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Elf has been releasing a whole slew of new products lately, and they’ve been really upping the quality and creativity of their products, so I’ve been so intrigued to try their newer releases as they come out! And especially when I saw this whole collection, from the packaging to the colors to the products, I was in love and was just so excited to try it out. Their newest collection is the ‘Mint Melt’ collection, and features a mint green theme to the all of their products.

They released some new makeup products, along with some new skincare. Along with two eyeshadow palettes, 3 shadow sticks, 4 lip glosses, and a brush set, they also released a Mint Melt cooling face primer (I did grab that one as well and will review it in a separate post), a Whipped face mask, and a Minty Fresh Cooling Cleanser. I didn’t grab either of the two skincare items just because my skin is -sensitive- and I didn’t want to mess with the routine I already had.

I also only grabbed one of the eyeshadow palettes and one of the shadow sticks in the colors that truly interested me in a moment of -self control-. I grabbed these right off of the Elf website, along with some other new products to try. As I always do with makeup reviews, I’ll show swatches, eye looks and then a review. Feel free to click to any of the links above to skip to certain parts of the review.

So let’s get right into the swatches and review!

First up, the eyeshadow palette in ‘Mint to Be’. There is one other palette in this range called ‘Chocolate Mint’ that features more neutral shades and one mint pop. This color scheme just interested me more so I chose to just grab this one, though I’ve seen many looks using the two together.

This retails for $4 (the regular Bite Sized palettes are $3) so it’s super affordable as all Elf products are.

It comes in the traditional bite sized palette packaging, with 4 pans and a clear plastic top. Instead of the normal white plastic around the shades, it’s mint to match with the theme of the whole collection.

It features 2 shimmers, and 2 mattes: a bright mint green shimmer; a lighter mint-toned almost silvery shimmer; a light mint matte; and a deeper green-gray matte.

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And then I grabbed one of the 3 No Budge Eyeshadow Stick shades in ‘Mint For You’. There are 2 other shades in ‘Ice Crème’, a light champagne shimmer, and ‘Melt with Me’, a deeper brown shimmer. This retails for $5, and comes in lovely mint crayon packaging. It also features a sharpener on the other end, in a cap matching the color of the product inside.

‘Mint For You’ is a matte mint green cream shade.

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SWATCHES
And now for the swatches! The very top shade is the ‘Mint to Be’ eyeshadow crayon, followed by the ‘Mint to Be’ palette. All shades are swatched on my bare arm with a finger.

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And now into the eye looks! Of course with only 4 eyeshadows and a curated color palette, you will be getting mostly 1 look. But these little capsule palettes are great to test out different color schemes, and they could be great pairing palettes.

Up first, we have just using the palette on its own. I used the mint matte all throughout the transition, the deeper green-gray in the outer corner, the bright mint shimmer in the middle of the lid and the lighter mint-silver shimmer on the inner corner.

Next up, we have basically the same look, but I wanted to test out the shadows with the shadow stick underneath. So I drew on the shadow all over the lid, and blended it out a touch, and then put the eyeshadows on top. So again, the mint shade in the crease, with more of the deeper gray matte in the outer corner and blended up into the crease. I did put the mint shimmer all over the lid this time, and just popped the mint-silver shimmer as a pop in the center of the lid.

And then lastly, I used the shadow stick all over a base before the shadows, blended in the matte shades all throughout the transition, and then used the shadow stick on just the lid and then patted the shimmers on top.

And now of course, for the review!

First up I’m going to talk about the shadow stick as it’s a little quicker. I ended up really enjoying this! It’s super creamy, and I could easily paint it all over my eyelid for an all over base. It was smooth and even, and fully opaque and provided a great base. It doesn’t set down immediately, giving you time to work with it as needed. I was able to blend it out easily around the edges, and it stayed creamy as you needed to work with it, without going patchy or blending away.

And then it set down fully and didn’t budge. I loved it underneath my shadows, and it held throughout the entire day – even with my hooded eyes, I had no issues with creasing that I can sometimes get with creamier products. Even when layering it again as a base for the shimmers, it was still smooth and even, didn’t feel thick on the eyes and I had no issues with creasing underneath the shimmers.

I think you can really see the difference in the eyeshadows in the 3 photos – as I add in that shadow stick, the eyeshadow colors really pop, and become more pigmented and smooth on the eyes. Especially in the 3rd under the shimmers, they are so much brighter and true to pan color. It’s a great base to add into my collection and throw on under lighter shades, or for a pop of minty color. Definitely loved this, and now I’m super intrigued to try more of their shadow sticks!

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And now for the eyeshadow palette. Whooo boy, this was a journey, I’ll say that. Now I will say I haven’t tried their other bite-sized palettes – I’ve only swatched the Jalapeño one – so I cannot tell you how this compares to other shades, and really will just be reviewing it as a product on its own.

I’ll sum it up by saying I was eventually able to get these to work, and as you can see, create some great looks BUT it did take some extra finagling and work – and the eyeshadow stick definitely helped a LOT – you can clearly see it in the photos.

First up the mattes. The matte shades here are definitely thinner and more sheer. They can be built up to more pigmented but they do take a lot of building. The light mint matte shade is VERY light, and while it can be built up, do keep in mind that it is such a light shade, so it’s not a super bright shade and can almost fade into the skin. I have a very light skin tone so the color still shows on me, but it could be lost on deeper skin tones, or appear more chalky, without a light base underneath. I was able to build up the deeper gray-green matte, but it’s a darker shade so of course there will be more pigment and color there. I originally used them on top of my normal Wet N Wild primer, which dries down to a powder finish, and I found them blending away and needing to go back and forth to place on the pigment. I preferred to pack on the pigment and then just barely blend out the edges so as not to blend out the pigment.

The shimmers also weren’t my favorite. You can see from the swatches, they’re almost chunkier and definitely more dry, and really just needed a base to stick to. Again, on top of a drier base, I was having issues building them up on the eyelids. I had to almost dig into them a little while using a brush, and I felt like I was packing so much product onto the lid, with a lot of fallout under the eyes as it just felt like it wasn’t sticking. I preferred to use my finger and try to pack on the product without disturbing it too much and causing it to wipe away. Using it wet did help a touch, but overall, you can just see from that first photo that the shimmers don’t look super smooth, and just don’t have the pop they do in the pans. It wasn’t until I was using them on top of the creamy shadow stick base that I had a much easier time building up the color and making it fully smooth on the lids.

SO. Overall, I definitely was able to create a look and use it, BUT it took a lot of work. In the end it’s only $4, so not too great of a loss, but it’ll depend on whether you want to work with it. I don’t think I would fully suggest this, knowing there are other affordable mint eyeshadows on the market (The ColourPop Mint to Be Palette for example).

I would absolutely suggest the shadow stick, that was fantastic and I’m curious to try more – but maybe not the mint palette unless you’re truly curious and willing to work with the formula. So an unfortunate pass for me, but as always, doesn’t sway me from continuing to try out future products!

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