10 times the drugstore OUTPERFORMED high-end makeup

Hello, today I want to talk about 10 drugstore products that I am reaching for over my high-end favorites. I'm using these constantly. Let's jump into it. Starting with something very new to me and new to the market, these are the eyeshadows that everyone is talking about and they're pretty polarizing, but it is the e.l.f. Fine as Fleck eyeshadows. So this is e.l.f.'s answer to the Urban Decay Moondust eyeshadows. And because of that, I initially didn't think I liked these, but then I had a change of heart. So let me explain. These were clearly intended to dupe the Urban Decay Moondust shadows. They have identical packaging and we already know that e.l.f. does this. And the first thing I'm going to say, like right out the gate, these are not good dupes for the Moondust shadows. They're close. They're close products, but they are not as identical as I was hoping. And so my initial thought about these eyeshadows was that they were a letdown because they're not Moondust dupes. But if you can separate them from what they're trying to dupe and just view them as eyeshadows, they're very good eyeshadows. And I want to get into that. But first, let me tell you why I don't think these are accurate dupes for the Moondust shadows. They come very close in the sense that they do have that like semi-transparent base and they're hyperglittery. But with these shadows, the actual glitter flecks in them are very, very tiny. Like, you know, the name Fine as Fleck, I think that is representative of this product because the little glitter flecks in it are extremely fine. They're small. And that's what I think prevents it from being a true Moondust dupe is that the glitter particles in Moondust are slightly larger than this. So they just translate on the eye a little bit differently than these. And these don't give as much of a scattered effect as Moondust or as a lot of my favorite topper eyeshadows. So if that's the effect you're after, you could potentially be underwhelmed by these because these are a lot more refined. The shimmer particles are smaller and so therefore it doesn't look as scattered on the eye. It looks a little bit more metallic. It's not a metallic shadow, but it's not as scattered. If we're talking the scale, okay? There's a lot of different like directions that a shimmer shadow could go. It could be more satin, it could be more metallic, or it could be more scattered. These for me sit in between metallic and scattered. They're hyperglittery, but they don't have that same like sparkle effect that you can see from the Urban Decay Moondust shadows. At least not on the level of Moondust. All those disclaimers and explanation aside, these are beautiful shimmer shadows. Like truly some of my favorites that I've found at the drugstore. And again, I'm reaching for these over my high-end ones, especially the shade White Hot. I have been using so much as like a messy glittery inner corner highlight. I've been into that lately where you just take it all over the inner corner, even kind of drag it on the lower lash line, take it up to the brow, like just sparkles everywhere. This is perfect for that. The shade that is supposed to dupe Space Cowboy is this one, Champagne Showers. And again, it comes close. It's like on the eye, are you going to see a major difference? Not necessarily. It's what I'm wearing today. And it's giving me the same effect as Moondust, but don't expect it to be a spot on exact dupe because it's not. But it's a beautiful shimmer shadow, okay? These are such nice shimmer eyeshadows, especially for the price point. Like these outperform so many of my high-end shimmery eyeshadows. So if you're into that look, you like something semi-scattered, but not like full-blown topper look, these are gorgeous. I have a fragrance favorite. This is from the brand Le Mangeur Monde. Now this brand is newer to me, but it is so affordable. These are $25 a piece, which for a perfume is pretty unheard of. It's very rare to find a perfume at that price. Perhaps a body spray or like a, yeah, body mist, but rarely a perfume. Now I will say, I don't think this, obviously, unfortunately it doesn't have the longevity that high-end expensive perfumes would, but I do think it lasts pretty well for that $25 price point. And the smell is delectable. So this scent is called Confetti Doris. And when I tell you this smells identical to a birthday cake, I am not kidding. So you have to like Gourmand, okay? Let me start there. You need to like something edible, like straight up edible, very, very, very sweet. But the initial scent for this is literally like, it's like I am baking a cake and I can smell the cake batter for like a confetti cake in particular. That's what it is. It's like confetti cake. But then as this sits on the skin, I think that initial, very sweet cake scent dissipates a bit and you get this softer, very clean scent stays behind. So I love this one. And the bottle just feels so luxe, like this, if you were to see this bottle on my shelf, you would never think this was a $25 perfume. So such a standout. Love it. And I definitely want to try more from this brand. An underrated mascara is this one from the Ulta Beauty Collection. That's their in-house