ELF Clay Eyeshadow Palette in Necessary Nudes: A Review

Wow. I can’t believe this palette retails for six. freaking. dollars. When I saw this at TJ Maxx, I thought this might be a great neutral travel palette. I got this palette in the shade Necessary Nudes, which comes with two mattes and three shimmers. Also, my palette is set up differently than what it looks like on the website, regarding where the four square pans were placed. I’ll just start by saying that this palette was tragic, and not even worth the $3 I bought it for at TJ Maxx. Well, let’s just rip the bandaid off now so we don’t have to prolong the pain. In these swatches, the first is a finger swatch and the second is a lid brush swatch.
This first shade is a light caramel shade. It blends okay, and isn’t too terribly pigmented. It’s an okay crease color. It’s kinda meh.

This next shade is deep chocolate brown. The first swatch on this is the color layered up, the second is a brush swatch, and the third is a single finger swatch. This shade is quite patchy. Not only that, but the pigment kinda grabs in the first place you put it. It just isn’t a good brown shadow, plain and simple. 

The next two shades should not be in the palette because they are basically the same color. One is a gold and the other is more of an olive gold. Separately, they’d be good in the palette but they shouldn’t be together because on the eyes you can’t even tell a difference. In a palette this small, these two colors should be very different. Besides that, the pans basically hard panned as soon as I used a wet brush. The pigment would maybe be good for a slight wash of color, but they are definitely not for the eyeshadow whore that is myself. The first swatch is a finger swatch, the second is a dry brush swatch for me, and the third is a wet brush swatch. 

Lastly, we have the highlight shade, which is pretty much the only good thing in the palette. That being said, it’s a very basic color that you can find almost anywhere. It really wasn’t worth it for me to keep the entire palette for just this shade.  

In conclusion, I wouldn’t buy this palette at its full price. I would only buy it if you see in on sale or at TJ Maxx and you need a basic palette. Yes, you can make this work, but there is so much more you can do with $6. 

Light, Natural Makeup in 10 Minutes or Less

In the morning, sometimes I don’t have more than 10 or 15 minutes to do my makeup. Or, maybe sometimes I just want to do something simple with my look. On those days, this is my routine

 

Urban Decay Quick Fix Prep Priming Spray

I love this stuff. It’s hella expensive but once I tried it I couldn’t live without it. This stuff is hydrating and slightly minimizes my pores. I would definitely recommend this for people with dry skin. Sometimes if I’m super late I’ll even use this as a moisturizer.

 

Maybelline Instant Age Rewind Concealer

Concealer can really make a difference in a look. This is my favorite concealer because it covers all my dark circles.
Clinique Stay-Matte Sheer Pressed Powder Oil-Free in 01 Stay Buff

This stuff is my go-to for sheer coverage. It doesn’t do a ton for me, however, it does even out my skin tone.

 

ELF Budge Proof Shadow Stick in Rose Gold

This shadow stick doesn’t budge and lasts all day. The color isn’t that pigmented, but it gets the job done. I swipe this all over my lids and then blend it out with my fingertips.
Covergirl Clump Crusher Extend

I like this mascara because it just gives my lashes that barely there yet visible look. Mascara is a big part of any minimal makeup look (at least to me) as it makes you look more awake.

 

Neutrogena Moisture Smooth Color Stick in Soft Raspberry

Although kinda expensive for the drugstore, these lipsticks by Neutrogena are the bomb.com; they are moisturizing and comfortable to wear. The colors are pigmented and I love to wear them.
So Susan Blush and Glow

At first, I didn’t like this blush, but now I LOVE it! This blush is true to its name and it really does give you a glow. It’s like a highlighter and blush in one and just gives you face the best shine in a good way.

 

This is just my routine, it might not work for everyone. Feel free to let me know your 10-minute routines in the comments down below! Sorry if the formatting is a little wonky, I am trying to fix it.

ELF Sculpt and Glow Duo Stix in Fair/Light: A Review

When I saw that ELF was having free shipping on their website, I had self-control and didn’t buy anything I knew I had to at least get something. I am all for convenience makeup, so this duo stick with a shimmer highlight and a matte contour side.

The contour side of this stick is more like a bronzer. When I first used it, it was not very creamy. I used a lighter to heat it up a bit, and that made it a little better. It doesn’t blend very well with a sponge, and you really have to rub it in rather than dabbing motions. I prefer it more on my forehead rather than my cheeks, as it blends better.

Although the highlight in the picture looks pretty nice, when it’s on my cheeks, it really shows texture and does not blend out well, even using a lighter.

