So a few months ago I bought some discounted E.L.F. (Eyes Lips Face) cosmetics at a really good price, as the distributor in the UK is changing from DistriBeauty – who still run the very interesting look Beauty Crowd (they have some other American make up brands that I’d love to try at some point) – to I assume either a new supplier, or just direct from the US. Like me, if you’re on the E.L.F. mailing list you’d have seen their recent email too – they’re promising E.L.F. UK should be back up this summer at some point. This is great news for me, since I’ve found I really like what I bought and I’d love to get more. You can also see me initial haul video here.
The main items I really want to talk about are the foundations! I bought two – the Studio Moisturising Foundation Stick in the shade ‘Ivory’, costing at the time £3.98, and the HD Mattifying Cream Foundation in the shade ‘Porcelain’, costing £2.39 at the time of sale as well – these usually cost about £8 and £7 respectively. Between the two the stick foundation is the better match for my skin colour, though the two shades are pretty close anyway, and both are definitely wearable (as a brief aside, to compare colours I usually wear a Rimmel foundation between the shades 010 ‘Light Porcelain’ and 100 ‘Ivory’). The stick format has more of a dewy foundation finish, where as the matte cream is, as you’d hope by its name, more matte. It’s not 100% matte, but you could definitely wear it as is for a light look. The stick format has a heavier coverage than the cream as well, but neither of them I would describe as super heavy anyway. The stick foundation feels lovely on the skin and is very rich and does indeed feel moisturising. The cream matte one goes from a cream feel to a powder feel on application and has a bit less time to spread, blend and buff around as once it turns into a more powder formula you can’t really move it as much. Of the two I’d say I prefer the stick formula – it feels better on the skin and goes on a touch easier, and is probably what I’d re-buy over the Matte cream. Saying that, both foundations are lovely, and are pretty easy to apply. Like I mentioned in my haul video a few months ago, E.L.F.’s real strengths are affordability and real ease of use.
Next up is the HD Blush in the shade ‘Headliner’ which I think is their lightest shade, and I bought it for £1.35. They are usually £3.75. This is a really neat, affordable, easy to use cream blush – it comes in a little pump dispenser, and you can use more or less product as you like. I don’t like to wear a lot of blush personally, but this is a really nice, fairly subtle shade. It’s very wearable. I also like the soft cream formula, it’s again very easy to apply – very user friendly. One of the things I do see every so often with my blush is that it separates very slightly over time – this is fixed with just a little shaking. I’m not sure if it’s just the nature of the product or if it’s a sign it’s a little old, but it’s not enough to put me off using it. I’d definitely get more since they’re so nice to use and such good value.
The next item is a bit of a disappointment, but considering it was the cheapest thing I bought it’s not a huge deal. It’s one of their Nail Polish‘s in the shade ‘Party Purple’ – I bought this for £0.75, and it’s usually £2.50. Party purple is a very dark, purple shade, that flashes much lighter when hit directly with light, and is glittery. Their formula is also free from the usual ingredients that you see ‘free from…’ now, such as formaldehyde. I do like the colour, but the disappointment sadly was with the formula – it was clumpy, and very slow drying. Even when left for a long time it still felt soft, squishy and movable on the nail. I suspect this is more to do with the polish being too old, than the formula being bad itself. But this is always the risk with discounted, end of run items, to be fair. I’m not so bothered since it was so cheap, so I’ll just be throwing this one out. I did also get the clear coat, which works fine, so I’m not going to let this put me off.
And lastly I bought two Jumbo Eye shadow Sticks, in the shades ‘Bali Bound’ which is a lovely metallic green, and ‘Midnight Rendezvous’ which is a more complex, sort of green black colour with glitter. They cost £2.07 each, and are usually priced at £2.50. These are very interesting, and my first experience with eye shadow sticks. I can really see the appeal in the formula in terms of ease of use – it’s super easy to pencil in over the eyes really quickly. They’re a cream formula which means they do spread out and blend out over the lid easily, though the colour diffuses out this way as well. One of the problems I found is that on some days where my eyelids were more oily the formula didn’t work as well, or look as nice, as it kind of melted off. This is a problem with all cream shadows to be fair though. One of the ways they can be used is as a base for similarly shaded traditional eye shadow, which I found works really well, as the powder clings to the cream and stays put.
So overall, I’m really happy with my experience with E.L.F. cosmetics – there’s definitely things here I’d re-buy, and since they all seem pretty good and pretty affordable I’d be quite happy to buy more things to try out when the UK store goes back up. The affordability is always a help when it seems like a fair risk buying cosmetics online before even seeing the same thing in real life, since I don’t think physical shops in the UK actually stock E.L.F.
Until Next Time.