Review: ELF Blush and Bronze Cream Duo | St. Lucia

To anybody else that blogs: do you ever get a product/item that goes on your 'to blog about list', but then things get shuffled around and said item gets pushed further and further down on your agenda, until months have passed and you begin to question whether you'll ever actually get that blog post up? (Hopefully that's not just me!) But anyway, that's what happened with this duo palette and I. And now finally, it can be crossed off my list! Phew.

During one of ELF (eyeslipsface.co.uk)'s huge 50% sales in the summer I made an order (see my haul post here) and put this little bargain into my online basket after seeing some lovely pictures of it on Beth (Birds Words)'s blog. Being just £3.75 when full price, this is one of the best quality budget priced make up items that I own. Honestly, can you believe that it costs less than £4?!?! I think that's amazing. We'll give it extra credit for also having a sizeable mirror within the compact, and it also being very sturdy and good quality packaging - no flimsy plastic catches that crack or don't stay shut, this seems very durable.

It's got an incredibly NARS-esque feel to it, both in the style and size of the compact packaging, but also from the shades of product within. I haven't tried either of NARS Laguna or Deep Throat myself, but I have been informed that they are the shades that this is supposed to be a dupe for (in cream form, as opposed to NARS powder).  

 Swatches:
L: quite heavily swatched | R: lighter swatches blended out

I'm going to deeply apologise in advance for the photos shown in this post from this point on - I don't feel comfortable at all taking close up pictures of my face so I try to disguise it all by pulling funny faces. Plus, my camera or the lighting isn't good enough quality for you to properly see what the products looks like on my face ..so I don't even know why I bothered! Just take my word for it that it's nice! ;) 

Basically, what I wanted to illustrate with these photos is my main gripe with that product, and that is that, yes, pigmentation is a good thing, but I'm afraid that this product can very easily cross into the territory of too pigmented. Can you believe it? An inexpensive make-up item that has too much colour pay off?! In the first picture below where I have applied the bronzer I used the lightest tap and a gentle hand, but look what still happened! ..And then the blush, well we don't need to say words. 

However, being a cream product, and these are very creamy, it makes them easy to work with and easy to blend. With a lot of buffing into the skin and plenty of blending then a very tiny amount of product can create and absolutely gorgeous and natural result! I use the bronzer shade in the palette almost every day for lightly contouring a shadow into those cheek bones, and any left over product on the brush I sweep around the edges to 'warm up my complexion' (- I hate that phrase, but you know what I mean. Give myself a bit of a tan boost so I don't look like Snow White). The blush I don't reach for as much because it's a very pink shade, and I prefer to opt for more of a coral or peach toned blush, as opposed to pink. But the two shades go very nicely paired together and definitely make an excellent contouring duo.

 ELF Cream Contouring Duo 'St. Lucia'  - £3.75 | link

What do you think?

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