So, as promised, here is the second part of my post-Christmas haul! I realise I haven’t mentioned my Illamasqua Mystery Gift Box in these posts at all, but I’ll probably do separate reviews for that. Anyway, I managed an arguably humorous title for this one, I’m back on it!

Before I get to the goodies, I hopped back on the health bandwagon today. I’ve seen so many lovely things since starting a polyvore account (you can reach me at thefatfashionista.polyvore.com!) that are predictably in teeny sizes so it’s made me want to get back on it. I was doing so well before Christmas- I’d lost nearly 2 stones- but for a number of reasons things have gone a bit backward recently. I’m feeling a bit hungry now but a) I’m warm in bed and I don’t want to go get anything and b) I know it’s simply because I haven’t had enough to drink today. The perils of being a fattie in a fashion world, eh?

Onto the goodies! So this is  a couple of separate hauls from ELF- my first ever- and overall my impression of the range is middling to good. They’ve had a few sales and offers on in the past month so I decided to dip my toe into the ELF pool and see what I could find. I’ve heard mixed things about ELF products from the many YouTube make up gurus I watch and other people I’ve spoken to that are in the make-up know, so I thought I needed to try them for myself.

First thing I’m showing is tools- I got a few brushes, their tweezers and a (fantastic) brush case:

I apologise for the awful photography in this post- I’m saving up for a new camera, amongst other things- but you can hopefully see them well. The tweezers are fantastic for being so cheap (£1.50!) and the brush case, which cost me £5.00 in the half price sale- is just what I was looking for. It has ten little pockets, but in some of them you can store multiple smaller brushes, like liner or shadow brushes, so it’s fantastic for travelling. I’m currently storing my brushes in it full time until I find myself a decent, sturdy pot to store them in, but it’ll be perfect for when I go on holiday or have to take some brushes with me.

Here are the brushes:

Please ignore my chubby hand! Here we have the small angled brush (top) and the small smudge brush (bottom) from ELF’s studio range. All the studio range brushes, excepting their kabuki and body brushes, cost £3.75 and most of them have been fantastic quality. Both of these brushes can be used for a number of things- gel or cake eye liner, precisely applying lip colour, filling in brows-and I’m really glad I got them.

Here are two ELF Studio stippling brushes- the small brush on the left, and the full sized one on the right. I haven’t had a chance to try out the full sized one yet, but I’m not incredibly impressed with the small one. Whether I’m doing something wrong or using too much product I don’t know, but it doesn’t seem to really do anything except clump together and suck up all the foundation. They are both incredibly soft though, and feel pretty good quality, so I dunno. I’ll try the big one and see how I feel.

This is the flawless concealer brush- and I love this brush! It’s so soft and fluffy, and perfect for blending in all kinds of concealer, contouring your face- even blending in eyeshadow or blush. They should rename it the flawless, all-purpose blending brush, in my opinion.

This is the blushing, bronzing and blending brush, and is from their ordinary £1.50 range. I’m not so impressed with this brush as I am the studio brushes- you can definately tell the difference in quality between the two ranges- but it does do what it claims to, it just takes a bit more work. The bristles aren’t as soft as the other brushes, and I have had a minimal amount of shedding when washing this brush, but for £1.50 I feel like I shouldn’t really complain too much.

This is just a photo of all the things I can’t really swatch!! In here is the Mineral Primer (£6-an amazing product, feels lovely on the skin and my make up has stayed on really well when I’ve used this), two nail polishes in Metal Madness and Golden Goddess (£1 in the sale-lovely colours, though GG is more of a top coat, but they take forever to dry), a little pot of their Nail Polish Remover Pads (£2.50 for 20-which have gone to my mum as I’d forgotten I’d ordered these when I bought my Bourjois 1-Second Remover!), a Zit Zapper (£1.50-I bought two of these, one has gone to my brother [!] and he thinks it’s really good), an Eye Primer & Liner Sealer (£3.75-the primer is great, I’ve not had a chance to try the sealer yet, but the idea is you can use the clear liner to turn your favourite shadows into liquid liners!), a Wet Gloss Lash & Brow Clear Mascara (£1.50-the brow mascara is great, not tried the lash end yet) and a Mascara Primer (£3.75). I must admit I’d heard rave reviews about the mascara primer, but I’ve not been impressed as yet. I can’t seem to get any product off the brush and onto my lashes, but maybe I’m just not noticing it?

