Fitz N Bitz - Irish Beauty Blog ★: ELF

Showing posts with label ELF. Show all posts

28 November 2011

Brand new e.l.f Lipsticks alert!

Dia daoibh!

If you follow me on TWITTER you might have heard that I was chosen by e.l.f (Eyes Lips Face) Cosmetics to review their line of brand new and un-released lipsticks!! I was delighted to be chosen, as I knew many British ladies were also keen to review these babies!! I was a bit late in receiving mine due to the postal services, but finally they arrived. The lipsticks are part of the permanent regular line and just in the last couple of days, are now available on the website HERE for just £1.50/€1.75! Here are the 6 colours available

L-R: Nostalgic, Charming, Flirtatious, Captivating, Sociable, Fearless.

THE PACKAGING

I personally really like the packaging. I love that you can see the colour of the lipstick straight away. I'm not a fan of clear lids in the effort to do this, so to me this is the best idea I have seen for this! I do have a few little quams though! Scroll back up to the first pic. Notice anything!?? The lid of the 5th one is the opposite way around. I presume this was a mistake. Also, if you'd care to take a look at the picture below, you will notice that 2 lipsticks were missing their name & info labels from the end. Hmmm....not the best start, but nothing disastrous either, just a little hiccup I guess!!

One other slight negative I have about the packaging is that when fully wound closed, the head of the lipstick still sticks out over the clear tube (as seen in the pic below), so it will be easy to take chunks out of it when replacing the lid. Other than these few factors, they are reasonably sturdy for the price and overall I really do like the packaging.

THE PRODUCT

Now onto the actual lipsticks. They have a slight sweet fragrance which is lovely and can be tasted ever so slightly when removing if you lick your lips!

They are extremely moisturising. They leave a moist/wet look on the lips and are very easy to apply and blend. Because they are so moisturising, this means that they are also quite delicate (which as below, you can see I learned the hard way!!) This is my own fault though, as I opened the lipstick to the max for photographic purposes!! On regular usage I'm sure most of you won't be opening it fully!! NOT for the heavy handed! Now my 'Captivating' is a bit of a mess. Boo!! :(

THE SHADES

And now moving onto the most interesting part; the colours!! First impression? B-E-A-uuuutiful colours! Amazingly pigmented. I would even say they are even on par with MAC, including even the nude colour! Here we go!!

Nostalgic, Charming, Flirtatious, Captivating, Sociable, Fearless

NOSTALGIC

CHARMING

FLIRTATIOUS

CAPTIVATING

SOCIABLE

(This has a small amount of silver glitter in it but it doesn't show up in pics or in person! You can see it when you take off the lipstick though! Dono what that's all about!! Perhaps to make it seem shinier!? Meh!)

FEARLESS

UPDATE: I wore Fearless today and just wanted to update of how it wore. Reds are notorious for staying power/staining and this was the same. Most (but not all!!) of the moisture faded as expected but A LOT of the colour stayed. This is how my lips are looking after 6hours 36 minutes! (click to have a bigger look)

I have something to say..... I would GENUINELY wear ALL of these colours! There is not one that I do not like. The nude didn't photograph particularly well, but in person it is fab. I was particularly surprised by it (Nostalgic) I've never come across a cheap nude lipstick as good as this. It really is fantastically pigmented for a nude. Also the red (Fearless) shocked me. In person it's slightly deeper, it looks a little bit pinker in the photo's but it is one of THEE nicest reds I have ever tried!! (even though my boyfriend is scared of it!!)

e.l.f are one company who are great when it comes to special deals/codes etc. It is currently their 4th birthday and details of there offer is as follows:

(Extended until 9am 29/11/2011) Free shipping always gets me!! Keep an eye of their FACEBOOK and TWITTER for more offers too.

I am extremely impressed with e.l.f's new additions and at £1.50/€1.75 they're an absolute steal! Just be careful with them when opening and closing ;) What colours are your favourites? Which do you think looks best on me!!? Is your boyfriend/brother/father/male friend afraid of dramatic colours!!?

These products were sent to me for free from e.l.f Cosmetics for reviewing purposes. All opinions above are completely my own, 100% honest thoughts on the product.

Slán!

11 February 2011

My E.L.F Order

FitznBitz 6:47 PM Beauty Bitz , ELF 2 Comments

Hello again!!

So a while ago I made my first ever order to ELF. I do have some ELF products already including a powder brush, blush brush, eye shadow brush, lip stain and blusher; but I bought all of these in Target while I was in New York last year. I made my order while they were having free shipping. I recommend following/liking them on their Twitter and Facebook pages as they update regularly with lots of special offers. One of the best companies I’ve seen to do this actually. Anyway, down to business!! Here’s an overview of what I got!

