Double Review on the NEW Complete & Ultimate ELF Eye Kits
FTC Disclaimer: All products where purchased by ME. This review is my honest opinion and my experience with the product. I have not been paid to write this review. Some if any links below might be affiliate, some might not.
I recently spotted these two Elf kits at Walgreens and at $4.99 each, it's was a deal. We all know Elf is affordable but sometimes a hit and miss on pigmentation so here is my thoughts on each kit.
Beginning with the Complete eye kit which comes with an eye shadow quad palette, a brush, eyelash curler, and an eyeliner.
The eyelash curler is pretty nice because it has a deep curve which is great for small eyes versus a flatter eyelash curler that can be a challenge to use. I find this one to be a pretty decent one, specially to travel with.
Out of the two kits, the Complete eye kit is the only one that names the Shadow palette "Happy Hour".
The brush is best for packing color on the eye lid. It find that it is soft enough to use, I have sensitive eyelids and I'm particularly picky about abrasive brushes. I approve of this one.
The eyeshadow quad's name is "Happy Hour" and it comes with a tiny mirror in the compartment the the dual applicator comes in. I don't use the small sponge applicators and I find the mirror a bit small to be useful but the eyeshadows are ohhh so worth the purchase of this kit.
These are the swatches of the Complete eyeshadow quad in "Happy Hour" with NO primer and no double swatch. I simply swatched once and was shocked at how vibrant and pigmented the colors where. I love every single one of them. I woke them without primer and they lasted about 5 hours without any fading by hour 7 I started to see fading and some creasing from my oily lids. The pink was the first one to fade, the rest of the colors lasted much longer on my eyes. The colors themselves are not named, that I know of! The highlight color is a a beautiful light pearleasant gold, then you have a light pearly pink, a taupe, and a satin brown. All of the shades are buttery and easy to blend not to mention that I didn't experience any fall-out at all. I'm very impressed.
The liner in both kits are the same, a black eyeliner pencil which both claimed to be brightening. While I'm not exactly sure how black liner is brightening, I find it very pigmented and easy to work with for a pencil liner (my least favorite to work with). As you can see in the picture above I did one swatch then one heavier buildable swatch.
The Ultimate Eye Kit comes with a quad eyeshadow (unnamed), a mascara, an eyeliner, and an eye primer.
The pencil eyeliner is the same as the Complete eye kit so refer to the swatch and my comment above.
The quad eyeshadow does not come with a name but unlike the Complete Kit, this quad has two matte shadows and two frost shadows. I was expecting to love this one but I was let down by the pigmentation of the matte shadows. I had to go over both matte swatches about 5-6 times for any color to show. It was very hard to build the color and even harder to see any difference with a primer under them. Primer or not, both matte shadows flat out suck. The frost shadows are pigmented but you can find these exact shades in other palettes where you can actually use all the shadows. I was really hoping the second shadow down would be a dupe to Buck from the Naked Urban Decay palette, but sadly it wasn't. If your tempted to buy it because you have that same thought, I don't mean to crush your heart, but your going to be disappointed.
Picture above shows the shadows from the Ultimate palette swatches twice. The top row is without primer and the bottom row is with primer. As you can see, it really didn't make much of a difference.
The primer that the Ultimate kit comes with is a basic skin-toned primer that sheers out when blended onto the skin. If you look closely you can see it in the bottom of my hand in the bottom right picture. I wiped the top to create a crisp line so that you can compare bare skin and primed skin. With all the eye primers available I would not choose this one as the best one. Actually, I don't like this one! It didn't make the colors more vibrant or make them last longer on my eyelids.
The mascara was a shocker for me. I've tried other mascaras from elf and haven't found one I liked but this one I feel was decent. I like the volume and the length that it gave me. In the picture you can tell the difference with my bare lashes on the right and my lashes with the mascara on the left, and no I am not wearing false lashes. I have pretty long lashes and a lot of them but without a good mascara, it's hard to tell. I would recommend this Lengthening and Defining Mascara from ELF.
In conclusion, I'm enjoying the Complete Eye kit the most, and find the products to the the best bang for the buck in that kit. The Ultimate kit has more of a hit and miss in my opinion than anything. If your interested in the mascara, I'd check out your local target or eyeslipsface.com and see if they are carrying this mascara alone.
Hope this review has helped. Feel free to comment, let me know what you'd like me to review or tell me which Kit you like the most.
Cheers!
Marisa
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