7 e.l.f. products! mini haul/review

my friend and I recently ordered about 25 things from e.l.f., which is an American make up brand that randomly had a 50% off sale on everything on their site, like literally every product omg 

sadly, everything I actually needed to stock up on was out of stock, so I basically just spent a load of money on stuff I didn't actually need as always, sigh 

I chose seven of the products that I bought (I think for myself I had about 15, maybe?), and decided to do a little review on them :-) these are probably the best ones out of the bunch that I bought, but I chose them as I i've actually used them the most, or in one case, it was so bad I couldn't not rant about it omg 

without further ado, enjoy :-) 

^ (we'll work from left to right, and the first one up is the 'all over cover stick', which is a concealer which looks kinda like a massive block and for some reason smells really pretty and orangey)

> (a few swatches of the shadows and lipsticks! L-R studio matte shadow in brick, single eyeshadow in saddle, mineral lipstick in rich raspberry, studio matte lip colour in coral
i've put the photo at the start so I didn't have to put the photo in four times for each product review..) 

this was the cheapest concealer on the site (along with two others, one of which I bought but was so bad I actually gave it away to someone who it worked amazingly for, for some reason wtf) at £1.50, but reduced to 75p for the sale! it's honestly the best face product i've ever had, and i've had some quite expensive stuff, but this totally smashes any kind of foundation, concealer, blusher, literally anything! it smells diviiiiiiiiine! I tried it round my friends house for the first time and even she could smell it just from me using it, it honestly doesn't smell vaguely makeupy at all 

it goes on very thick and very creamy, and covers any blemishes amazingly, but works best for me under the eyes, literally I never sleep so my dark circles are always rubbish, but this covers it so so so so well 

even if this is the only product you wanted from elf, it's worth the £3 p+p fees, as it's still overall cheaper than most concealers! the only slight issue is is that it looks pretty odd and a little shiny and cakey without powder :-( but it's nothing any old power can't fix, and it's nothing i've not come across before with any other concealer, and by this point it had already exceeded my expectations, especially for 75p, so I let it off :-) 

I took a little swatch on my hand next to the blusher, which you can see down below in a bit :-) it doesn't do it too much justice as it's only on my hand (but you can kind of see the coverage), but honestly like it looks better that half the mac concealer products i've seen on people online and stuff, and I don't even have particularly good skin, so it can't even be put down to that! buy buy buy buy buy 

the next product is the smudge eye sponge, which was £1.50, reduced to 75p! I honestly needed so many new makeup brushes, but sadly we got to the sale pretty late so everything was gone, but i'd heard good things about elf's brushes, so I more or less got this just to see if it's any good, and if it is, to order some more of their brushes I actually need for when they get more in stock :-) 

I haven't got an individual photo of this one as the damn camera wouldn't focus, but you can see it in the photo above :-) i'm quite neutral about this brush as I don't have too much use for it, but from what i've used it, I wasn't overly keen.. the actual sponge part is very very firm and doesn't so much smudge as it does kind of just shift the makeup to another place 

idk how to explain it but I think it makes your makeup look quite messy (which I guess is kind of the point of smudging) and look like it was done in a rush, but not in a good way! the only good use i've found for it is the odd occasion i've worn black eyeshadow under my eyes quite thinly, and smudged it out a little with that, but it kinda left my eyes quite sore!

it's a very firm brush that I didn't really expect to be good, and I guess it's mediocre if you actually use a smudge brush often, if not, I think it's rather rubbish! 

OKAY, next up is the blush! again, not too happy with this (the rest of the products after this are awesome, I swear) 

I got this in the colour shy, which looked super pretty on the site, and even though I usually prefer coral shades for blush, I chose this pretty pink one 

this blush came with one of those rubbish brushes that usually come with little eyeshadows and some blushes, and I tried it out, and it really wasn't very good, and I threw it away before I made this review, sorry about that! I used my brush that's served me well and i've used for years, and it's no particular brand, and i'm fairly sure my mum used it when she was a teenager, but it's just your standard one :-)                                           so anyway, this colour on comes out rather odd, it comes out lilac and has a horrible shimmer to it..i'm not sure if you can see in the photo to the right there (the concealer is on my hand too!) not only is it an odd colour, it doesn't blend very well, it kinda just stays where you put it and won't budge, so just is a block of colour as opposed to a flush of colour to your cheek                                            i'm not sure if I just had a bad batch or anything as i've heard good things about this, but I really think this was really really poor (but then again, was £1.25!) 

