Elf Lip Shines Give Good Gloss

A couple of weeks ago ELF ran a 60% sale, and I was rather exuberant in taking part in this offer. I bought a lot of eyeshadows and lipglosses, reviews of which will be coming up over the next week. The first products that I'll be taking a look at are the Super Glossy Lip Shine SPF15.

For those unfamiliar with ELF, they are a drugstore / budget brand whose products are frequently versions of various high-end brands. The Super Glossy Lip Shine can most easily be compared to Lancome's Juicy Tubes. However, in the 10 years that Juicy Tubes have been on the market, multitides companies have brought out their own version, so I'm not going to get too worked up on the comparison here.

They come in a clear squeezy tube with an angled top for application, and packaging wise, it's fine. Nothing amazing, nothing terrible. I picked out 4 colors: Candlelight (a shimmery peach), Watermelon (a shimmery deep pink), Honey Do (a reddish coral jelly),  and Juiced Berry (a pink jelly). All of the glosses have a grape vanilla scent, which I found incredibly sweet and cloying unfortunately. They do have a slight stickiness to them, but they are not as sticky as MAC's Lipglasses. I found I got about 2-3 hours wear from these. They also have SPF 15 which is a nice extra.

Left to Right - Juiced Berry, Honey Do, Watermelon, Candlelight

Juiced Berry had the least color of the 4. As you can see from the swatch, there is barely any pigmentation, and it just showed up as a clear gloss on my lips.

Honey Do gave my lips a slightly rosier color, along with the high shine gloss.

Watermelon was my favorite of the bunch. It gave my lips a pink, slightly shimmery gloss. The shimmer was pretty subtle, and really just enhanced the shine more than anything else.

Candlelight was the most problematic of the 4. I had a hard time getting it to go on evenly for a start. Once I had a good application, the color sheered way down leaving a slightly shimmery, sheer, frosty finish, which was actually quite pretty. It didn't seem to give off as much shiny gloss as the others, perhapy because the shimmer is so high.

So, whats the final verdict on these? I actually like them. I think that at a $1 a go, having a couple of these in your purse is great. They don't have a lot of color to them, so if that's what you are looking for in a gloss you will be disappointed. For me they do pretty much what I'd expect, and I like them for it.