 

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend buying this, as it can be very hard to blend. If you do, I recommend heating them up at least before your initial use to get the outer layer melted. Have you tried these before? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

 

ELF Aqua Beauty Molten Liquid Eyeshadow: A Review

In my recent quest to find quick makeup to use in the morning, I stumbled upon these at my local drugstore. The liquid eyeshadows have a doe foot applicator, kinda like a concealer. I have three shades in this range: Liquid Gold, Brushed Copper, and Rose Gold. In the swatches pictured below, I blended then out using my fingers.

Liquid Gold:

This one is probably my least favorite of the three. It is more of a yellow gold. It doesn’t blend out that well, but I used it in a wonder woman costume as a crown and it worked really well,

Rose Gold:

This one is probably my favorite. It blends the best out of the three and doesn’t crease.

Brushed Copper:

I don’t know if I’d call this a copper. It’s more of a copper-gold and not what you’d normally expect for a copper.

Overall, I don’t know if I would buy all of these since once they’re blended out they all kinda look the same. Also, if you don’t like the textured look of eyelids I don’t think you’d like this. I’d recommend picking up Rose Gold or Brushed Copper if you’d like to try these. These are great for someone who wants a wash of color on their lids without much effort.

Pick these up for $4 at your local drugstore.

ELF Liquid Matte Lipstick in Blackout: A Review

On my hunt to find a good black lipstick, I found this on ELF.com for $5. I decided what the heck, it’s five bucks, how bad could it be? Apparently, very bad. After wearing this for ten minutes, my lips were absolutely P A R C H E D. I am not someone with dry lips, unless it’s in the dead of winter, and even then some vaseline will fix them right up. The lip took a lot of layers to get an opaque layer, and it oddly didn’t settle into my lip cracks so when I smiled you could see little lines where the color wasn’t. I would have been nice if I could have dealt with the dryness. I don’t know if the other colors in this line are like this, I won’t be buying this formula again.

The first swatch is the formula layered and the second is a single swipe.

ELF Acne Fighting Foundation vs Clinique Acne Solutions Liquid Makeup: The Showdown

When I saw the ELF Acne Fighting Foundation the first thing I thought was dude, I bet this is a dupe for my Clinique Acne Solutions Liquid Makeup. So, I put these bad boys to the test in an ultimate dupe showdown!

The first thing I will compare is the shade range:

The first swatch is the Clinique:

First is just a swatch of the foundation, and the second is the foundation blended in with a sponge.

First, we have Clinique:

You can barely see the second swatch, but trust me, it’s there.

Next, we have ELF:

You can definitely see the second swatch in this picture. The shade is a bit dark for me.

Clinique: 16 different shades, cool and warm undertones, grouped by color groups. There is also a questions hotline to help you shade match. Sold in Sephora, so you are able to have someone help you color match, and test out in store.

ELF: 5 shades (7 online at ULTA). Still, that’s half as many as Clinique. It might be hard to shade match as it is mostly sold online and you most likely won’t be able to test in store

Winner? Clinique!

Price:

Clinique: $28.00 at 1.0 oz

ELF: $6.00 for 1.21 oz (you can buy about 4 bottles of ELF for $24)

Winner? ELF!

Packaging: 

Clinique: A rounded square tube, with the Clinique logo and product name printed in white. The cap is mirrored. The bottle is lightly frosted. The bottle is essentially a squeezy tube. The shade name is a sticker on the bottom of the bottle.

ELF: The packaging is taller and skinnier than Clinique’s. The front is ELF’s logo is black. The bottle is taller and skinnier than the Clinique one. The bottle is also a squeezy tube, however, this one is a bit harder to squeeze out product.

Winner? Clinique!

Formula (lightest shades)

Clinique (Shade: 01 Fresh Alabaster): Natural finish. A little sheerer. Doesn’t cover my redness as well as I’d like it to. The shade matches me pretty well.

ELF (Shade porcelain): Natural finish. More full coverage. Covers my redness. Shade is too dark for me. It might be a good summer shade for me.

Winner? Clinique! 

Ingredients:

These foundations have 9 ingredients in common. However, they are in different orders. Click here for a table of all the ingredients. The common ingredients are highlighted.

Tally: 

ELF: 1

Clinique: 3 

Overall, it really depends on what you want and how much you want to spend. If you need a good cheap foundation, go for the ELF one. If you want to splurge on a foundation with good ingredients, go for the Clinique one.