my next product is the 'single eyeshadow' in saddle, which was £1.25! I use so much brown eyeshadow everyday and I really really needed some more.. i'm used to using a fairly expensive bourjous shadow, but I figured i'd try out a cheaper one considering I go through them so quickly (literally, I use it to fill in my brows, under my eye, in my crease, blended up towards my brow, and on the outer half of my eyes whoops), and this one was quite a big pot of shadow, so I thought i'd give it a try!

this stuff is crazy pigmented, and is very matte, so you could use this for contouring too if you so wished :-) you need very little on your brush, and it could definitely be built up if you wanted a stronger colour! it has no scent to it at all, and came with a very small brush which wasn't actually too bad, I just have my own brush i'm used to using so use that instead! if you look at the swatches at the top, you can see it comes out very strong, as I did that very lightly with my finger tip, so this is a really good buy and comes in heaps of colours too :-) this would also be awesome for a smokey eye as it smudges and blends super nicely 

next is a lipstick! i'm usually a nude lipstick type person, with a slick of pink over the top so it's subtle (ish) and just really summery and nice aw

this one was £5 before the half price sale, so is the most expensive thing I bought, but is still cheaper than most lipsticks i've bought previously! 

this time, as it's coming up to winter, I thought i'd get some darker colours in, so picked a shade called 'rich raspberry', which is a dark pink with a hint of purpley redness, and it's really very pretty it's very very silky on and lasts a good few hours before you need to top it up 

the downside is it smells a lil' funky, but nothing worse than what most lipsticks smell/taste like, so it definitley hasn't put me off! it's nothing i'm wearing at the moment as it's still fairly warm out, but as it gets colder, it certainly will be my go-to lipstick 

next is another lipstick of sorts, and is called the 'studio matte lip colour' in coral. I tried taking a photo of this too but it wouldn't focus AGAIN, but you can see it and the swatch in the photos up the top :-) this is a really pretty colour, but the lipstick itself is a bit drying
it's a lot better if you apply it with a lipbalm underneath, but still isn't nearly as moist (uGH THAT WORD) as the mineral one :-( it's super cute though, it's a thinner stick which is easier to work with, and you twist the top for the stick to come out, which is cool too! this one stays on quite a while, but could do with being reapplied every 4 or 5 hours, just to keep it looking top notch
was £3.75 before reduction, and whilst it's not as good as the mineral lipstick, it has nicer packaging, is a nicer colour, and was a lot cheaper!

lastly is the 'studio matte eyeshadow' in brick! this is a very small amount of loose dust that was £3.75 before the 50% reduction! I was a bit hesitant about buying this as I don't tend to get on too well with loose dusts as i'm super messy and not great with eyeshadow as it is, but I bought it anyway :-)

under the lid is your standard loose eyeshadow in a pot, where there's the shadow itself, then a cover over the top with a few holes in it to stop it going everywhere, and this is one of the reasons I can't stand these types of shadows :-( there's no neat way i've found of getting the powder out, so I have to pour it into the lid and usually end up wasting quite a bit 

this is why i'm not too keen on this product, but if you're generally better with loose powder than me, this is a good buy! the colour comes out quite lightly, and is so so so good at being able to build up for a darker an stronger colour! this colour in particular is lovely, and is a lot better for using under the eye, as it's a lot less harsh than your normal eyeshadows 

IT DOES NOT CREASE WHICH IS AWESOME 

eyeshadows always end up creasing on top of my under eye concealer for me, and this product does not :-) I put my eyeshadow on ever so lightly and quite far down my eyes, as you can see over to the right there :-) my concealer goes right up to my lash line almost, and whilst the concealer doesn't crease, some shadows i've used over the top since definitely have

this is an awesome product if you can deal with loose powders, if not, i'd stick to your basic eyeshadow pots for sure 

and there we have it! that took a lot longer than I thought it would omg whoops 

one other problem with this makeup (it doesn't bother me, but may bother some people), is that the writing rubs off so so so easy on the plastic 

I had a powder and a bronzer that looked super similar, and after a day in my makeup bag, the writing had come off and I didn't know which was which.. but then again, for a few quid each, I couldn't complain

one last thing, in the photo of me at the side, I'm wearing a mix of the two lipsticks, the single eyeshadow, and the concealer! 

mary x