ELF Mad For Matte 1 Review

Hello all!! I'm here with a quick palette review today!

These eye shadows are smooth, silky, and slightly powdery!

They blend out exceptionally well.

I have severely hooded eyes, and I love to use this palette to carve out my crease, and make my lids look less puffy!

Overall: 7.5/10!

ELF Liquid Eye Shadow In Liquid Gold, Rose Gold Review

Hey all!!

Today we're going to talk about two liquid eye shadows I really like!

At first use, I HATED these! But I figured out HOW to use them correctly!

These are liquid eye shadows in a tube with a doe foot applicator. Texture wise, these really are liquid-y.

First time I used these, I took the doe foot and smoothed it over my whole mobile lid, then tapped it out with my fingers. Which resulted in a sheer, glittery, patchy mess!

Now, I take the doe foot, and dab it onto the back of my hand, then pick up the liquid shadow with a flat, stiff synthetic brush. And tap that onto my lids!

This results in a glowy, dewy lid look!!!

I have zero issues with these creasing on my oily, severely hooded lids!!

Overall: 8/10

ELF Blush and Bronzer Duo Review

Hey friends!!

Today we're going to look at one of my favourite cheek products!!

This is the ELF Blush and Bronzer duo compact! It contains a shimmery light golden brown bronzer, and a light glittery cotton candy pink blush.

I LOVE the bronzer in this compact!! It gives my skin warmth, so I don't look flat or dead,

But I REALLY Love mixing them together! I'll just take a fluffy blush brush, and dab it back and forth into both pans. and then buff it onto my cheeks. And it adds a warm, peachy glow to my cheeks! I'm obsessed!

Amount: I threw out the box It came in, so I have no clue. Shoot!

Price: $5

Pros: Super blendable, soft, and easy!

Cons: Not dark skinned friendly! I wish ELF would come out with more shades in this formula!!

ELF Contour/Light Blush Pallet Review

Hello friends!!

The title of this post is kind of misleading, because I didn't know what to NAME this. ahaha.

Today, I'm reviewing My "custom" ELF cheek palette.

If you didn't know, You CAN pop the pans OUT in ELF's cheek pallets. So having owned the Light Blush palette and the Contour Palette, I'v made my own custom thing!

Clockwise, we have:

Cool brown matte contour shade - Very creamy and easy to pick up on a brush and blend out!
Pearly/lightly shimmery white highlight shade - super soft to the touch. It's silky! and not chunky at all.
Matte Plummy Pink - This is slightly powdery in the pan, so make sure to tap your brush. Very pigmented, and it lasts all day on me! One of my favourite shades for blushes.
Matte watermellon pink base, with Silver sparkles - I love this one!! It's a nice coraly/watermellon pink shade, with some silver sparkles. It blends so well, and lasts all day!


Price: $6 for each palette
Pros: Pigmented!! Very vibrant. Soft, silky. Lasts until I take it off at the end of the night.
Cons: Powdery, light skinned people may think they're too pigmented/overwhelming.
Overall: 9/10

My experience with ELF Cosmetic's Customer Service

Hey all!!

Today I wanted to share my experience with ELF's customer service!

I placed an order with ELF cosmetics on December 28th 2016

By January 13th 2017, I had NOT received a shipping conformation email yet.

January 14th 2017, I sent their customer service an email, and I sent in my order number. And asked if I should make a dispute with paypal, to get my money back.

January 14th 2017, the same day I received an email back, and they explained how sorry they were, and that they were swamped from their Boxing Day sale, and that they will ship my order ASAP.

January 15th 2017, I get the shipping conformation email from ELF! They ALSO sent me a email explaining that they were very sorry, and they were going to ship my $35 order to me, and give me a FULL REFUND. And I DID receive my full money back on my paypal account!

January 22nd 2017 My order shows up in my mailbox, and I excitedly ripped open my box, and it was full of stuff I didn't order. Because they took so long to ship it, they had run out of most of the items I ordered. It bothered my a SMIDGE. But I was very impressed that they replaced the stuff that was out of stock.

February 20th 2017, It's a STAT Holiday, here in Canada. But I went to answer my front door, and there was a package sitting there for me! I open it up, and it's a Box with ELF's Nourishing Night Cream, and a note saying how sorry ELF Cosmetics is that my order was so late, and that they care about their customers and want to make sure we are all happy!

I am VERY VERY impressed with how ELF handled this! They were professional the whole time, they answered my emails the same day, I wasn't at ALL expecting to receive this night cream for free, nor was I expecting my order to be fully refunded!!

