Another ELF Haul ^^

So.. ELF was doing another 50% off promotion over the bank holiday, and my package finally arrived =)) I literally opened this package and took pictures of them right away so I have yet to try out the products properly so don't expect much of a review on these products, I'll probably just do a description.
If you're interested as to when ELF does these promotions, sign up to their newsletters and they'll email you their offers and promotions. I also wanted to be eligible for free delivery (on orders over £30), so I had to purchase £60+ worth of goodies and apply the 50% discount code. I ended up getting 17 items and the total was £30.50.

So let's get started:

So this is all the goodies that I got - I just removed all the bubble wrap and put it back into the box =DD

The whole reason for this whole haul is because I really wanted to a brush belt for me to put my makeup brushes if I wanted to travel or if someone wanted me to do their makeup for them. I wanted to get this belt when I made my first ever order with ELF (my first ELF haul blog post), but I didn't want to spend too much money back then. I was just waiting for ELF to do another 50% promotion to get this, I didn't realise how soon they would do another one. So this Makeup Artist Brush Belt was £15, but I only paid £7.50 for it. The brush belt has 20 brush slots and 4 openings where you can hold other tools such as puffs, wedges, wipes, etc. The brush slots are quite large so you can probably fit more than one eye slash lip brush into the slots. The belt has a buckle type fastening (as you can see from the picture) and you can loosen and fasten as desired, there's quite a lot of give so it will fit most people. The brushes you can see in the slot did not come with the brush belt - they were brushes I purchases separately (just FYI).

I got four brushes from the Studio line that cost £1.75 (£3.50 r.r.p). I got two Powder Brushes - I got one of these last time I ordered and absolutely fell in love with it, so I had to get a couple more ^^. I decided to get a fluffy face brush so I ended up getting the Complexion Brush which you can see on the right. I also took a shot of how the brush looks from a bird's eye view. As you can see the shape is more oval than rounded. I think after a bit of use, the brush will become more rounded. I know that some people have been disappointed with some of the ELF face brushes (such as the blush brush) because the pictures are quite deceiving. The website only shows the brush from a head on angle, and so you don't get an idea of how thick(?) the brush is. The ones that I've gotten are all very pleasantly surprising - although I did do a bit of research before ordering them. The brushes are all very soft and are highly recommended. I have yet to properly use the Complexion brush, but the Powder brush that I've used everyday to buff in my foundation has not shed at all, and is extremely very good value for just £1.75. I wanted to try out a bent eyeliner brush - ELF calls it the Angled Eyeliner Brush, to apply gel eyeliner. I usually use an angled eyeliner brush to apply my gel eyeliner, but I wanted to see if I would prefer if a bent eyeliner brush, and I didn't want to spend too much money on one to try out - I'll let you know how it goes.

Above are makeup that I got for the face: Complexion Perfection (£1.75, £3.50 rrp), High Definition Powder (£3, £6 rrp), Corrective Concealer (£1.75, £3.50 rrp), and Warm Bronzer (£1.75, £3.50 rrp). The Complexion Perfection compact has different coloured powders to even out, brighten, and neutralise the skin tone. The Corrective Concealer also does the same thing - green cancels out redness, peach neutralises the darkness under the eyes, and pink/purple evens out skin tone. I also wanted to try out a HD powder and I read a lot of good reviews on the ELF one. I added the Bronzer to the basket because I wanted to reach £30 (after discount) and I like Bronzer, so I thought I would give this one a try (after I finish my NARS Laguna one). I didn't take a picture of the actual items because I could still give these away as gifts, and so I didn't want to open them.

