ELF brow kit review

My eyebrows are naturally very sparse and fair for my skin and hair colour. I didn't appreciate until recently how filling in eyebrows really frames my face and compliments the rest of my makeup. Along with concealing and foundation, filling in my brows is the thing that I have to do every day as a bare minimum. Looking back at photos before brows I can really tell what was missing!

My favourite eyebrow product used to be a powder I got from the ideal home show about two years ago, I have found the brand online since (cresty cosmetics) and was gutted when I dropped and shattered it all over the bathroom floor!

I purchased the ELF eyebrow kit, in the shade medium, as a replacement, which is a gel and powder combined. The colours are very subtle but defining at the same time which is perfect as I have always avoided pencil products, fearing that my brows will look too drawn in.

I use the brush provided to apply, which has a stiff angled end for applying the gel and a softer brush to apply the powder. I apply the gel first using that to fill in the most sparse areas and define the shape. From my experience the gel alone does not give a lot of colour and only once I apply the powder on top do I see any real definition happening. The colour then lasts the majority of the day, but if I were to go out in the evening I would re-apply.

Before 

After

The kit is from the Studio range and is £3.50. I have been using this since August and barely made a dent in either the gel or the powder so I see this lasting me a very long time!

Generally, I find everything about eyebrow maintenance very tedious! I would like to try dying them myself but I am a bit worried about the potential for that to go very wrong! If anyone does have experience with at-home eyebrow dying I would love to hear about it.

What’s in my dump bag

I love my ELF dump bag, which I managed to purchase for half price in their 50% off sale. I needed something that was bigger than the makeup bags I currently owned but was still small enough to carry in a small weekend bag.

This works perfectly and fits a surprising amount of makeup with room to spare. Can you believe all this fit into that on bag?

This is what I took with me on my recent weekend away:

Sleek Nude pallete, 

ELF concealer palette, 

Sleek contour kit, 

ELF eyebrow kit, 

Sleek nude collection blush, 

Nutrogena 2 in 1 fight and clear spot treatment, 

ELF lipgloss in candlelight,

Garnier eye roll on, 

ELF cream liner x2 (copper and black)

Sleek lipstick in liquor, 

Floss, 

Sample of Lancome foundation, 

Estee Lauder illusionist mascara

Bourjois rose blush, 

Urban Decay primer potion, 

Garnier BB cream

I also had a selection of eye and face brushes, and my ELF concealer stick.

Of course I didn’t end up using half of this, but it’s always nice to have more…..just incase! 

Quick review: ELF mineral blemish kit

After using the Bare Minerals night treatment and finding it to be nothing more than a good spot treatment I wanted to try out the ELF mineral blemish kit and see if this could be my dupe. The blemish kit contains 30% sulphur as its active ingredient which is meant to kill the bacteria on the skin.

In short I found this product to work okay, I ‘luckily’ had a small breakout just below my lip which gave me the perfect opportunity to test this. On the first night I applied it overnight and the spot was reduced by the morning. As the day went on though it seemed to ‘grow again’ and took me a few days for it to clear even though I was applying it every night. The skin around the spot did become a little dry and flaky which is common with sulphur containing products.

Although the colour is meant to be sheer, it is very shimmery which in my opinion makes it no good for use in the day. The colour is very light and doesn’t blend in well to the skin.

Everything else about the product is great, the packaging is sleek, the concealer concealer brush supplied works well in picking up the minerals and you get a generous amount of product for your money. That being said, I managed to pick this up in the 50% off promotion and I think £3 is a much more reasonable price for it than the normal £6.

I will continue to use this, as it does help somewhat although there are better products out there for the occasional blemish. It is definitely something I would not recommend to anyone with more severe acne or breakouts.

E.L.F haul

I took advantage of the ELF half price sale last weekend and received my package today. Together my sister and I ordered £102 worth of products, which worked out at £25 each after the half price sale and then splitting the cost between us.