 

Depression and Happiness: The Grade

I was enjoying my time being with Happiness. Depression was locked up and didn’t see me often.

But then, I got a bad grade on my math test. This was Depression’s chance to esacpe, when I was at my lowest.

I’m back, Depression told me.
“Hello, Depression,” I said.
I see you got a bad grade on that math test. Wow.
“It isn’t that bad, maybe I can retake the test.”
Why bother, you’re just going to fail again. You’ll never be able to succeed in life, maybe you should just kill yourself. It will make your parent’s life so much easier. And your friends, they wouldn’t have to deal with all your drama anymore. Plus, your boss can hire a much better employee in your place. What do you do successfully?
“I….. I don’t know, Depression. I guess I do fail at everything… maybe I should kill myself.”

At this moment, I heard some muffling noises coming from behind Depression. I saw that it was choking out Happiness.

Don’t listen to Depression! You are good enough! You do tons of things well! People would miss you!

“You know what, I think you’re right Happiness. I am good enough. This is one test, and it’s not the end of the world. Depression, get back in your cage!”

~FIN~

Depression and Happiness: A Comic

My whole life, I’ve been depressed. Depression has been with me for so long, that eventually, I saw Depression as a friend instead of a foe. Everything I did, Depression was there with me.

Until my doctor prescribed me Zoloft.

This made Depression quite nervous. Zoloft would take Depression away from me, and Depression didn’t like that. It wanted to stay with me forever.

After taking Zoloft for a couple months, I met a new friend, Happiness. I thought I had met Happiness before, but it turns out that Depression had been filtering what Happiness was really like to me. I had never met the real Happiness until now.

Happiness locked Depression up. At first, I was glad, but then I started to miss Depression. It sounds weird, and Depression caused me harm, but up until now, all I knew was Depression. Happiness was a stranger to me, and Depression was an old friend. However, I knew that it was in my best interests to get to know Happiness

Every once in a while, Depression breaks out of its cage to visit me. It misses me and I miss it. However, I know that the best thing for both Depression and I is for Depression to leave me alone.

Maybelline Color Sensational Lip Color Loaded Bolds in Pitch Black: A Review

bruh. This might be one of the worst lipsticks I’ve ever tried. It was the night before Halloween and I realized wow, I don’t have any black lipstick to wear for Halloween tomorrow. So, I asked my mom to pick me up some black lipstick at a CVS. It made me a little nervous that my mom, someone who knows very little about makeup, was buying it for me, but hey how bad could it possibly be? I thought. Oh man oh man, how wrong I was. The lipstick that she bought me was the Maybelline Color Sensational Lip Color Loaded Bolds in Pitch Black, and I can tell you that the formula seems pretty nice. On they website it claims to be a “creamy matte” which is totally not true. This formula is anything but matte, and is more like a hydrating lip. This is all fine and dandy, except for the fact that the color of the lipstick I bought is black. It looked nice at first, but as time wore on it wore off. Also, it isn’t very opaque which is a problem for a bold shade like this. I had to layer it up a bunch to get an opaque layer. It wore off pretty bad after a couple of hours, and I don’t think I’ll be using this ever again.

The first picture is swatches of the lipstick. The first swatch is layered up, and the second swatch is a single swipe. The second picture is the lipstick on my lips after two hours of wear. Yeah, that bad.

ELF Beautifully Bare Natural Glow Face Palette: A Review

I have had my eye in this for a long long time, but I’ve never been able to give myself a legitimate reason for buying it… until now. Now that I have my own blog, I can buy things I want as an excuse to review them! I am hella glad that I got this, because it’s actually pretty bomb. The bronzer is really nice, it is more neutral of a bronzer so it is perfect for my pale self in the winter. The highlight is kinda like a light champagne but isn’t as dark in the pan as it looks. It’s one of those highlights that melts into the skin and would be great as a lowkey highlight that wouldn’t overpower a look. The blush that is to the right of the highlighter… yikes. It takes a lot of work for this one to show up, and the with the swatches pictured (second swatch) it barely shows up in natural light. I had to swirl my finger over and over and over and press super hard to get it to show up, and I had to layer it up this blush is more peach toned whereas the second blush is rosier. The rosy blush is okay, once again it takes more work for it to show up, but it isn’t as bad as the peach one.

Overall I really like this palette. The blushes kinda mehh but the bronzer and highlight are good. This palette would be good for someone who is a minimalist with their makeup or is going for a natural look. I don’t think this would show up on skin that is deeper than medium. This palette retails for $8 at ELF.com.