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E.L.F Complexion Perfection
by ChemicalRomance
My skin is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination; there is always something about it that doesn't look good - whether it be a patch of red or just a general uneven skin tone. I've always been on the lookout for something to make a difference to the general appearance to my face. Even after applying make-up it still looks not ... quite right, I'm not a satisfied girly when it comes to my face, though my boyfriend doesn't notice and even when I point it out he's not fussed so I can't say it's that prominent in my life!
~*~ E.L.F ~*~
Eyes Lips Face, a cosmetic company available online - I'd heard so much good about this website and the products it was providing that I felt like I needed to sample the good stuff. So before Christmas I decided so go on and make a box to be posted in my direction, they supply items from foundation, to eye shadow, to nail varnish, to nail files - with lip gloss, lipstick and blusher. You'd be hard pushed to not find what you are looking for on the website. In a basic level, to mineral and studio varieties that do vary in price, most of them for around the £1.50 - £2 mark which is a bargain considering the cost of cosmetics recently!
~*~ Blue, Green, Red and Yellow ~*~
I bought this because I need something to give my skin a much better overall tone to it; during my hunting on E.L.F I found this tone correcting powder. Straight away I wanted to try it, didn't bother looking at any reviews beforehand which I'm pleased about because I think otherwise I might have been a little put off it - but instead I saw it and put it in my shopping bag despite the price. It isn't that expensive I'm just so aware of the price of everything now that I felt bad buying myself this item!
It does come in two different shades now for a fairer complexion as well as a darker complexion, which I think is what people have found in the past was the problem. For me I've chosen the 'cool' compact because I am fair skinned and its winter so there is no tan on my face at all, and I don't use a very dark foundation to change that - so the cool was ideal for me!
Pale and beautiful - maybe!
The powder comes in a rectangular compact, it is a black compact with a click open section at the front - really easy to get open actually I can just do it with two fingers no need to get your nails in to open it, because that would probably just chip them! When the case is open it has a mirror in the entirety of the top of the case, which does get covered in powder quite quickly. In the bottom of the compact you have your powder in the usual metal tray, as you find most cosmetics now - it is stuck to the bottom of the compact turn it upside down it won't fall out! The powder is in the bottom tray, it comes in four different sections that are in one - useful to blend to be able to sweep over your face.
The cool powder comes in green, yellow, blue and pink - they seem like really bizarre colour combinations since that isn't even close to a natural skin tone, but as red is neutralised by green apparently, it's not that weird. Depending on the size of your brush you can either pick each colour out individually to apply to particular areas or you can blend the entire thing together to make a colour combination that will even out your skin tone. For red areas you're trying to neutralise - which is the thing I do the most, I go for the green predominantly I start on that go round the other colours and finish with that in one sweep of my brush and I find that applied in the right places my skin looks less red. I do just blend it majority of the time regardless of the colours as together they do make my skin look better, blended from my face down into my neck gives it a more consistent tone. It's also good on top of foundation as a normal powder if you've no pressed powder left, as it will do the same it just needs to be blended a bit more than a normal pressed powder.
I use a large brush for my powder so it does pick up a bit of everything without trying too hard, and it's easily blendable on my face - it seems that is probably the easiest way to do it, so you don't have any patches where you might look a bit green around the gills if you've not blended it properly. Only problem with a big brush is that it does end up blending together quite quickly, but all it means is that after a lot of usage that the middle will end up being used up faster, but that doesn't bother me too much. I'll use it until it's all gone, and then buy another one I really like this product it gets rid almost completely of my big red patches and just in general makes my skin look more even and makes me feel far more confident at the same time! Especially as I can apply it in the morning and my red skin doesn't come through until I take my make-up off at the end of the day!
Well recommended if you're struggling with your skin tone!
~*~ Price and Availability ~*~
On E.L.F's website, for £3.75 which in reality compared to some cosmetic brands, is a bargain! You will have to pay postage if you can't manage to fill your basket up to £30 for the free delivery but I'm sure you could!
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E.L.F Daily Brush Cleaner
by rachieb123
My usual brush cleanser of choice has been the Mac cleanser, however in an effort to save some pennies I bought this alternative from ELF to see if I could get similar results at a cheaper price. The ELF brush cleanser cost me around £3.50 whereas the Mac cleanser retails for significantly more.
So, how did it perform? ...
