Elf Endless Eyes Pro Mini Eye Shadow Palette: Hit or Miss?

I stopped into Target (pronounced Tar-Zhay) yesterday to pick up some “practical” things, as we all do, and I could not resist the Elf palettes that have overtaken the all too familiar cosmetic end cap. I picked up the 32 bright Palette to accompany the 32 warm palette that I already have.  

Even though I’m not a fan of the warm version, I decided to try it anyway because emilynoel83 on youtube gave it a good review. And it was only $5, so not a huge deal.

Upon first glance of the palette your eye is drawn to the really bright colors in the palette. However the brights are restricted the the middle two rows as the top row is devoted to earth toned neutrals and the bottom is devoted to smokey, grayscale neutrals which I think makes the palette very versatile.

Both pictures are of the same swatches, (which took a lot of effort to build up btw).

As you can see I started off by swatching the brightest colors to assess pigmentation.

Because if you’re interested in buying the ‘Bright’ palette, than you’re probably interested in bright colors. And if the bright colors in the bright palette aren’t pigmented, than you might as well save your money.

At least that’s how I see it.

The pigmentation across the board is very comme ci, comme ca (french for so-so). There are a handful that have good color pay off, and there are others that don’t. Generally the shimmery shades will be highly pigmented, and the matte, satin and glitter shades will be duds.And that is definitely the case with this palette.

This is a swatch from the bottom row of smokey colors, that I think just looks really dirty on my hand. 

Oh year, and don't mind Lady G. on my door over there. 

This is a swatch of the top row neutrals, which are having a hard time showing up on my hand. 

It will take a lot of work to get some of the colors to show up on your skin, and when they do only 25% of them will appear the same way on your face as it does in the pan. The colors aren’t very buildable either, and you’ll definitely need a primer if you want them to last for more than 2 hours on your eyes.  

Verdict:

I would say this is definitely a MISS.

The bright colors aren’t as bright as you would expect them to be and that’s kind of the whole point of the palette.

I would recommend this for a younger girl just starting out with makeup who wants to do some experimenting. (I don’t know what age is acceptable for that now, but for me it was around 8 or 9). Why? Because it can be a nice, cheap stocking stuffer that says “Sweet heart, you’re becoming a woman and I accept that.” But at the same time the colors aren’t nearly pigmented enough to change your little girl too drastically, so you won’t have to worry about her looking like a clown. Or even worse... a hooch. If you insist on doing this I suggest you pair it with some nice makeup remover pads and teach her that cleansing her face properly is more important than what she puts on it.

P.S. Bear with me and my photography, it needs some work. However I find these swatches to be an accurate representation of what the colors actually look like on the skin. They might turn out better if you have lighter skin than I, but if you're darker I think you'll have a harder time with this palette.

Don’t just wear makeup... Rock it.