It's always exciting when a fashion designer takes a spin with a limited-edition beauty collection because you can see their vision with clothes, textures, colors, and prints translated into makeup. Depending on what their aesthetic is on the runway, they find interesting ways to translate it into eyeshadow shades and lipstick tubes. That's why when news dropped that ELF x Christian Siriano are collaborating for a makeup line, the possibilities for what it would look like were endless.
Seeing how ELF sponsored Christian Siriano's Fall 2018 runway show, the collab wasn't exactly something out of left field. To make it even more special, that runway show also marked his label's 10 year anniversary, so what better way to celebrate a decade of designing then making a splash in the beauty world at the same time? To further promote his new season of clothes, the makeup collection is going to mirror the looks on his runway in both color and feel. Think bold, electric, and full of different personalities.
In order to understand the makeup, you first have to understand the 2018 runway show. Siriano held it in the Freemasons Grand Lodge in New York City (which is over 230 years and was founded in the 1700s,) and showcased 72 "royal dinner party" looks that paraded down the grand hall. Peacock blue silk gowns with floor-length sleeves, boxy skirt suits made in iridescent materials that shifted from royal purple to metallic teal, and evening dresses in midnight blue that were a patchwork of sheer and velvet marched down the runway, and they are all mirrored in the $12 drugstore palette.
That fact is no surprise, though. Seeing how he's a designer, he approached the project like one and brought fabric swatches to his meetings when discussing the color inspiration for his makeup line. He shared with Allure in an interview, "I approached [creating the makeup collection] in the way I would approach it with my design team."
The end result was a makeup collection that was slightly psychedelic, more than a little bold, and able to cater to a wide array of different people, personalities, and moods. "I think what’s nice with this palette is you can be thirty types of girls and use that one palette," he tells Allure. "That’s how my collections are. You can be so many different types of women and wear something in my collection, and I wanted this to be similar."
The collection features a makeup palette, two lipsticks, and a makeup bag decked out in an acid green and bright purple print. The eyeshadow palette features a series of seven different shades, ranging from dark navy to powder pink to bright green, letting you create a neutral, smoky, or creative eye, depending on what your mood is.
Elf Cosmetics Christian Siriano Eyeshadow Palette, $12, Amazon
You can see the colors reflected in his runway collection, like that midnight navy reflected in the series of velvet and sheer dresses that walked down in NYFW.
And the best part is that it doesn't have a designer or couture price tag attached to it. The palette is super affordable, clocking in at $12, making each shadow less than $2 each. The lip products are equally as pretty, where the liquid matte lipstick is called "Electric Fuchsia" and the shade is true to its name, the the tinted lip oil is "Polished Pink," and is a delicate rose shade. Both cost $6 each. Then to keep all your ELF x Siriano products tidy, you can get the matching cosmetic bag, which is $8.
Electric Fuschia & Polished Pink, $6, ELF Cosmetics
Whether you love the designer or just love these bright and playful hues, this is a great and affordable palette to invest in to bring your makeup look onto a whole other level.