The first thing I have to note that I like about this cleanser is that it comes in a spray bottle. This makes the application so easy as you simply spray onto the brushes and then wipe the brushes on a cloth to remove excess makeup and then allow them to air-dry. The cleanser contains alcohol which means that it kills off any bacteria, which can help stop you inadvertently putting any germs onto your face which could cause blemishes. One downside to this cleanser in comparison to the Mac one is that it has a strong alcohol smell, which can be a little off-putting, but does go away once the brushes have dried.
The cleanser does an effective job of removing the makeup from brushes, however once they have dried it can leave the bristles a little dry, it doesn't really have any kind of conditioning element as other cleanser do.
So, overall I give this a 3/5, it gets points for being cheap and for removing makeup, however it doesn't keep my brush bristles conditioned enough which I need as I have a few expensive brushes which I need to look after. I would say however that this is a good disinfectant cleanser, as such I will use it until the bottle runs out but I will alternate it with other cleansers in order to maintain the condition of my brushes.
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ELF Studio Eyeliner & Shadow Stick
by pink_glitter
I had some success with the Max Factor Smoky Eye Effect Shadow Sticks a while ago, so when I spotted the Eyeliner and Shadow Sticks from elf (eyes, lips, face) I thought that they might make a nice cheaper alternative to the Max Factor product.
As the name would probably suggest, this is a double ended product consisting of an ... eyeliner at one end and an eye shadow at the other end. They come in a selection of six different colour combos. I purchased two, the Smoke/Black which is a slate grey shadow and black liner and Pearl/Glow which is a pearly white liner and a pearly pink shadow. At the moment I have the Pearl/Glow shade in front of me (although it is in the Smoke/Black box for some reason!) and so that is the one I'm basing the majority of this review on.
The sticks are from elf's Studio range which is their slightly more premium range of cosmetics. The product comes presented in a black box and the stick itself is also black in colour with white writing. Each end is clearly marked 'Shadow' or 'Liner' and the shadow end is slightly fatter than the liner end.
Firstly I should note that I don't get on all that well with standard eyeliners. I have to use gel ones as the roots of my eyelashes are blonde, and so pencil eyeliners don't tend to work very well as it appears there's a gap between my lashes and my skin. These are actually more of a crayon type of liner and I've had mixed success with this type of product in the past, so I honestly didn't know how I'd get on with these.
I always apply the liner first. I don't have the black one with me, but I seem to remember it didn't work very well on my lashes. I can't really blame the product too much for that, I think it's my weird eyelashes that are to blame! The Pearl shade seemed to go onto my lower lash line very easily and looked quite good, even though I wasn't sure it would. I use that trick of putting a white liner mark on the lower inside corner of my eyes to help me look more awake (random fact: I've noticed Emma Bunton from the Spice Girls does this a lot) and this crayon type pencil goes on very easily and is very effective at that.
The shadow part of the product is also like a crayon but this end has a much wider and more rounded tip. Again I have had mixed results with cream based shadows, some of them slide off after five minutes and some, like the Max Factor one, stay longer than I would expect.
I find this goes on to the skin very easily and feels very creamy. It is a pale colour and although it looks OK with one coat, I do tend to go over it a few times to build up the colour. I worried that the rounded shape of the shadow stick would make it difficult to get into the corners of the eyes, but that's not really a problem thankfully, as I just turn the stick to the side slightly.
Once on, I think the shadow looks nice, but the creamy consistency means that it covers up any liner I have already applied onto my upper lash line. The two colours in both the sticks I have are too similar for them to blend - instead they seem to just merge into one which is quite disappointing. This said I find I can get quite a nice look by applying the liner just to my lower lash line then applying the shadow to my lid. This might seem a little strange but it seems to work well for my eye shape and skin tone.
I think the main problem I have had with these sticks is that the shadow creases very easily. I can't say I'm overly surprised really as cream eye shadows tend to do this with me, but it is disappointing. I only get a couple of hours at most from these. Also, having applied this yesterday, I noticed that some of the shimmer had come off and it had travelled down my face slightly!
These shadow/liner sticks cost £3.75 each and are available from www.eyeslipsface.com
Overall I found these disappointing. Perhaps I was being a little optimistic to think they would share the quality of the Max Factor product which is twice the price. They're not all bad - the shadow does look nice on, it's the fact I only get a couple of hours wear before it creases really badly that is the main negative and on that basis I don't think I could really recommend this product.
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