August Favorites

These are the products I found myself reaching for constantly all month long.

The majority of these are products I'd never tried before, which is great because I love when a new product turns out to be so great that I don't stop using it after the trial period is over. 

First up is Nuance Salma Hayek Beautiful Blends Eye Quad. 

Nuance Salma Hayek Color Vibrance Lipstick in Dusty Rose. 

L'Oreal Voluminous Million Lashes Mascara [Waterproof]

 

Maybelline Expert Wear Eyeshadow Trio in Bronze Glitz

e.l.f. Studio Blush in Blushing Rose

e.l.f. Eyelid Primer Review

I've been a long time user of Too Faced's eyeshadow insurance, and it's been fine. I honestly haven't noticed anything super spectacular about it, I feel like it works just as well as when I use a concealer as a base.

Since I have no kind of brand loyalty, I'm always up for trying anything as long as I can afford it. That's probably why I seem to be on some kind of e.l.f. kick lately. I keep finding things I want to try from them and they're all so cheap that I can't help but buy them.

The e.l.f. Eyelid Primer retails for $1 at Target, Kmart or the e.l.f. website. Yes, ONE DOLLAR.

I honestly expected absolutely nothing from a $1 primer, but I decided to quit being a snob and just try it.

best.decision.ever.

This stuff is amazing. Not just amazing for the price [which I've always thought is a polite way of saying a product sucks but it's too cheap to complain about], this is amazing in general. Amazing in the sense that it really works.

The primer comes in a tube and looks pretty much like a concealer.

 On to the before and afters. That's what everyone wants to see anyway.

These were taken before I left for work in the morning. How crooked is that liner?! I'm so ashamed.

 

These were taken when I finally got home after working and running errands and I actually think I may have taken a nap at one point. **They look brighter because I had to use flash since it was nighttime.

Clearly, nothing moved an inch. The liner is still strong, the eyeshadow didn't crease one bit, and everything seems to be in place.

I've read other reviews that aren't as glowing as mine and I think it could have something to do with my skin type. I have the definition of normal skin. No excessive oiliness, no excessive dryness, just regular skin. The area around my nose gets a bit oily sometimes, but that's about it. I think maybe the primer works so great for me because I don't have oily eyelids and it helps everything stick better.

I've also read that e.l.f.'s Mineral Eyeshadow Primer and their Studio Primer and Liner Sealer are much better than this one. I haven't seen either at my local Target, so I can't say, but if you find that this particular one doesn't work, you might as well try the other two. The price is so low that if they don't work, it's only a couple of bucks.

e.l.f. Studio Under Eye Concealer & Highlighter

I received this as a gift from a friend on the same day that I saw it at Target and kind of wanted it but didn't get it. Lucky for me, everyone is well aware of my dark circles and it seems they want to not see them as much as I do.

One end is the concealer and the other end is a highlighter to brighten the eye and other face areas.

I didn't really know what to think about the highlighter being white, but it seemed kind of wrong. I've had concealers of this sort before and usually, the highlighter shade is a lighter beige, but not straight white.

 

My friend picked medium which was fine because that's the color I am in most brands. After I blended it, it actually looked a bit too light though.

Unlike the tone correcting concealer I reviewed a while back, this concealer wasn't as light or liquid. The consistency was actually pretty good, it was just the shade that was off.I swatched it on my eye to better show what I mean.

These are my dark circles on a surprisingly good day :)

The concealer already looks too light to the point where it washed out my skin and it looked a bit gray. It also has a kind of "wet" finish that made the are look shiny. This is something that the tone correcting concealer does as well, but it goes away after a few minutes, so it's not that big of a deal.

Now it's bright gray! I really think that this was due to the color being wrong, though.

As far as coverage goes, I think it did cover the circles, it just didn't work with my skin tone. The consistency was better than the tone correcting concealer, but it wasn't anything too pigmented either. I think it worked for me today because my circles were less visible, but I would never be able to get away with it on a bad day.

The highlighter actually worked even though it was white, it definitely brightened the area but again, it was the wrong coloring that threw everything off. However, there is a bit of sparkle in it, so it should be used sparingly.

Overall, I think this would work for someone with very light or no dark circles. It brightens the under eye area and it's very lightweight. Just make sure to get the right shade.