I ordered:

Dump bag in burgundy - a lovely colour case which will be perfect for holidays and short breaks as it is bigger than what I own now. As the name suggests it is just one compartment which you dump everything into. I would have preferred it just a little bigger though.

Studio concealer pencil and brush - in the shade light, this is my favourite concealer so I decided to stock up and get two for the price of one.

Mineral blemish kit - considering the bare minerals night treatment worked out as nothing more than an expensive spot treatment I am hoping this may be a good dupe.

Studio cream eyeliner - in the shades black and bronze. The bronze is a beautiful colour, a light brown with a subtle shimmer which is quite pigmented. They each come with a small angled brush which is of a good quality and the size makes it great to keep in your bag or take on trips. They apply smoothly and from first impressions is smudge-proof, but I will put this to the test soon.

Studio lip lock pencil (no image) - the description makes it sound like a clear lip liner which should then keep your lipstick from feathering.

Studio small smudge brush - a very dense stiff brush which is not what I expected but should be good for smudging eyeliner or applying very concentrated colour.

Eye crease brush - although I love my Sonia Kashuk crease brush this is smaller and should allow me to be more precise with my application for some looks. It is surprisingly soft and for 75p if this is the quality of all their brushes I will be very impressed.

Dramatic and natural lash kit - again at 75p each I decided it was time to learn how to wear false lashes.

Studio Hollywood lashes kit - this was the least impressive product. Considering it is the studio line I was expecting a higher quality than the regular lash kits but the lashes don’t look like they are cut to the same shape and the quality of the applicator is really low. For the price though I cannot be bothered with the hassle of a return so if it turns out they do look odd I may have to trim them to look even.

Juiced berry super glossy lip shine - I have always been disappointed with the lip products only because the colours are so different to what you see online. In this case juiced berry is nothing more than a clear gloss even though the tube makes it look like it should be bright and pigmented.

Studio small makeup holder - I wanted something to contain the brushes I use on a daily basis. The size of the holder is perfect but the finish isn’t great and had I paid more than £2.50 I would be disappointed, but it does the job so I can’t complain.

Overall I am very pleased with my order and have a mental list in my head of my next! I think ELF did very well to get the order out to me within a week considering I can imagine the stock/orders room must have been manic.

Quick Review - ELF Mist and Set

I received ELF as a freebie with other purchases back in January and hadn’t started to use it until recently. More recently I have found my makeup isn’t lasting all day. I can only put this down to the travelling I do to work and the fact that once I am there, I am sitting at a desk all day and finding myself touching my face (which is a habit I need to stop!).  What is really unusual is that it fades unevenly!

The Smashbox primer I am using up for my project 10 pan doesn’t seem to help with making my makeup last, but I have found that the ELF mist and set is better at this.

The instructions say to spray lightly on your face, but from my experience lightly doesn’t work. So I spray 2 light pumps on each half of my face and this works really well. I allow the it to dry naturally rather than blot.

Although my makeup still fades eventually, it fades evenly and to a lesser extent than if I were not to use any at all. When I have used it for nights out, my makeup lasts perfectly over the course of the evening.

On the more negative side I do not like the smell of the product at all, which reminds me of stagnant water. But this smell doesn’t linger.

The product contains aloe, green tea, cucumber and vitamins A, C, and E which is meant to be moisturising and soothing to the skin. I cannot remember the blog post (or the blogger) but I remember reading that the ingredients aren’t very good compared to MAC fix+ so this has made me reluctant to use it daily incase it were to break me out. If anyone knows the post I am talking about, please link below!

For the price I think ELF could have been a bit more generous than the 60ml they give, especially considering I use more than suggested I am likely to get through it quicker. I can’t compare it to any similar product but as a cheap fix, this works.

FOTN - Mixing it up

On Friday I went to London Zoo for one of their annual Zoo lates nights. The zoo is open till 10 for you to wonder around and see the animals as well as have food and there is even a silent disco.

