e.l.f Essentials Beauty Encyclopedia - Review and Swatches

This is the perfect gift for yourself or for a friend. Add this trendy Little Book of Beauty as a reference guide to your collection.
This all-in-one compact includes the must-have makeup essentials:
12 eye shadow shades
1 eyeliner
1 eye shadow applicator 

If you follow bloggers or watch YouTubers from overseas, you'll have heard of this brand called e.l.f. From what I heard, it was a cheap, drugstore brand with relatively good-quality cosmetics. When I found out they had an Australian store, I was so excited to browse their products!

Let me tell you, the website did not disappoint! They have a great variety of really cheap products, compared to products we would find in Australia. Their 3 ranges have a vast variety of single products ranged from $1.99 - $9.99, with sets of products for as cheap as $15.

I had a look at their new products, and found this beauty book, with 12 eyeshadows at an introduction offer of only $3.99! I've been wanting to try some e.l.f products, and i thought for this price, this would be the ultimate product to begin with.

I chose the smokey eye set, which has a variety of matte and shimmery colours, which are super pigmented and also very smooth! It almost feels like a creamy product. The set also comes with this little instruction page, which is really handy for beginners, or people like myself, trying to venture out and try new things.

The dark colours, let me tell you, are just wow. One really light swipe gives you a super dark and pigmented colour,  that I was really impressed with! I took two swipes to get the same effect with the lighter colours, but thats basically a given with lighter shade.

(top row - matte white, shimmery dark grey, matte black, shimmery silver)

(middle row - shimmery off white, near-matte muted grey green, shimmery champagne, shimmery latte)

(bottom row - shimmery pale gold, shimmery orange gold, shimmery dark brown, shimmery bronze, accompanying eyeliner)

These colours give incredible payoff, and the black was definitely the most pigmented (I've heard reviews saying this rivals MAC's Carbon). The one downfall I had with this set is that the third colour in the second row is slightly crumbly, but apart from that, this set has no faults! Even the eyeliner that comes with this set is smooth. Not the most amazing thing ever, but certainly great for someone looking out to try eyeliners.

Overall, I am super impressed with this e.l.f set, and will definitely be repurchasing from the site, especially after hearing so many great things about a variety of products!

Being in Victoria, the the palette arrived 2 days after I ordered it! It is a flat rate of $5.80 for shipping, but there is free shipping for orders over $30, which I feel is extremely reasonable, and not at all hard to total given the range!

This palette has now gone up to $9.99, but I certainly feel it is worth it, whether you are a beginner looking into some basic colours, or broadening your general/smokey collection! I already have a naked palette, but I definitely think this will certainly be rivaling the use of that.

e.l.f Cosmetics have great prices for their products, and at the moment are having a month of 50% off one product per day, so it is definitely worth checking out!

Have you tried any e.l.f products? Which ones would you recommend?

Love Gianna

xx