hauls, I have at least one every month, that is how addicted I am to ELF. It's pretty fun to discover the good products, but my bank account suffered too much by this time. LOL. That Mineral Lipstick looks awesome. I'm waiting for their promotions to get Cool Coral. Not willing to spend full price yet. hehe

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  4. Thanks Jen! ELF has loads of decent products - it's just that I've ordered most of them by now so with this order I was scrambling a bit to fill my basket. I really recommend their studio line which is slightly more expensive, but the brushes are good quality. The mineral lipsticks and eyeshadows are pretty good. When I get the time I will do overviews of what I love and don't like so much from their range x

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  5. Oh thanks Kimberly - I was actually wondering if it was in any way similar to the UD one so now I'm dying to try it as it's had such great reviews!

    I always wait for the shipping or some sort of other promotion from ELF before making an order - they always seem to have one going on the FB page. I know the items are cheap individually but it's because of that that I regularly spend £30+ on their site without a thought, whereas if I were to buy one £30 item say from NARS it would feel like a big purchase! Strange, but so goes the logic of a shopping/beauty addict! x

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  6. nice haul. the lipstick color is really pretty and the brush looks super soft.

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  7. Great haul! I have never tried ELF, the shipping is too expensive for me )=

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  8. I love ELF, gotta try the mineral lipsticks! Can't wait for reviews!

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  9. I agree with G A B Y's comment - shipping is too expensive, so I just add to my e.l.f. wishlist until a free shipping code goes out! I have the mineral-infused primer and love it; only thing is, after about 2 weeks,I thought my bottle was empty - nope, all the product was stuck to the sides, and not going into the straw ... so you have to get creative. Oh well. I did not love the eye widener, have to press kind of hard to get anything to show up, which is not fun on the waterline!

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  10. I wanted to try that Mist & Set too, but they were out of stock when I ordered. :-/ That's one of my main beefs with ELF, they run out of the popular stuff way too much. That lippie is pretty though! :)

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  11. hey I also ordered some stuff... did it on 4th & I'm still waiting for my stuff :-)) ..

    I ordered the 32 shadow palette also, heard so much about it.. do you have that already??..

    this is my 2nd time buying elf products.. The 1st time I bought like 3 brushes.. was not happy..


    reviewofbeautyproducts.blogspot.com

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  12. Awesome haul! My mom's heading back to the states next month, I'm putting lots of ELF products on my list :)

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  13. Great haul, love the colour of that lipstick. I love ELF and have been really impressed with most of the products that I've tried. I'm currently using their 3 in 1 colour stick in Pink Lemonade as a lipstick. x

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  14. looks like you got some great things! would love to you know what you think of the individual eye lashes xx

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  15. great haul! love the colors of the eyeshadows!

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  16. That really sucks about the brush, I have that but the handle is black... I guess they remade them? Mine is pretty fantastic! Guess they let the quality go on it.

    I love the lipsticks!

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  17. The last brush is very useful for me :O

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  18. great haul! thanks for swatches and the review :) i'll definitely be ordering from elf soon!

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  19. Great haul! I want all of it now haha ;)

    Fee x

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  20. I am OBSESSED with ELF.... I swear I order new stuff every week. I love the bronzer, has to be one of my favs.

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  21. Have you tried the Studio brushes? They're pretty rad! The facial whip looks nice but I really hate the Orange Blossom smell they put in!

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  22. Hi, I'm following you now, if you want you can do the same. MakeUpLover

    http://makeuplover01.blogspot.com

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  23. wah, nice haul! and I love your swatches, it's so detailed and pro =)

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  24. great haul, im definitely going to check out their site!! love everything you got :)
    come by and visit my blog dear
    happy holidays xo

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  25. Thanks for the full review, it looks like there are some good goodies in there! Looking forward to the more detailed reviews!

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