My Cyber Monday order of e.l.f. cosmetics has finally arrived! No reviews just yet but I do have some swatches prepared. For the unaware, e.l.f. is an incredibly cheap makeup brand but it's also hit or miss which means that you should do a lot of research beforehand. Some things work and some absolutely do not, their website is notorious for not being able to display the correct colour, and while it works for some, it doesn't work for others. So why take the risk? Well, when you can snag 50% off then that means that while you stand to loose some, you may just make out with a winner. For instance, during my last order, a lot of eyeshadows and eyeliners did not do anything for me. The lip liner was superb and nail polishes were decent.
I know that the image is a bit dark and while you can
click here for a slightly brighter image, neither of them really capture the plum colour.
Initial observations are that the black is great, fine point, able to handle curves and the point was fine enough so that the line can decrease in size. Overall, it looks like it has a lot of potential.
The teal and the plum on the other hand had much thicker brushes so I can't even imagine them going on lightly. Not to mention that the teal is basically opaque; it clumped up in some areas leaving a great amount of colour whereas others it looked like it was barely there. The first line of teal from the left is actually a curvy line which did not go well. The same for the second line of the plum. The plum is rich in colour though so I'm a little bit more pleased with that.
Brightening Eye Liner
In electric purple and teal for $1 each.
I was
not surprised that the pigmentation was decent. In fact if you read my
previous review they go on well
without a primer. But they aren't long lasting and that's the key here. I'll see how well they pair up with the other liners next week when I attempt purple and teal eyes.
What I can mention now though is that the teal somewhat disappointed me. It seems much dark than it should be. The purple took a few strokes to achieve the colour that is pictures but I'm not worried about how it may perform. My concern is that the teal eyeliner will not blend with the other teal products (such as the liquid eyeliner above) that I have gotten.
Waterproof Eye Liner Pen
In black for $1.
(Remember that you can click on the pictures to enlarge them).
I was pretty impressed by this one. Fine point, goes on strong, dries quickly. Doesn't rub off and takes just about forever to wash off (it's waterpoof, so that's a good thing). In fact I was so surprised by it that I decided to check tokidoki's Perfetto next to it.
In the second picture, the first three lines (from the left) are the e.l.f. liner and the 5 lines that appear to the right are all from tokidoki's Perfetto. Perfetto is amazing and precise which is why I use it sparingly (because I love it so darn much). I had a little bit of trouble controlling the e.l.f. liner into finer lines in later attempts that I don't have a picture of and it was mostly the tip's thickness that was giving me a problem. Aside from that though, I can't wait to test this one out because it looks promising.
Cream Eyeliner
In Teal Tease and Punk Purple for $3 each.
Oh the feeling of disappointment. Yes, it was so very incredibly light. A close up of this one isn't even necessary (but I have them on file for now, so if it's requested, I'll put it up). I think that they'd be fun to play with but overall not very usable however I won't know till I start using them. For now though, I am very disappointed in the lack of pigmentation.
And that's all I have to say about that.
This is a comparison of how the pencil, liquid, and cream eyeliner show up (they are shown in the respective order to the right). As suspected, there was some variation with the colours.
The electric purple pencil eyeliner and the punk purple cream eyeliner match up exactly. There is no doubt about that. The liquid liner... well, if you look at the websites' suggested colour for plum, it should be
much closer to the other two however it is a far cry from purple. It's much deeper and almost appears maroon.
The teal cream eyeliner and the teal liquid liner match up but not quite. The cream liner is lighter but you could still balance out the teal with the liquid liner in order to get the right colour, but to also strengthen one another's colour. The teal pencil eyeliner is dark and that darkness was not captured by the camera. It definitely comes of as a striking blue, which is great if that's what you're looking for. But it definitely isn't teal.
Perhaps by this point you noticed what I was going for. If not, the aim was to try a purple eye look as well as a teal eye look. So most of the products I got were purple or teal for the goal of pulling them all together to achieve that solid look. Hopefully next week I can actually try out the looks and report back on how well these things hold up to an 8 hour day.
For now I will say that the
Studio brushes (certainly not to be confused with their other brush lines!) are amazingly soft. I washed them all so once they dry I will get around to using them and hopefully post a review about that.
The e.l.f. company tends to run a promotion every so often where you can snag them for quite a percentage off. Something to strongly consider however is that they tend to not ship things quickly and that there is no return policy. So if you don't like something, you better have a backup plan for it.
