e.l.f. Haul and free gift!

Last weekend, elf had a sale where, if you spent £10, you got a free gift and free shipping. 'Count me in!' I thought. There are two reasons that I love free gifts:

1. Freebies! Product without having to pay for it!
2. They help me to try new things that I wouldn't have, and in this case, since elf are mail-order, allow me to sample products that I would have doubts about buying sight unseen

This first picture is my freebie:

I received:

• A shimmer eye pencil in shade 7608 - Plum Passion. I'm really happy about this as I've been wanting a purple eye pencil, and, even better, this one is shimmery! It sells for £1 or £1.50, depending on colour, here.
• Nail polish in 1565 - Purple Pleaser - and 1573 - Twinkle. Purple Pleaser is a lovely sophisticated shade, which I think I'll wear a lot. Twinkle is a generic sparkly topcoat, which is also something I've really wanted. As with the eye pencil, it sells for £1-£1.50. And gosh they have a lot of colours.
• The eyeshadow palette, which I think was a part of a Christmas gift collection. It says it has '32 Warm colours' though it's actually the 'cool' palette on this page. The colours aren't so soft as the custom eye colours, but they're still divinely soft. Lily likey. I can see myself using this palette a lot for a while, and, like I said earlier, it'll get me to try eye looks with lots of colours I wouldn't normally use.

And here are the products I bought for myself:

• Custom Eyes element in Driftwood. They accidentally sent me two, which is great because it looks like a colour I'm gonna use a lot. It's a shimmery greenish brown, similar to Boots 17's Walnut Pearl.
• Custom Face element in Flushed, which is a bit darker than the Shy blusher I have. Looking forward to using this, but it'll probably have to wait til I use one of my three Custom Eyes shadows, as I only have the one space in my compact and I desperately want to try the Driftwood shadow.
• Eyeshadow duo in Olive, which is a nice pale green/brown matte duo. Fairly summery and springy.
• Shimmering facial whip in Persimmon - I bought it as a blusher, but I might also give it a try as a lip colour.
• Eyelid Primer in Champagne. Something I've been wanting for ages
• Brushes - Blending Eye Brush and Eye Crease Brush, both lovely and soft.

I will swatch and review these soonish, I hope. Even if I don't, they'll definitely appear in faces of the day :)

e.l.f haul and unboxing

I ordered some brushes and a custom palette, for a total of £12 including postage.

When the order arrived I could see it was well packed in a good - but not oversized - box. It was well sealed but not impossible to get into - I just used a biro to open the sticky tape. The box seems really sturdy - I'll probably keep it, it will be good for presents or storage.

When I opened the box there was lots of bubble wrap (so I know what I'm going to be doing for therapy for the next week!) and a packing note on the top, and then the brushes on top of the custom palette and the elements I ordered for it, with some wrap between the brushes and the makeup to protect it all. I like the care that's gone into this packing.

I've swatched these bits later, but I thought I'd write more about them here. The compact is a really good size, and you can see why I like the versatility. The elements are packaged well, though slightly overpackaged - within the cardboard boxes there is a plastic frame keeping the element safe. Again, care despite the fact they only cost £1.

The brushes also seem really good; I haven't had a chance to try out the total face brush, but the blusher/bronzer/blender brush is really good, and I like the angle cut across the top of both of the fuller brushes. They're also lovely and soft! The lip brush I haven't had a chance to properly experiment with, but I had a quick go and it seems to work...

Here are swatches (top without flash, bottom with flash, I know, I need hand cream) of the elements I got for the compact. From right: 'sage' eyeshadow, 'wisteria' eyeshadow, and 'shy' blusher.

Sage is a lovely colour, a definite repurchase when I run out.

Wisteria is more purple and less pale than I expected, but I can see it being useful when I figure out how to incorporate it into looks.

Both of the eyeshadows have a lovely creamy (but still powder) texture. LOVE them.

Shy is nice and sheer, which will help to avoid the clown look.

Overall I love these!

Oh, and there is a free postage offer code that lasts until 9.30am GMT on Monday morning when you spend 10 quid - the code is SHIP24FREE