I understand some other bloggers have had not as amazing service. This is just my personal experience, that I wanted to share with you all!

My Custom Made Travel Palettes

Hey all!!

Longer term readers will know, I travel quite a bit. So I like to have magnetic bottom palettes ready, that I can just toss into my bag and not have to worry about singles, or finding a palette I can get a couple of looks out of!

First up we have my cheek pallet:

I have two makeup geek blushes in the top left corner (Soulmate and Romance!)  beside them I have a travel sized pan of my beloved Bela Bamba from Benefit (DC) Then the three shadows down the right edge are Coastal Scents Coral Blossom (Orangey/Coral), Coral Rose (More of a fushia pink than coral!) and MAC Cranberry (shimmery burgundy/red)

Then on the bottom left, is a shimmery bronzer from ELF, then two highlight shades the lighter one is from Coastal Scents it's called Lemon Chiffon, and then the gold beside it (my second all time favourite highlight!) is Make Up For Ever ME512.

I like the quality of all of these products. I find them to last on me, and they work well. If they didn't I wouldn't take them traveling haha.


Next up, we have my travel eye shadow palette:

This is a Colourpop 4 pan palette that I took tweezers to and took apart until I was left with a magnetic bottom palette!

Top row we have: Sephora Brand Swan Song (Matte white/light pink), Colourpop High Strung (rose gold metallic) Colorpop Take it slow (Shimmery off white/Champagne) A MUFE Artist shadow that I don't know the name of, It's in the First artist palette, Coastal Scents Barista (Matte warm brown)

Bottom row: A sample sized Lancome shadow (It's a shimmery copper) Colourpop Bel Air (Matte light brown) Colourpop Come and Get it (Pink base with gold duochrome) MAC Sumptuous Olive (golden olive shimmer) And two MUFE Artist shadows (One is a metallic taupe, and the other is a dupe for MAC's Woodwinked!)

That's my travel pallets! My first trip is coming up fast! So I'm looking forward to traveling with these!

Colourpop, Paula's Choice, Coastal Scents, and ELF Haul!

I have done a LOT of online shopping since my surgery last friday (january 13th). I'v been stick in the house on bed rest. So i'v been shopping and planning!!

From Colourpop I ordered: 

Bossy Lippy pencil - Matte true red

Come and Get it - Pink/Gold Duochrome Pressed shadow

High Strung - Shimmery Rose gold pressed shadow

Take it Slow - Shimmery Champagne pressed shadow

Bel Air - Matte medium brown pressed shadow

Perilune - Green tinged highlighter

School is Fun - Yellow gold LE highlighter

Bae - Purple/Green Duochrome cream shadow

Glitterati - Highly reflective glittery white cream shadow.

Total: $51 CAD

From Paula's Choice I ordered: 

Sport Non Greasy SPF50 Sunblock. I love this sunblock!! I had four samples stashed for last summer when I was traveling. So I'm happy to have the full size!!

Total: $7 CAD.

(I am affiliated with PC, and I have a code that gets you $10 off you purchase!!
My Affiliate code is: https://goo.gl/m22LFZ    )

From Coastal Scents I got: 

I got 3 hot pots from Coastal Scents! I am traveling out of my province this year for a week. So I'm trying to get my makeup routine streamlined, and small for traveling!! So I can use these three as blushes/highlights!

I ordered, Lemon Chiffon hot pot (Yellowy gold!! My fave for highlighting!!)

Coral Blossom (A true shimmery coral!!)

And lastly, Coral Rose (a satiny pink!)

Total: $10.85 CAD

From ELF I got: 

From ELF, I ordered all of this on December 28th. And It didn't ship until THIS WEEK. So of course I emailed ELF and asked what was up, and they were very great!! They apologized, and said they were swamped, and they shipped my package that day!!

I got The Lip Exfoliator in the original flavour

Makeup Mist and Fix

Mattifying Cream Foundation

Smudge Pot Cream shadow in Brownie Points

Get Glowing kit (It has the 4 pan illuminiating pallet, a shimmering facial whip, and a highlighting brush in the kit!)

All about Eyes Kit (A 5 pan clay eye shadow pallet in neutral brown shades, a liquid liner, and a sheer eye primer!)

Moisturizing foundation Stick

Bronzed beauty set (a blush and bronzer duo!)

A mascara

And I got a 4 piece GWP!!

Total: $19 But they refunded my full payment, so I'm getting everything from ELF for free!!

