As you may have guessed, I love beauty products and cosmetics, which can often be an expensive habit as I love more 'high-end' products too! Lately though I have been looking for cheaper alternatives for some of my regular and more expensive products. I've heard about E.L.F. through word of mouth going around the Internet, and the buzz seemed quite good. 'This company makes cosmetics at budget prices, yet are still great quality!' seemed to be what everyone was saying. Intrigued I decided to venture onto their website.

E.L.F. stands for eyelipsface, and they make a good range of cosmetics like your typical company, but the majority of them are priced at a tiny £1.50, even their make-up brushes! The exception to this are there 'kits and gifts' but even then, they are competitively priced.

My usual face powder is Clinique's Clarifying Pressed Powder, this is a powder which helps absorb oil and prevent blemishes, an essential in my make-up bag that usually costs me £18. I was intrigued to see that E.L.F. also do a 'Clarifying Pressed Powder' for a mere £1.50! I decided to give this one a try as if it turned out to be just as good as my Clinique powder, then I would be saving a ton of money.

The E.L.F. website clearly shows 4 shades. Tone 1 being the lightest and going up to Tone 4, which is the darkest. Tone 1 looked nice and light, and is the image shown on DooYoo at the top of this page. I have fair skin so this looked to be perfect for my shade, and so I ordered it, quite pleased because I'd spent £1.50 instead of my usual £18!

The powder turned up and it was a small case packaged on some card. It certainly looked cheap and nasty really, but I was ready to give this powder the benefit of the doubt. The compact itself feels cheap and the plastic feels like it will easily fall apart. You get a powder puff with it, again not the best one I've used but I had to remember this was a budget product. Now, the first think to alarm me was the shade of the powder. Compared to the shade on the website it looks considerably darker. I've held my powder up against the computer screen to compare against Tone 1 and it's not the same shade! I checked the packaging, the cardboard clearly says Tone 1. I checked the compact itself and a sticker on the back clearly says Tone 1, yet this isn't a light shade as shown on the E.L.F. website! The E.L.F. website states the powder has a scent of 'Sugar Orange.' I'm not sure why they thought the powder would even NEED scent but smelling it closely, it does smell faintly or oranges, but the scent is awful really, they really should have done without that!

I set about to apply this powder, although I really wasn't expecting good results. I wasn't wrong. The powder went on terribly, my face looked orange, it didn't blend well at all, and it didn't even provide any coverage! I only applied this to one cheek and I stopped right there and removed it, it looked that bad. This powder will now be going straight to the bin, it only cost me £1.50 but it's that terrible I want my £1.50 back as it's not worth a single penny.

E.L.F. are a budget cosmetics company and after my first product from them it's safe to say I won't be shopping with them again. They may only cost £1.50, but you might as well throw that £1.50 straight into the bin.

I guess my mission continues to find a cheaper clarifying powder that does the job.