Elf mineral eyeshadow & brushes

Earlier this month, I (painfully) took advantage of the Elf anniversary sale. Everything on the site was 70% off for 70 minutes. This would be a bargain on any site, but Elf's prices are already super low, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get myself some new makeup brushes and try a couple of Elf's mineral eyeshadows.

I only say that it was painful because the crush of traffic to the site meant it took the entire 70 minutes for me to put together an order and check out. However, that's a small price to pay for a discount that hefty. The $3 brushes and $3 eyeshadows I ordered were $.90 each.

Now I should say that I cannot recommend the Elf eyeshadow that's sold at Target - perhaps it's from the Essentials line? I bought some after work once when I was in a rush before an event and didn't have time to go home. It was awful in every way - barely pigmented, too frosty, no staying power. So basically, a $.90 price tag was the only way I was going to give another Elf cosmetic product a try.

First though let's look at the brushes, because I do like Elf's brushes and have used them for a while now.

I chose the Elf Studio line brushes, normally $3 each. In the past I've used brushes from the Essentials line, but because of the sale I decided to upgrade! I chose the complexion brush, blush brush, small angled brush, angled contour brush, C brush and small smudge brush. They are nice looking and seem to do the job just fine.

I saved some of the cards from the packaging because I'm not what you'd call a "natural talent" with eye makeup. For instance...what does this even mean?

(I actually figured it out later and it did indeed help me create a smoky eye! Glory hallelujah!)

Anyway, the shadows. I chose Socialite, Temptress and Smoldering.

Socialite and Smoldering are shimmers, and Temptress is a matte shade. I'm very interested in matte shades lately...sometimes I just don't want the sparkle. So I've been collecting a couple of these in subtle colors.

I swatched these on my arm but the pictures weren't anything to write home about. I do like Temptress, which is a medium rose terra cotta shade, but Socialite is the most interesting of these colors. It's a metallic, plummy dark gray with tiny multi-colored shimmer. Smoldering is a fairly typical shimmery metallic-leaning charcoal.

Here's a closeup of Socialite on the brush, in an attempt to show you all the different-colored particles.

I just kind of slapped on a quick look with Socialite and Temptress, and it seems to be wearing okay. I should note I didn't use any primer, which I expect would improve the wear a great deal.

I have another post (or two) about eyeshadow brewing, per one of your requests!