E.l.f Lip Primer & Plumper: Review

elf primer and plumper 1

It’s been a couple of weeks now since our mammoth E.L.F. makeup haul, and after managing to restrain myself from reviewing everything straight away (no, really – there were shackles and everything) I am finally back with my review of their Lip Primer and Plumper. This was a product that I admittedly bought on a whim, as I’m prone to a good gimmicky product every now and then.

Lip plumpers are something I haven’t really gone near for a long time. I tried one once years ago; I think it was unbranded one from makeup tutorial magazine (did anyone else used to buy that?) and it did actually cause my lips to swell – but that was because of a fairly intense allergic reaction that I had to it, that caused my lips to be in agony for about three hours afterwards. So as you can imagine, I wasn’t rushing to put myself through that again.

But this product I intrigued me, particularly as it’s a 2 in 1 and I’m a big lover of getting as much silly makeup for my money as possible! I also liked the idea of trying a primer, as I have quite dry lips and flaking is the main thing that puts me off wearing lipstick more regularly. So all in all I was quite looking forward to giving this little fella a whirl.

elf primer and plumper 2

I’ll talk about the plumping side first. Me and the plumper didn’t get off to the most superb start, seeing as soon as I started winding it up, it snapped in half. Blaming this on my own cack-handedness (which I think you will find is some sort of medical condition), I balanced the broken tip back on the stick and vowed never to do anything as foolish as wind it up again. The plumper is a balm, which has a strong cinnamon smell and taste to it. Once applied, I started to feel a slight tingling. This was followed by….

Nothing. At all. The effect wore off quicker than a Katie Price marriage, and my lips looked exactly the same as they had two minutes earlier. I was hardly surprised by this; I’ve never read a review of any lip plumper actually being any good (though if you have any that may change my mind, then please link me up!)

elf primer and plumper 3

Next, the primer half of the product. This is a pale yellow-y balm that is meant to hold your lipstick in place. The pale colour, which transfers onto your lips, is also supposed to mean the colour goes on more vibrantly than it would on a bare lip (though this is something I normally achieve anyway through the good ole’ ‘foundation lip’ technique).

I don’t know if I’m just an idiot and wasn’t using it properly, but I also found this to be a waste of time. The primer is quite thick and so it actually seemed to act as a bit of a barrier against my lipstick. I chose a dark purple shade to test it with, and rather than going on more intensely on the light base, it actually produced a lighter, more ‘watered down’ shade than it’s supposed to. In terms of staying power, I would say that the primer did kind of achieve this – but no more so than applying a good lip balm would help it stay on smoothly for a bit longer.

So, to summarise – is this product any good? Nah. Is it really worth the money? Nah, unless you really like cinnamon and just want an excuse to sniff it all day (but then, maybe just buy some cinnamon?). This product will probably fall into the deep dark recesses of my makeup bag if I’m honest – it’s just occurred to me that I could have tried to flog it in a future blog sale, but I suppose there’s little chance of that now I’ve spent over 600 words slating it! Oopsie.

Have any of you tried this product? Are there any other plumping/priming products you’ve tried that you would recommend?

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