E.L.F.’s “Brightening Eye Color” quads come in a few different shades.
I recently looked on the Eyes Lips Face website, here, to see the different quad palettes that were available.
I decided on one of the more neutral palettes. The actual name of this quad is “neutral”. How convenient is that?
These shadows cost only a dollar at my local Target. While Target does sell a lot of the items on the E.L.F. website, they do not sell them all. I was very pleased to see them selling this one though.
The quad is very small. It literally could be the size of one eye shadow. I cannot say how much of each shadow this palette contains as it is not written on the packaging.
The packaging is pretty nice for being only a buck. It is small, convenient for travel, and is clear plastic on the top. You can see every shadow.
Upon opening the top, there is a small sponge tipped applicator. This one is not very good and I believe I threw mine away.
Under the applicator is a small mirror. This mirror is basically useless. There was no need for a mirror that tiny and thin in this palette. I do not understand why there would be a mirror under an applicator anyways. Wouldn’t product from the used applicator make the mirror messy anyways? This seems like poor thinking on the part of the company.
There are 4 colors included: a very light sky blue, a mossy green with some grey undertones, a beige neutral shade, and a darker tan which has a red tone to it.
All of the shades are fairly sheer. The green color is the most pigmented of them all.
The light blue is rather chalky and has a lot of shimmer in contrast to the color payoff. You really don’t see any blue tint once it is swatched or applied. This could almost be a highlight color.
The green is actually the best color of them all. It is the softest and the most easy to work with. The color payoff is decent and there is no shimmer to it. It is somewhat sheer, but buildable and easy to blend. I should definitely wear this shade more often.
The neutral flesh shade is a big disappointment to me. I have a highlight color that I love from a higher end brand and I am always trying to find a dupe for it. This is really similar looking in the packaging, but comes out too chalky. The shadow is too soft as well. A lot of powder gets moved around the pan and not enough on the brush. There is some sparkle to it and it can be blended out, but I do not often reach for it because it is slightly too soft to work with.
The darker tan shade is nice. Again, it is really soft and has sparkle to it. After application, it almost has a pink undertone to it. Pink shades do not always look great on everyone and this might be one of those colors that looks pretty but will not work on the lids well. It would be a nice shade for spring though if these pinkish tans work well with your coloring.
I wish I had nicer things to say about these shadows. You will need a primer. I used these once and thought that they faded and were way too light for the look I was going for.
I will continue to play around with these shades a bit and might be able to make them work.
For a dollar, it wasn’t really a waste of money. These are lighter neutral shades and might work better on someone who wants a more sheer eye combination.
Sources:
My own ELF shadows in “neutral”