I'm usually hesitant to purchase lip products because I get an allergic reaction to certain ones - and I'm not sure what it is that makes me react. And because of this reason, I don't actually own many lip products, and in turn, I don't really use much (which is funny seeing as lip gloss was the first "makeup" that I was allowed to wear, but I digress). I didn't want to spend too much so I decided to get one ELF lip product and ended up choosing the Matte Lip Colour in Natural (£1.75, £3.50 rrp). The packaging looks very cheap (probably because it is). It's a retractable pencil-type and so looks like a lip liner but is much larger than a lip liner. The product is not soft and creamy as I had expected but applies nicely. As with most matte lipsticks, it is a bit drying on the lips so make sure you have plenty of lip balm at hand, hehe. It doesn't really highlight and draw attention to any dry areas on your lips (which some of my lipsticks do) so that's a positive. It does look slightly chalky, but overall, I'm pretty happy with it and will definitely be using this. It doesn't have much a smell, but it does taste pretty weird so be sure not to lick your lips when you have this on. I think this lip colour might wear off unevenly so you may have to keep touching up throughout the day - I haven't used this product enough to let you guys know how long lasting this product is but I will definitely do a full review on this soon.

I think the two items that I actually really wanted were the brush belt and the Matte Finisher nail polish. I'm really excited to try this out - hopefully it'll live up to my expectations, hehe.

A lot of the items above were just a basket filler for me to reach the £30 target (after discount). I decided to try out the Eyebrow Stencil Kit (£0.75, £1.50 rrp) because I remember watching a video by MakeupByTiffanyD saying that using a stencil over your eyebrows when you use powder to fill them in really does make a difference, and for only 75p, why not give it a go? As you can see, they have four different shapes, and you pick the one that best matches your eyebrow shape. They are made of a flexible plastic material and can be reused. I'll give you the directions of use as written on the packaging: Choose the stencil that best fits your natural eyebrow shape. The stencil should align at the point 1 and point 2* and much of your natural brow hair should be inside the stencil cut-out. Next fill in the brow area with your desired filler preference, such as a brow pencil or a brow powder. Simply flip the same stencil and repeat the precious steps to fill in your other brow. *Point one is where your eyebrow starts and point two is where they end. I have yet to use this, but will do a review on them when I have, and let you know whether or not I think it's worth in investing.

I think I'm obsessed with false eyelashes, I can't seem to stop buying them. The Natural False Lashes £0.75, £1.50 rrp) are extremely disappointed. As soon as I looked at it, I could tell that the two are not the same length! As you can seem one is much longer than the other - what is that all about?! I will still probably use these as eyelashes are not the same on both eyes, but still - fix up ELF!

There's not much I can say about the Matte Nail Polish (£0.75, £1.50 rrp) just yet apart from that the top does not align with the bottle when you tighten it shut. I loved Avon's liquid eyeshadow so I wanted to give the ELF one a try and it was dirt cheap - only 75p (£1.50 rrp)! I got the colour Sultry Satin which is a light gold beige colour. The colour does look different to how it looks on the site, but is still a nice colour nontheless. I also got the Mineral Eyeshadow Primer to give it a go. The only eyeshadow primers I have used are the MAC Prep + Prime and Urban Decay's Primer Potion. I absolutely LOVE the UD Primer Potion and think it's absolutely worth the money. I'm not a big fan of the MAC one, and comparing it to the UD one, there's no contest. The Primer Potion is really expensive though so I thought to see how the ELF one would compare to it. This cost only £1.50 (£3 rrp) which is uber cheap compared to UD's £14.50. I also opted for the more "pricey" eyeshadow primer from their Mineral line. They have other eyeshadow primers that were £1.50 (75p after discount) and an eyeshadow primer set for £3.50 (£1.75 after discount).

The last two things I got were the Nail Block and the Powder Puffs (set of 4), both were £0.75, ££1.50 rrp. Everyone needs a nail file block, and this one had four different sides for different purposes which I thought would be good when I give myself manicures. I decided to get the powder puffs to pat my face after I apply powder to remove any excess powder to make sure my face doesn't look caked on with powder (as it often has been in the past ><). Although I did not plan to get these items, I think they are quite useful to have, and are pretty cheap. The powder puffs are made of a cotton material and are pretty soft - I wouldn't use them to apply powder, but I do think they would be good at removing excess.

I hope you have found the pictures and descriptions useful for when or if you decide to order from ELF. I have heard stories about ELF being a hit and miss with products, and I think I can kind of see why. I think that my false eyelashes were a bit of a miss, but perhaps you'll be luckier and get a more identical batch, hehe. I do think that the products are worth the money even without the discount. Happy shopping guys, and until next time..

- Diem xo