E.L.F. Jumbo Eyeshadow Stick Review & Swatches
I purchased several E.L.F. Jumbo Eyeshadow Sticks recently as they looked like a rather great bargain. Much to my delight I had smashing success with the E.L.F. Jumbo Gloss Sticks so this was promising for the Eyeshadow Sticks.
These are mere $2 bucks each and come in ten shades. Quite a value when compared to budget brands like NYX who also does a jumbo eyeshadow pencil as well.
Did I love them?
Find out!
Nope, skip ’em I don’t love ’em.
First of all they stink. Wow. I mean so bad that I was scared to put them near my eyes. They smell like burnt rubber or oil or burning oil or something car slash mechanic related. It’s gross sorry.
I’m fascinated because there are 24 reviews on E.L.F. and most are raves. Eh? What am I missing?
These are twist up chubby pencil stick which you can use to line and shade with. They are a cream formula so you can use them as an all over eyeshadow, eyeliner, or as a base for powders.
I tried them in a variety of ways and didn’t love any of the results. As an all over eyeshadow they crease and fade within an hour even with primer. The colors just don’t want to stay put and I had severe issues with keeping them on my lid. The creasing is extra bad and seems like I have an oily lid when in fact I’m drier. Pigmentation varies on each shade some of the darker colors I tried had sheer to medium color pay off when built (but you had to do quite a few layers for the medium color pay off). The lighter shades are very subtle with very little color pay off as you’ll see in one of my looks below.
Feeling Lucky, Little Miss Thing, Turkish Coffee, French Lace
Turkish Coffee
Little Miss Thing
French Lace
Feeling Lucky
I find blending difficult with them because as you build color up and blend out with a finger they end up blending away and looking patchy or looking like you didn’t even apply the shadow at all. After some challenging minutes with the pencil I finally got it into place correctly. But the struggle of application kinda got me irritated. The dry down is a little slow as well which could be why they crease so quickly as they felt a bit tacky 30 minutes after application when they should have long since dried down….!
I finally tried using them as a base with an eyeshadow and a loose pigment. They do very well under powders during application as they’ll help minimize fall out and intensify the shade you’re using. However, at about an hour and a half into the wear my eyeshadow starts to crease in a major way and gets very muddy looking. With loose pigment I saw a longer wear time with creasing but a lot less creasing compared to powder eyeshadow.
In the end I felt like the smell, application issues, and color pay off added up to a very poor product. Plus these are .11 oz and NYX Jumbo Eyeshadow Pencils are 0.18. My sound advice is dish out the extra $2 for NYX, get more product, and a better formula with a wide array of colors to choose from and skip E.L.F.’s version!
Little Miss Thing
Turkish Coffee
Tried ’em?
Do share!