"Smiling's My Favorite!"

"Santa! I know him!"

Ok, enough Elf movie quotes. But I can't help it. It's a wonderful movie full of classic Will Ferrell lines and it's what comes to mind when I hear the word elf.  Except that in the beauty world, elf means the cosmetic company e.l.f., which means eyes, lips, face.  Kinda brilliant, huh?

I keep going back to the e.l.f. section in Target, (and now in tons of new stores like walmart and drugstores).  I so desperately want to love this line of products. Maybe because it's so well lit all the time. Maybe because the packaging is no nonsense. Maybe it's the uber cheap prices.  

Ok fine. It's the uber cheap prices. And I do mean uber. We're talking $1 glosses, $3 eye shadows, $3 powders...and a slew of other goodies! 

So during a Target trip, I pick up these All Over Color Sticks.  for a buck each!

 e.l.f. All Over Color Stick $1 each

Left: Persimmon  Right: Pink Lemonade

Left: color swatches directly from the tube. left-ish: Persimmon right-ish: pink lemonade

Right: the swatches blended with my finger

So right out of the gate, while still in their packages, I could see these had a lot of shimmer and glitter in them. And I knew, despite the claim of using all over the face, that the option was using this as blush was already gone.  But that's ok. There's so many other parts of my face! and this is for all over!  and it was a buck. So why not?

Persimmon is a very white shimmer. With a loot of shimmer. It's got a hint of pink to it  but mostly it reflects light like whoa. Pink Lemonade is a soft petal pink, and part of me was hopeful about it's potential as a blush but that's only the crazy part of me that also remains hopeful that one day Common and Alicia Keys will find their way to each other forever because I think they belong together.  

The sticks themselves aren't too bad. They blend pretty easily and don't feel sticky or tacky on the skin. 

The card that these hang from in the store says "instantly brightens eyes, lips and face."  Well, yes. It does in fact do that. But in the same way a child's glitter art project brightens a room.  The shimmer in this is very overwhelming for my eh-hem aging eyes.  I don't consider myself old, at all. In fact I'm digging my 30's more than I should, but the shimmer in this is not meant for my age bracket. Even I know that. 

Now, the back of the package says "twist stick and apply liberally to face, eyes, and/or lips."

Do NOT do this. I repeat. Do not apply liberally to your whole face.  Unless it's Halloween or you've lost a bet of some kind. Part of me considered actually doing that for you folks.  But I imagine that image would get anyone reading this from a job fired immediately for oh so many reasons.

At the time, I was really hoping that one of these would work as a highlighter on my skin. Giving me that summertime glow that I've been pitched every time J.Lo comes on my tv screen. Unfortunately, the Pink Lemonade was a truly horrible shade of pink for my skin tone regardless of where on my face I placed it and the Persimmon was so white on my darker skin that I looked more sickly than glowy. 

whomp whomp whoooomp. 

Despite my unsuccess, these All Over Sticks would be great for the high teen and 20 something crowd, who have very fair skin and go to those untz untz untz clubs. I just happen to be none of those things. Thank all my Gods.