I’ll start off with the 32 piece eye shadow palette (which I got for half price! down to £4.50/€5.30... oooh ya!) The packaging of Elf products in general is very nice I have to say. This is a bit sticky to open, maybe it’s just mine? To be honest I haven’t used this a whole pile to give a proper review, but from what I have used from it I’m a bit 50/50 about it. It’s a bit too glittery for me....I’m just NOT a glittery person – if you are you’ll probably like this product a lot more! Pigmentation is quite good, and there are plenty of shades. I don’t know why, but I’m not overly enthusiastic about this. But in saying that, it’s handy to have lots of different colours in one nice sized lovely looking palette. It comes with double ended sponge applicator (yock!) and a nice sized mirror in the lid – which is a lovely idea. Size wise I’ve left it with a 10c coin below for comparison.

(I went to look for a link to this on the website but it seems it’s not there anymore. Not sure if they’re getting it back either)

Next up is the blusher – which I love. I got the shade ‘Merry Berry’ from the Studio range. Its was £3.50/€4.10. Again it’s a tad on the glittery side....well; the shimmer within it contains some glitter, but not enough to put me off. It’s a gorg berry colour and I don’t have another blusher like it. The packaging of this is fabulous – one of, if not, my favourite blusher packaging. Really similar to Nars. Love it!

Next – Nail Varnish. I got the shade ‘Desert Haze’ for £1/€1.20 - 33% off! I found it hard to choose a colour as they has a lovey range of shades on the site. I eventually decided on this and I’m glad I did. I LOVE this colour.

I’ve heard people saying that the staying power of their nail varnishes is not great, but personally with this one I find it fine. I used 2/3 coats all right but it didn’t start chipping until about the 3^rd day (this is good for me, I’m fairly handsy!!) Again I love the packaging – quite sleek. One thing though, I think mine may have been used before I got it. When I opened the lid this is what I saw:

No, biggie as it’s a nail varnish. Now if it were an eye or lip product... I’d be on the phone! But for now Elf, I forgive you as it’s such a fab shade! ;)

I also bought the Therapeutic Conditioning Lip Balm after watching Julie's video on her You Tube channel. You can watch the video HERE. After seeing that I was like “hell ya I’m buying that!” I also took in to account what she said about the nude nail varnish colour she picked – I was about to go for the same one!! Thanks Julie ;) ha! Anyway, the lip balm, I got it for £1.50/€1.75 and I chose ‘Vanilla Creme’ thinking it would be vanillaish smelling... nope, it’s not. BUT....it smells of something else. Something nice (in my opinion – this may be weird!!) I smelt it and was like... “What the hell?”....it was familiar... I knew this smell.... I defiantly knew this smell. I stood there for a few minutes sniffing away at it. Ugh WHAT WAS IS!? I was at home alone apart from Cathal so I asked him, haha! And he said “it smells like lipstick mom”....right Cathal, thanks!! My sis called over a few hours later – thank god because when I can’t remember what a smell is, or the name of a song, or someone’s name etc. it drives me bonkers! Wana know what it smells like???? CALPOL!! Yep it def smells like calpol! It’s loverly!! Ok that was a bit of a rant... sorry!! It’s a fab lip balm, nice size, feels beautiful on the lips, you already know what I think of the smell... but one negative. When I opened it (twisted it up) it wouldn't go down...ahhh! I tried gently to push it down as I twisted but the formulation is so soft it just squished it. I had to slice it off with a knife and I’m making sure not to put it up too much anymore. Hopefully this is just a once off cause I def want to repurchase and try some other fragrances.

I bought a Hypershine Lipgloss in ‘Mauve’ for £1.50/€1.75. This, I’m not bothered with at all. The packaging doesn’t particularly look nice. I like that it has a brush applicator. The colour looks nice but unfortunately on my lips it does nothing. It just looks like a clear gloss. I have fairly dark/red lips. Again this may be lovely on someone else, just does nothing for me :)

And lastly I just bought the Dual Pencil Sharpener (which includes a bonus single sharpener too) for £1.50/€1.75

And that’s it for now!! Overall I was very pleased. I felt the products can be a bit hit and miss. When they hit, they hit very well and to be honest I don't mind missing so much because of the brilliant prices they have. I will be shopping with them again. Have you purchased from ELF? What did you think? Thanks for reading and speak soon!

Slán!

Laura xo