e.l.f Undereye Setting Powder Review

I recently did my first big iHerb order, and this was one of the many e.l.f products I ordered. To be honest, at first I thought this was going to be one of those products I purchased & never tried. I did some reading, spoke to a few friends and decided to try it out... One Word: WOW.

I wasn't expecting this product to work, let alone be really good. After a reading a few of the current reviews I had such a mixed feeling about the product before trying it, some people found it did nothing, some loved it, some found it too sparkly. I found it to be my new perfect little gem, and I use it everyday.

I use a small amount of the e.l.f Undereye Setting Powder under my eyes after I've completed my base, I feel this product distributes across my undereye region and blends in so easily, the sparkly white powder smoothes out fine lines and minimises my dark under eyecircles.

I'm still on my first jar that I bought years ago and it's not a favourite of mine but I have found a different use for it. I initially bought this to to set my undereye area since there was quite a lot of hype around this affordable powder.

When I ordered it online from BeautyBliss I knew that it was small but I was still surprised at just how small it was when it arrived. The outer plastic packaging is a similar size to a Colourpop eyeshadow however the powder is actually stored in another container within the outer packaging and it is SMALL. It's a good thing you don't need much so the little jar can last you well over a year (depending on usage).

I love how this powder feels when swatched - it really is a silky powder which leaves the skin feeling like it has been primed. It has light reflecting specks of sparkle; it's very subtle on some people but I'm from the chocolate club and it's not hard to spot - it doesn't bother me though. For a small jar; it can still get relatively messy because there is no stopper to allow you to just pour out a little bit at a time. I've had many episodes of wastage yet I still have plenty left in the jar.

I use any of the following concealers under my eyes - MAC Pro Longwear concealer, Giorgio Armani Master Corrector or Hourglass Concealer; they're not too thick and blend almost seamlessly into the skin. So with that being said I expected the powder to sit nicely on top of the concealers but instead it looked like I had caked on the powder and my fine lines were on show for the world to see.

I apply the powder using a small tapered brush that fits nicely under the eye area. I pick up a bit of product, tap off excess and lightly pressed it into the skin. When I wasn't happy with the results I tried the exact same thing except I swiped it across the skin. My last attempt was to push the powder into the skin but I still had little success in creating a flawless finish when setting my under eye.

After 2 months of playing with it I gave up and decided it to use it to blot my lips to set my lipstick especially if I was after a matte finish. I apply a layer of lipstick, blot with 1 layer of tissue, apply dusting of powder on the layer of tissue and repeat the process until I'm happy with the result. I've had my jar for awhile and I still have a whole lot left but once finished I won't be repurchasing.

I've had this for quite a few years and I remember loving it when I first got it. It might even have been my first setting powder!

The powder is loose form, and tapping the pot lightly onto the lid dispenses the perfect amount. I usually don't need heaps of undereye concealer anyway, but I do have some wrinkles/fine lines starting to appear and throughout the day I do notice some creasing in my concealer. When this is first applied over my concealer, it does a superb job in setting it. And it even helps brighten the area a little. Staying power isn't the best though, after a few hours of blinking and facial expressions, my under eye wrinkles are back.

I think I used it as a full face setting powder for a while, and found that was actually a better use. Nowadays I mix this in with my guerlain meteorites and make my own setting powder. This adds a bit of glow and helps blur over my skin, which is perfect on top of BB cream or light foundation! I wouldn't use this purely for undereye though because it doesn't cut it for me.

I purchased this a while back as it is such a raved about product and I figured all that hype couldn't be wrong...right? Wrong! Well for me anyhow. I purchased mine off iherb for practically nothing so I'm not too disappointed it didn't work for me.

The packaging of this product is a bit ridiculous. The brush that comes with it is sooo tiny...I'm not exactly sure how that small of brush is meant to evenly apply product and to me its pretty useless. The size of the pottle makes it very difficult to get an appropriate amount of product out and is quite difficult to use I find. The lid never seems to screw on right, which for a cheap product I would accept but when the packaging sucks and the product isn't fantastic either there is no redemption.

The powder is relatively finely milled like you would expect for a setting powder but I really dislike the look of the glitter specks that I guess are meant to help highlight the area. I just find they look like eye shadow fallout (which i try my hardest to avoid) and just bring attention to my puffy under-eyes. A lot of people seem to find this helps prevent there eye shadow from creasing but I haven't found that in my experience either.

Don't get me wrong it still sets my concealer but I just dislike the result and personally find my Natio pressed powder (which I often use to set my concealer) looks far more natural than this.

I was hoping this would be my Holy Grail setting powder like it seems to be for so many others. I will not be repurchasing this again as I have given it a good go and it has just not lived up to the hype.