Reviews: Recently Purchased ELF Products

ELF (short for "Eyes Lips Face") gets a bad wrap in many sectors of the beauty community, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. Are all of the products going to be perfectly-concocted miracles? Definitely not; I've only found one product that I love unconditionally and would recommend to just about everyone, and that's the Complexion Perfection powder. But does the fact that it's cheap (just about everything is $1-5) and sometimes a wee bit shoddy make it all bad? God, no! Just like Wet n' Wild and Jordana, ELF has some real gems. You just have to be realistic about your expectations.

I purchased these products from EyesLipsFace.com about 3 weeks ago with a free shipping code, so the entire order came to about $25 shipped. You can also find selections of ELF products at certain Target, K-mart, and Wal-mart stores.

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Keep

ELF Essential Liquid Eyeliners in Ash and Coffee, $1 each.
Liquid liner has slowly but surely become my favorite eyeliner "medium," so to speak, and the ELF liners are the sort that appeal to me. The formula is smooth and liquidy, and the applicator is a thin brush tip. It's extremely easy to control the applicator and apply the product, though part of that may just be that I'm used to applying liquid liners. Coffee, a rich medium brown shade, is very slightly sheer and may require a second pass; Ash, however, is a really beautiful, opaque slate gray that for some odd reason photographs blue. These stayed on all day without flaking, but will come off easily with soap and water.


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ELF Baked Blush in Peachy Cheeky, $3.
I was hesitant to purchase this product because it's very new and just about impossible to find reviews on, but bit the bullet because, hey, somebody has to go first, and I can spare the $3. One of the few reviews I could locate mentioned that the shades are much lighter than they might appear on the website, so I went for something that appeared to be too dark for me, Peachy Cheeky. I'm glad I did: this turned out to be a really gorgeous baked blush that's just right for my skintone. It looks coral with streaks of brown in the pan, but swatches and applies as a golden peach. The texture is also quite nice, only a hair dryer than my MAC and Milani mineralized blushes. This would probably be a lovely blush for fair and light skintones and a highlighter for anyone darker. The pot is rather small--I've compared it to a MAC Cream Color Base for size reference--but the dome is quite "tall", and for $3, I ain't complaining.



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ELF Studio Makeup Remover Pen, $3 (see in action in swatch picture, bottom of post)

In the past, I've shunned makeup remover pens. I just never saw the need for them: if I want a super-sharp line on my eyeliner, I'll use a piece of clear tape, and I'm otherwise fine with free-styling my eye makeup until I get a decent shape. But this little guy intrigued me, and I thought it might be nice for those moments when I sneeze or get the snot scared out of me by a family member, leaving me with eyeliner streaks and mascara blobs. This is a hard felt-tip pen, just like a Crayola marker, and it's slightly thicker than I would want. It does work, however; I've used it to clean up my eyeliner lines a few times. This would also be nice for people who often wear just eyeliner or concealer and want an "emergency makeup remover" for nights at a special someone's house. The tip DOES stain and get dirty, so be sure to wipe it off after each use.

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Consider

ELF Essential Bronzer in Luminance, $1.
As the pictures on the right show, this product looks EXTREMELY similar to theBalm Mary Lou-Manizer in the pan and even on my fingers. While I normally avoid purchasing duplicate shades, I thought Luminance might be a great alternative to Mary Lou for travel and for folks on a budget. Once applied, however, the product becomes a very sheer, slightly-golden-toned bronzer, while Mary Lou is definitely a bright golden highlight. It's not a BAD bronzer by any means, but the pan is pretty deceptive, and I can only see it working for people in a very select skintone range (NC20-30).


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ELF Studio Stippling brush, $3.
People brag on this brush like it's the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially for applying foundations to give you an "airbrushed" look. I love my Real Techniques (pictured, the pink brush) to absolute death, but because I use it so much for blushes and therefore have to clean it constantly, I figured a back-up couldn't hurt. The ELF Studio stippling brush is, quite frankly, mind-boggling: the bristles are absolutely FREAKISHLY long and not densely packed, giving the brush a very "loose" feel, especially in comparison to the shorter, thicker head of bristles on the Real Techniques brush. The length of the bristles also makes it very hard to control the brush, especially in tight spaces like the nose or the temple, so I only use it if I'm applying my foundation first. That being said, it really does provide a lovely finish to the skin and blends foundation well, which surprised me, given how hard it was to control. I would only recommend using it for runny liquids or powders; very thick, creamy foundations might pose a problem to such sparse bristles.


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ELF Studio lipliner with blending brush in Grapefruit, $3.
I saw a swatch of this lipliner on Specktra and pounced on it without a second thought: as the picture shows, it appears to be a pinky-coral a la MAC Viva Glam Nicki lipstick, and anything vaguely VG Nicki-esque in color is like crack to me. Even in swatches, it appears to be a dead-on lipliner dupe for the lipstick. When I apply it to my lips, however, it turns much more coral-orange in color, which is a little confusing, given the fact that my lips are naturally a cool rosey-mauve. I also found the formula a bit drying; if you're like me and you enjoy filling in your lips with a lipliner as a lipstick base or as a stand-alone color, this is not the formula for you. It's still a pretty color, and I admit that maybe my body chemistry does something funny to it, but it's more than odd that it instantly turns so orange once it hits my mauvey lips.

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KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!

ELF Studio Complete Coverage concealer in Light, $3.
I'm still not sure why I bought this when I know that the $1 Tone Correcting concealer works quite well for my skin...I think I was hoping for more coverage and more shade options for my $20 Face tutorials. Suffice to say that this product is not complete coverage; in fact, it's next-to-no coverage, despite feeling like a thick, heavy cream on the face. This barely lasted on my discoloration and bled right off of my undereyes, even when set with a powder. The one good thing I can say is that the shades are decent: there's 2 cool and 2 warm shades, ranging from roughly NW10-NC20. Why bother mixing for the perfect shade, however, when the concealer is absolute shit?

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ELF Mineral Eyeshadow Primer in Sheer, $3.
I liked the Essential primer just fine: it didn't make my eyeshadows brighter, but it DID hold them in place and make them easier to blend. But people insisted that I just HAD to try the Mineral primer, calling it a dupe for the rather lovely NARS primer. I was unable to test that theory, unfortunately: my tube arrived bone dry and basically empty, and I can't get any of the product out. Ugh.

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Here are some swatches--again, not sure why the Ash liquid liner looks blue in photos, because it's definitely gray on the eyes. The line through the top few swatches is from 4 passes of the makeup remover pen. You can also check back on some of my old FOTD posts to see a few of these products in action.

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And now, some kitteh pictures! Yes, she is slightly cross-eyed, as some people very rudely and ignorantly point out whilst laughing at my beautiful baby. Her mother was a Siamese cat, and strabismus is extremely common in the breed. She's still a gorgeous specimen of felinity, if you ask me.