It's also important to note that this product lacks severely when it comes to the variety of shades available. There's only three shades : Fair, Light and Medium. So, anyone with darker skin or variations on those three shades, is out of luck here.

e.l.f. Studio Under Eye Concealer & Highlighter is available at Target for $3.99 or on the e.l.f. website

Other Thoughts:
Seek For Beauty
She Speaks of Beauty
Dottie K

New e.l.f. Beauty Book [Bright Eye Edition]

I've only ever tried e.l.f.'s concealer [which I like] and their amazing brushes [which I love], but I've always been a bit skeptical about the rest of their stuff.


However, their previous kits seem to be popular, and I read a few posts about these new e.l.f. Beauty Books and for $5 it couldn't hurt to try one.

The Beauty books come with 12 shadows, an eye liner and a sponge applicator. 

 

On the inside flap, they also have instructions on how to apply the shadows and different techniques to achieve different looks.

 

 For some reason, the bottom left corner shadow would not photograph well. It was a kind of light yellowish color. I tried taking multiple pictures but it kept looking white.

That was the closest I could manage.

Appearance wise, I really liked it. The shadows also looked vibrant but also wearable which I think is something a lot of bright shadows lack. These looked like something I could actually wear in real life without looking like I was trying to hard. 

Sadly, I was quickly disappointed when I saw what the color payoff was like.

All pictures were taken in natural light and the swatches are without primer.  The shadows don't have names so I'll use their positions as a reference.

The only one that was pigmented in this set was the first one on the right. In the palette, this is the bottom right corner shadow [dark brown]

The green shadow next to it, actually came out looking gray, but that might have more to do with my own skin color and not the shadow. As for the other two, I had to swatch them over and over to achieve any kind of color. 

In this set, I actually really loved the two middle colors. They were very shimmery and pigmented.  On the palette these are the two middle ones in the middle row. The other two colors were the same as the one in the previous set, I had a hard time getting them to show up at all. 

These shadows were my least favorite. The first shadow from the left was much too shimmery, even for me. It looked too white and frosty. 

The huge disappointment, however, was the shadow all the way to the right. In the palette, it's the top right corner one and it looks like a deep, very rich purple/royal blue, but it was a mess. It barely showed up at all and the color turned into a weird too bright blue, not at all what I expected.  

The other two colors are nothing special, just varying shades of purple.

The eyeliner is just a standard black eyeliner. It's not smudge or waterproof. 

ps. Please ignore my super dry hands, I was washing my vacuum cleaner right before I did these swatches. I didn't even know vacuum cleaners could be washed before today, but I digress...

After rubbing it for five seconds.

Overall, the Beauty Book left a lot to be desired. I only really liked two of the shadows, which makes it totally not worth it since there are 12 of them. Although it was only $5, I expected a bit more considering the raves e.l.f. usually gets. 

Maybe they would have been better if I used a primer, but I don't think an eyeshadow should rely on a primer to get it to show up at all, only to intensify it. If it's not good to start with, it's not worth it to me. I think there are better brands of drugstore makeup that cost about the same and give you a better color payoff.

e.l.f. Tone Correcting Concealer Review

Because I'm cursed with hereditary dark circles, I buy every concealer that comes out in hopes that I'll find the right one.

e.l.f. Tone Correcting Concealer isn't anything amazing by itself, it's very, extremely lightweight, and many times it melts off after a few hours. Also, there is very little product inside the bottle, so I find myself going through an entire one every month.

For reference, I'm an NC35 and I wear Apricot Beige

 The color looks really light, but once it's blended, it looks perfect.

The color is right, and the texture is great but it's clearly very light coverage.


The reason I made a point before to say it's not great "by itself" is because it is great in combination with another concealer.


MAC Pro Longwear Concealer is also not great by itself. I recently reviewed it as part of the series of concealer posts. Longewear dries incredibly powdery and no matter what I do, always looks caked on.

However, when I combine MAC's powdery concealer as a base, with e.l.f.'s lightweight concealer on top, it works much better.

The lightness of e.l.f. is just what MAC needs to look more natural.

e.l.f. Tone Correcting Concealer is a steal at $3, and although it's not enough to use on it's own, I think it works great paired with a dryer, full coverage concealer.

I've seen e.l.f. products at Target and Kmart, and you can buy them online from the official e.l.f. site.