Hidden Gem: E.L.F. Sheer finishing powder
08 Saturday Aug 2020
Written by Tas Choudhury in Makeup, Product reviews
Confessions time… I rarely wear face powder. I’ll sometimes use it to set my under-eye corrector/ concealer, but aside from that I don’t use it on the regular.
If I’m doing a full face of makeup for an event or a wedding then I’ll usually apply a really light dusting of powder over my t-zone but my skin is slightly dry, and I prefer a dewy, natural finish on myself rather than matte, so I can do away with powder most of the time. In any case, even though I’m a light-skinned South Asian and lots of brands offer my shade, the drugstores/ chemists either don’t stock the full shade range or don’t reorder often enough (I’m talking about you – Broadmead Superdrug and Boots stores).
Back in December I bought the E.L.F. Cosmetics Sheer Finishing Powder (RRP £7.50) as an emergency replacement. My face powder slipped out of my hand and smashed on my parents’ front steps on the morning of my brothers wedding… I had more wedding-related festivities to attend and was pretty skint tbh so needed a quick fix.
First impressions
Budget friendly but worked really well for the day. Shade range is limited (Light, Medium, Deep, and tbh not even that deep) but this turned out to be a decent match for my skin. It has a really nice texture and blends well. It was the best shade match amongst ALL of the in-stock options in Boots and Superdrug.
Shade rants
My preferred brands were all out of stock in my shade and to be honest always are. Again, that’s one of my gripes about the stock replenishing policies of my local stores.
They all claim it’s based on supply and demand. Really?
How would they know how much in demand the deeper shades are if they never stock them?
If I’m always looking for my shade in store and it’s always out of stock, surely there’s the demand for it?
How are they tracking this?
They’re not. They track what sells but don’t re-order the deeper shades as often as the fair ones. So of course the resulting sales of deeper shades will be lower in comparison. They’re rarely stocking or reordering them! #50ShadesOfBeige I’m digressing…
Verdict
Basically E.L.F. Cosmetics had a good solution that got the job done. Thank you guys.