I want to stress how AMAZING ELF's customer service was with me!! They were polite. and wonderful!!!

Look out for reivews of there products coming up soon!! I should have the ELF order, and the Coastal Scents order next week! :) 

My foundation shades!

Today we are going to talk about foundation!!

My skin type: Dehydrated deep down, Oily on top, Acne prone, and very prominent warm/yellow undertones!

I am biracial for any of you that do not know this. I am not fully white. And that's where I get my eye shape, my wide, flat nose, and my full lips from!!

I am very lucky when it comes to foundation/concealer. I am light skinned. But I'm not VERY fair to the point where everything is too dark. I can ALWAYS find a shade match (a undertone match is a very different story!) I'm usually in the beginning or middle of drugstore foundation shades!

These are my current "open" foundations:

From left to right we have:

MUFE Ultra HD liquid foundation in the shade Y225
LUSH Skin tint in the shade Dark Yellow
Garnier Oily Skin BB cream in the shade Light Medium
The Body Shop Vitamin E BB cream in the shade Glowing
Physicians Formula Argan Wear BB cream in the shade Light Medium
MUFE Velvet Mat + Foundation in the shade #40
MAC Studio Fix Fluid SPF15 In the shade NC20
ELF Flawless Finish Foundation in the shade Sand
L'oral Infallible Pro Matte Foundation in the shade 104 Golden Biege

Here is all of the foundations swatched in the same order as above. As you can see, I'm yellow toned obviously, and I like full coverage matte foundations! I have pretty darn, clear, and even skin. I just really prefer the cake life.

Here I am, barefaced, in the middle of a canadian winter! My skin is pretty darn clear, I don't have a lot to cover besides under eyes.


My best match right now, Is ELF Flawless foundation in Sand, and MAC NC20. In the summer I know I'm a NC25, because I tan SUPER easily and don't burn.

I hope this helps someone to find a foundation match who is close to my skin tone!!

What's in my every day acrylic organizer?

I made two New Years resolutions this year, and one is to overhaul my messy bedroom! And to start that process I'm buying more organizers/containers/shelving to keep all of my stuff organized!

I purchased a Acrylic organizer, that hold's anything and everything I could ever need/want for day to day and MORE. 

I couldn't get a good picture of it, as it's shiny and see through so none of my shots were looking 'swell! But here's a from above shot of the organizer and the stuff I'm keeping inside of it!

In the very back two compartments I keep these primers! These are my every day primers, or primers i'm testing out! I of course, don't use every one of these every day. I DO switch out. 

From left to right we have:

MAC Radiance Yellow - "Radiance boosting primer" I like to use this after my sunblock, it's a lotion consistency, that smooths over the skin easily! 

Maybelline Baby Skin - "Pore Erasing primer" This is "just" a clear silicone primer. I was given it for christmas, so I'm testing it out right now. 

Benefit PoreFessional - "Pro Balm" This is a silicone primer that fills in pores, and helps keep my oily skin at bay!! So far I REALLY enjoy this primer!!

Make Up Forever Step 1 - "Matiffying primer" I'd have to google it, but I don't FEEL any silicones in this primer. But it's a creamy primer, that you PAT onto the skin to maximize the oil absorbing abilities!! I would recommend this for oily skinned people. MAYBE Combo, but ONLY used on oily areas! It WILL accentuate dry skin. 

The Estee Edit Pore Vanishing stick - This is a siliconey stick primer. It's clear on my skin tone. (I say this because I have not seen it applied on lovely dark skin tones!) And I really adore it! I was given a sample of it, and I fell in love. I swipe it onto my forehead, sides of my nose, and inner cheeks, then pat/blend it out with my fingers. It doesn't absorb oil, but it really smooths and preps my skin!

Too Faced Shadow Insurance - This is a super lightly peach tinted eye primer. I squeeze out the SMALLEST bit and pat it from lashline to browbone. I have super oily, and severely hooded eyes. And this is one of two eye primers I'v tried that actually keep my eye shadows from creasing! It dries to a stiff finish. So I like to take a eye shadow/face powder lighter than my skintone and set it so it's easier to blend eye shadow ontop of!

ELF Sheer eye primer - This is the second eye primer that i'v found to work on my oily lids! The ONLY reason I don't switch to this eye primer (This is $2, and the Too Faced one is $24) is, I go through about 5 of these a year. Where I'v had the same Too Faced eye primer for over 2 years now. But it's just as good as the Too Faced one!!

