Mini ELF haul & new apartment

Hi all! :) Thanks for all the warm new apartment wishes!

I am so glad to be almost done making the place homey =D Here is what it looked like before!

Isn't that crazy? It was a nightmare!!! I have never worked so hard! =P

I was going to put a picture of my little vanity area BUT the thing was knocked down by my aggressive bed handling skills :( I knocked it down completely before I had a chance to take a picture of it. Aye. So now I have all my makeup in a small 2-drawer chest. LOL!

Anyway, today I went to Ross to get a new caddy and bath mats and guess what I found?

Yup, ELF sets. I read from one my blogger friends about how she liked the eyelash curler from ELF so I wanted to try it out. I have a Shu Umera one that I mainly use but I remember it being kind of pricey at the time. It was in the $20 range, I think? I got these ELF sets for $4.99 and $5.99. Retail price for all the items I have inside :) I also got a pair of falsies which is a plus =D I screwed up my last pair so bad that I had nightmares! Another added bonus was that I didn't have to pay for shipping.

 Here are the swatches:

The eye shadows are crazy pigmented. I couldn't believe it. They are very high quality. I'd compared to Loreal HIP shadows easily simply for the pigmentation. I'm not too sure about the other ELF shadows since this set was specifically for a smokey look. Let me know what you guys think if you have good or bad experiences with other color! I'd love to know. I didn't swatch the quad palette because I think they are the same colors as the ones in the pot. Most of the things I have inside are doubles but in different packaging!

I tried to create a smokey eye look using the set. The mascara was ehh. It was expected. Very dry formula and was kind of crusty. But the curler was fab! The grip of the curler was great because they have a place for your pinky to set while you are curling your lashes. I look forward to using it again! Also, the eyeshadow brush that came with the set is GREAT. I have the same brush from Sephora and it's the same quality. The brush is dense so the shadow application can get a little dark but if you blend out the hard edges, you get a softer look. The smudge brush was not that great. It's like an eraser! The tip was hard and eraser-like. My other smudge brushes are a little bit softer and it makes a big difference. But since the shadows were so great, the smudge brush is forgiven :)  The eyeliner was also very nice. It was a bit TOO soft because once I lined my eyes, the pencil was ready to be sharpened. The pencil creates a smudgy line no matter the pressure. If you want that straight line effect, skip this. I still liked it because it was creamy and the color was nice. I've tried eye pencils that were HARD and rough and did not expel enough color. I hate that. I haven't run into any eye pencils like that anymore. Even the CG ones are amazing. The gap really has closed between drugstore makeup and department store ones. I used to love buying department store makeup because of that bad experience with pencil liners but it was too pricey to keep splurging when you're just a student! I slowly tried going back to drugstore brands and they have truly improved x100! Plus, I read an article somewhere that big department store makeup brands buy from manufacturers that sell the same makeup to drugstore brands. I think Lancome belongs to Johnson & Johnson and they also own Loreal or or Revlon. Something like that! Interesting huh? =P


Anyway, here is the smokey look I tried to create. At first I wanted to do a Kristen Stewart Runaways look but I found that it was too bold for me! I also didn't like the hardness of it. I usually like soft smokes... it's more reflective of my personality because I'm quite mellow =p

Interesting?


I had a lot of fun trying to create a look I've never really done before. Definitely room for improvement! I really want to try my hand in matte shadows. I have a bunch of them from my Tarte set but I always feel that I wear it wrong because it looks really ugly on me! There's a whole technique that is beyond me, but I think if I just do it, i might find something I like. Clown and all. =P

I hope you guys are having a great Saturday night! Back to home improvement. Talk to you guys soon! :)