Since it is not a true ‘late night’ I headed there straight from work which meant a quick change of clothes and make-up refresh in the bathroom.

This photograph was actually taken after I got home (excuse the hair). I used a mix of my bourgeois mineral radiance and mememe rouge as a blush, which tones down the blush and gives it a more bronze colour. My eyes were really simple due to a lack of tools, my Avon anew shadow and eyeliner.

On my lips I went for a mix of Boots naturals in caramel and ELF bare brown (swatched below) with the mixed effect shown on the far right.

I really like this colour combination, in the past I have found bare brown to be a little dark, but by combining these two it makes it more wearable with quite a natural/bare face in my opinion.

Finally a picture of me and the penguins on the new penguin beach. I encourage anyone who is in/near London to check out the Zoo lates before the end of July. I will definitely be heading there again next year.

Face of the Day - War Paint (featuring Sleek)

Having got the disappointing news that I was not selected for the job I wanted, I needed war paint today to stop myself getting too down about it all.

I have been experimenting with my Sleek palette a lot recently, as well as my eyeliner stencil (which I think I have finally got the hang of), and really like the look I achieved today. 

This look was achieved by placing peach gold on across the outer two thirds of the lid, then taking parfait and concentrating that in the inner corner before bringing it lighting across the rest of the lid. Concentrated in the crease is bittersweet and a tiny bit of the colour stone. Finally belini was used as a highlight. I apologise I did not have the foresight to take pictures step by step, but I do intend on doing another tutorial soon. 

A mid blink picture which actually showed the eye makeup well! What do you think of the lipliner over gloss application?……..yea I can’t tell the difference either. 

My face with finished off with the usual suspects at the moment, Sleek sugar may gloss, and ELF mineral apricot lip liner, and mememe blush in rouge. 

ELF Lip Products Review

In ELFs recent facebook promotion I decided I would pick out a few of their lip products I have been wanting to try. Luckily the face Mist and Set was thrown in as a freebie which was an added bonus since this had been on my wish list since it came out, once I have tested this fully I will do a review on this separately.

Here is my small haul;

For starters, I love ELF. Their studio line products feature in my daily face and I have never been disappointed. That being said I haven’t actually ever purchased eye shadows or lip products from them, not for lack of want, but more never being able to decide what colours to go for.

I brought two new shades of the £1.50 lip glosses, in maltshake and pink kiss. Maltshake came out a lot darker than I expected but is still a nice colour, it is more a brown than the I was expecting. I really like these though so a big thumbs up for these two.

I also decided to go for the Baby Lips lipstick also from the £1.50 range. It is more like a gloss than a lipstick to me and with the pigmentation of my natural lips this added little colour. Although I do really like the combination of my Rimmel Lipliner (pink) all over my lips with this on top.

From the studio line I wanted to go for a lip-stain and thought I was getting a nice peach colour with first date. However, this was a lot brighter than I expected though and I can’t see myself wearing this, unless I find something to mix it with. I don’t think I will repurchase any of these as from what I have tested the product doesn’t act as a lip stain. As you can see in the image below, once you reapply the gloss it dilutes the colour lip stain which is not what you would expect.

I finally brought one mineral lipstick in bare brown. A much darker brown that I was expecting so I was worried initially to wear it as I thought it may be too dark for my skin tone but it is a really lovely colour. I will definitely be repurchasing these as they are so creamy and lovely to wear. On the negative side they aren’t very long lasting. This also looks lovely with the maltshake gloss on top to darken it a bit or candlelight (not shown) to lighten it.

My only complaint from this whole purchase has been that the website colours/pictures are terrible at giving an accurate representation. In this instance I was lucky that I liked most of the colours and they suited me, but that could have easily not been the case. I think ELF would benefit from a brief description of the colour on the website to help. Otherwise I still love the brand and I look forward to adding more of their products to my collection.

Thanks for reading!

Please see my YouTube video for more ramblings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7k5TXY9Fc4