Foundations I keep in the container from left to right:

Make Up Forever Mat Velvet+ #40 - This is a hair too dark for me right now, as it oxidizes a whole shade one my skin. It's also too orangey for my lighter mid winter skin right now. But I like it for mixing! I love the finish of this foundation, so I'm keeping it, to bring out in the warmer months!

MAC Studio Fix Fluid SPF15 NC20 - This and the ELF foundation are my closest matches to my neck right now. It's a thick foundation, with pretty good coverage. I like to do a dot on each cheek, a dot on my forehead, and half of a dot on my nose and chin, then buff it out. It lasts so well on me, and it's the closest i'v gotten to matching my super prominent yellow undertones!

Physicians Formula Argan Wear BB Cream Light/Medium - This is a great FORMULA for Canadian winters, it's pretty dang moisturizing for my oily skin, and keeps my skin soft all day long! It's a touch orange for me, right now. But I just buff down my neck. It doesn't last as long on my face as foundations, but with face primer, and setting powder I can get pretty darn good wear!

ELF Flawless Finish Foundation Sand - This is my second best match right now! It's a hair not yellow enough, But It's not noticeable when I wear my hair down. It lasts all day, and is creamy and smooth!

Concealers I keep: 

Kat Von D Lock it Concealer Creme Light11 - This is a great concealer for quick days! it's super pigmented and blendable on my oily skin. I can use it as a foundation on lazy days as well! I just swipe it onto my cheeks, and dot it under my eyes and BAM good to go!

Make Up Forever Concealer/Corrector pallet #1 - I love the formula of these! They're super creamy for a potted concealer. And I love the two correcters!

Powders I use every day:

MAC Set Powder - I like to use this under my foundation to help absorb oil, and to set under my eyes! It's not heavy or cakey!

MAC Blot Powder Pressed Medium Dark - Despite this not being dark at ALL, I love this powder!! This is my second compact, and It's just as mattifying and great as the first!

Random Face stuff:

Sephora Brand Baked Luminizor 01 Stardust - My holy grail highlighter! This is my second compact of this, as I scraped out the first one. It's a beautiful yellow gold, that looks perfect on my yellow toned skin!

Tarte Amazonian Clay Foundation Fair Light Honey - This is one of my favourite foundations!! |It's super thick, opaque, and yellow! I don't have the $51 plus tax to buy it right now. So I'm living out of a sample!

Urban Decay All nighter Foundation 2.0 - This is too light for me, but it oxidzes almost a full shade. I'm not a huge fan of how this looks on my skin. It's a bit cakey and patchy?

Colourpop Glitter Sheer eye shadow Paisley - This is a sheer yellow pressed glitter! I love this in my inner corners and on my lids!

Make Up Forever Artist Eye shadows - I just posted a review of these three shades, so do go check that out! But I use these three as a face pallet, and as eye shadows! 

Blushes/Cheek Products:

NARS Liberte - A satiny terracotta blush

NARS Sin - A berry blush with golden shimmer

Clinique Cola Pop - A dark satiny/sheeny reddish "flush" shade

ELF Contour Kit - a shimmery white, a matte banana, warm brown matte, matte cool brown

Little nick-knacks I keep in the lipstick compartments:

IT Cosmetics Super Hero Mascara - This is a great formula and brush! But it dries out quickly for me. 

L'oreal Voluminous Millions of lashes mascara - This gives me the BEST lashes I'v ever had!

MAC Brow Set Brown Ebony - My current favourite brow gel! It's tinted enough to add colour back to my brows, but holds well enough to set them in place! 

L'oreal Carbon Black liquid liner - My current opened liquid liner. 

Unknown glitter liner - I have less than a quarter left of this, it's a rainbow glitter in a clear gel.

Avon Always on Point Black liner - This is the BEST liner for my waterline! It lasts so long, and isn't painful or hard to apply. 

Sephora brand Liquid liner Life's a picnic - A green liquid liner with teal sparkles. I like it!

ELF Original Lip exfoliator - Self explanatory.

LUSH Santa Baby Lip tint - My HOLY GRAIL lipstick EVER!

 

Single/Cream Eyeshadows: 

Colourpop Hammard - Olive Green

Maybelline Colour Tatoo Bad to the bronze - Metallic brown

Shiseido GR707 - Shimmery olive green

Colourpop Paradox - Matte Burgundy/Red

Colourpop Nillionair - Glittery bronze with red glitters

Colourpop Stero - Blackend purple

Colourpop Crenshaw - Matte medium warm brown 

Colourpop Seeker - Matte dark brown 

This is everything I'v placed into my Acrylic organizer! I find I'm not reaching for anything else, or bringing out anything else from my makeup drawer. I'm planning to switch out my foundations/blushes/single shadows with the months/seasons! 