I could probably have swatched these, but because of my lack of a decent camera and the fact that I’m writing this post at night it wouldn’t show up properly. This is the Complete Coverage Concealer palette in Light(£3.75, Studio range), and All Over Cover Stick in Apricot Beige (£1.50, Essentials range). I’m not too impressed with the CCC palette, as I can never actually get much product ON to my skin, and even then it’s so difficult to blend, but the AOCS is brilliant. I was a bit wary when I saw the shade as I thought it may have been a bit dark- but it’s great, it blends so well and it’s so quick and easy to use. I literally just sweep the whole stick across my face, in whatever area I feel the need to conceal (dark circles, anyone?) and then blend it in with my fingers or the aforementioned flawless concealer brush!

This is an exciting photo for me because it includes my finally found My Lips But Better shade! But I’ll get to that eventually. In the big square pot is a Studio cream blush in Tease (£3.50, down from £6.50). It’s a lovely, peachy pinky red (I’m sorry, but the swatch to come below will hopefully make it clearer than that awful description!) and although at first it feels so, so strange (it feels like play dough) it’s much easier to blend and build the colour gradually than I thought it would be. You need to put a lot of product onto your cheek in order to look overdone, which is very good for a cream blush novice. There are also two lip liners- a Mineral Lip Liner in Rose (£3.00), and a Long Wear Lip Liner in Bitten from their Essentials range (£1.50). The mineral lip liner is a great colour, slightly on the neutral side, and blends really well so it is likely to go with a lot of different shades. As for the Essentials lip liner, it’s brilliant! I really love it; it’s surprisingly soft, and glides on like a dream. It’s also a really vivid colour, perfect for pillarbox reds, fuschias, hot pinks- loads and loads of shades would go really well with it. The other two products featured here are two of their Studio Matte Lip Colours, in Tea Rose and Natural (£3.75). I was actually tempted to buy these after seeing the beautiful voussontbeauetbelle wear both colours in her videos- miss your videos, Becca!- and falling a little in love with them. Natural is a great nude pink and is going to my mum, but Tea Rose is My Lips But Better! I was really surprised when I put it on my lips, because swatched on my hand it looks really lilac, but nope! MLBB! Stoked to find a MLBB shade that lasts, is creamy and feels wonderful on my lips, and is only £3.75! What’s more, because of the almost pencil shape of the lipstick it’s so easy to apply and you really don’t even need a liner with it.

Swatches:

L-R: Cream Blush in Tease, Mineral Lip Liner in Rose, Long Wear Lip Liner in Bitten, Matte Lip colour in Natural, Matte Lip colour in Tea Rose

Finally we have two eye products- the 48pc Little Black Beauty Book, Warm (£4.00 in the sale) and a Studio Eyeliner & Shadow stick in Pearl/Glow (£3.75). The shadow palette is a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest- some of the shades are impressively pigmented, and some of them really aren’t! I got the Warm Edition because the Fat Fashionista has ice blue eyes and these colours are perfect for making the most out of blue/grey eyes. It’s a shame more of them aren’t better pigmented, else I’d really like this palette. Regardless, it’s good for travelling and the shades that are good are very good indeed. There’s a reasonable selection of shimmery shades and a few matte ones too- no surprises for guessing it’s the matte ones that leave much to be desired, but some of the shimmers aren’t so great either. The Eyeliner & Shadow stick isn’t bad, but it’s not the best thing I bought! I tried to swatch it but again thanks to shoddy cameras it wouldn’t really show up- the liner is a pretty, silvery white and the shadow is a very sheer, pearlescent pink. I’m not too impressed with the shadow end, but the eyeliner is pretty good. It’s just a little awkward to apply, and it broke off in my tear duct- not the most comfortable thing ever!

I swatched a few of the Beauty Book shades to show you a few of the better ones:

I’m rather impressed with the yellow, but it’s a little chalky!

So that’s that for the beauty haul! Tomorrow I will bring you the newest acquisitions to my shoe wardrobe- I am a sucker for a pretty pair of shoes, especially when they are on sale!- and a quick overview of the best and more fun things I received for Christmas. Keep smiling, fat fashion fans!