Happy Holidays! / Christmas Eve FOTD / Mini Haul!

Happy holidays everyone!! I hope everyone is safe and warm and surrounded by lots of loved ones, blood related or not. 

I got payed yesterday, so I picked up a few things I needed!!

I wear at LEAST SPF 60 every day under my makeup, so I go through a LOT of sunblock!! I have extremely acne prone/sensitive skin. I usually buy the Neutragena Clear Skin acne prone sun block, BUT! It's gone up in price $3 since I first bought it. It's currently $14.99 at CHEAPEST. So ya girl branched out! I picked up Coppertone Sensitive skin face sunblock with SPF 60. fingers crossed I don't get a rash, or break out from it!!

I also picked up the ELF Contouring kit. I'v been VERY into bronzing up my cheeks and forehead lately (I have a super small forehead, so I don't know why I'd want to contour it LOL) lately!! So I figured for $8, this would be a good compact thing for all of my travelling!! I am wearing the cooler contour shade in my cheeks, and the warm brown one on my forehead, and the shimmery white on my cheek bones!!

Lastly in this mini haul, I saw a box with my HOLY GRAIL mascara, ( L'oreal Voluminous Million lashes! in the gold tube!) with a full sized L'oreal liquid eye liner for $9.85!!! That's a STEAL. And I'm on the last bits of my current sample sized mascara, so I'm going to put the mascara away until i'm for sure done with my current mascara!! I'm wearing the liquid liner in the FOTD picture. And so far, after using it once, i think I like it!! I need to get the hang of the applicator. But it's pretty darn good!!

Onto my Christmas Eve FOTD!!

Why yes, I AM wearing purple eyeshadow, purple lipstick, AND a purple shirt! LOL. I'm currently testing a new foundation for review, so what do you all think of the colour match? I think it's perfect! 

Anyway!! I'm heading off to go eat chinese food with my loved ones!! I hope you all have a safe and wonderful upcoming weeks!!! 

Current HG Base Routine!

I'v been testing different foundations and primers and concealers for YEARS! And I think i'v found a routine that works super super well for me!!

My skin tone: Light, NC23, with prominent yellow/warm undertones.
My skin type: Oily, Acne prone, Sensitive.

This is my base routine in order of use! As you'll notice most is high end, and that's because I can NOT find something light and yellow enough at the drug store, or stuff that works with my finicky skin!

Primers!!!

I do a primer "cocktail" So I'll use one of the Green primers patted onto my cheeks and fore head. I can't pick which one I like better, out of the ELF tone correcting primer, or the Hard Candy Colour Correcting primer. They are both A+ in my opinion!!

After patting the green primer into my skin, I'll squeeze out some Make Up For Ever Step 1 Mattifying primer and I'll lightly pat this into my fore head/nose/chin/inner cheeks to stop shine!

For Foundation:

I'll squeeze out a SMALL less than a dime sized dot of Make Up Forever Mat Velvet+ foundation (im in the shade #40) onto the back of my hand, then take a real techniques buffing brush and I'll dot this onto my skin then buff it in. This gives me just enough coverage to even out my skin and hide my red ness!!

Then I'll take the Kat Von D Lock it Concealer Creme, and i'll swipe it across the apples of both cheeks then take what's left over on the brush and dot that under my eyes, and i'll blend that all out. I'm in the shade Light11 in the concealer, and it's THE PERFECT shade for me. I can use this as foundation, just a dot or two around my face and buff out!!

For Powder: I love Sephora Brand Matte Perfection Powder Foundation in the shade 18 Golden Linen. It's yellow toned so perfect for me! And it's MATTE. I personally love a MATTE/FLAT base. And then add highlight in strategic places. Because of my oily skin! But this powder is amazing and I will be repurchasing!

For Setting spray: I'v tried all of the Urban Decay setting sprays and I hated them all. I used the Avon Setting spray for YEARS. Until I met Mist and Fix. I like to PACK on the powder, then just spray my face to take away the powdery look, and to add a hint of natural dew back to my skin. And this does exactly that!! My foundation NEVER fades or breaks down. I do get oily, but I'd rather blot then have oils trapped in my pores all day!


These are my current HG Base products. What are your current faves?