brand. And this is the New Heights Mascara, but specifically the brown shade. You know my love affair with brown mascara, and this is a fantastic brown and such a good formula. If you remember Addison Rae's beauty brand, Item Beauty, that has since closed down, this is a pretty spot on dupe to that mascara. So if that used to be your favorite, and of course you can't get it anymore, unfortunately, because that brand shut down. This is the closest dupe I've found because it has that really similar short wand. It's a pretty unique mascara wand. Rarely do you see something this short, but I like that because it gives me control, especially to get on the inner or outer corner. If you have small eyes like I do, I think this is really great to get in there. It's a rubber bristle wand, which is my preference. The bristles are pretty short, but I still find that I get really great separation, even though the bristles aren't that long. And it has really good lift to it. And I say this as someone whose eyelashes naturally point down. Like I wouldn't say this completely holds my curl, but I do feel like my lashes look up and lifted, even if they're not like curled, curled, you know what I'm saying? Wears well, easy removal, pretty shade of brown. And this just gives a really beautiful, separated, fluffy, lengthened lash look. It's not the most volumizing mascara on the market, though it does have some volumizing properties to it. But if you're into length, especially, and you like that very natural, separated, fluffy look, this mascara is phenomenal. And the Ulta Beauty Collection is, like that brand, is always on sale. So don't buy it at full price. If it's not on... If today when you're watching this, it's not on full price, put it in your cart. Come back to it. Wait, what am I saying? I said that backwards. It's not on full price. If it's full price, come back to it. They always go on sale. Another one from e.l.f., these lip liners. These, when I first purchased them, I was like, oh no, I like this. And then the more I've used them, I like them more and more and more, and I just have to talk about these again. So these lip liners are $2. Even for the drugstore, it is hard to find a lip liner at $2. Even some of my other favorites from NYX, those are $4 to $5. This is half of that. These are fantastic. They are so creamy, which is not generally my preference for a lip liner. Because more often than not, very creamy lip liners are a little bit too emollient where they smudge and they don't stay in place. That's not the case with these. I'm wearing just lip liner right now. I'm wearing these two together, mostly the shade Baddest Beige, like all over the lips, and then I took a little bit of Truth or Bear to just slightly deepen up the lip line. If you like wearing lip liner over the entire lip like I do, these are perfect for that because they are so creamy. There are other lip liner formulas that I have that are a bit more stiff and dry and are not ideal for the entire lip because it's just going to look super, super dry on your lips. But these wear so well, but they are creamy. I like the colors and I love the price point. I genuinely can't believe that these are $2. Even now, I'm looking at my lips. I put this on, not like so long ago, like an hour ago, but I've been drinking, I've been eating. It looks untouched. Okay, number five and six are from the same line, kind of, so we'll talk about them together, but they're different, but they're similar. Anyways, these are both from the Buttermelt line from NYX. Earlier this year, they came out with the Buttermelt Bronzers and then later launched the Blush version, and I want to talk about both of these. They're fantastic. Starting with the bronzers, these all have somewhat of a rosy undertone to them, so because of that, I think they work really well for even that, like, bron- Wait, why did that word always confuse me? Bronzing. That's the word. Bronzer slash blush, bronzer type of look. Because you get a little bit of that rosy, reddish quality to it, but you also, obviously, you know, it is a bronzer, I think it just looks beautiful all throughout the face where it mimics sun in a very natural way, where you could get away with just using this one singular product for both of those steps. This is also so creamy. The texture is buttery, and I know buttery is a word that is often overused and misused when describing cosmetics, but this formula truly has this, like, almost creamy slip to it, even though it is a powder, like, it's a velvety texture. It's fragile, though. Be careful. I did break mine. That tends to be the case with this type of product that is a little bit more loosely pressed. The pro is that it's super creamy and blendable like that, but the con is that it's a bit more fragile. So just be careful with it, and know it's a product that has a ton of kick-ups when you put your brush in. A lot of powder is going to come up, and it can get a little messy, but all that trade-off is worth it because this is one of the best bronzers that I have ever used. It is so easy to work with. I reach for this on pretty much all of my high-end bronzers. It is fantastic. And I also feel strongly about its sister product, the blushes, okay? So this is the Buttermilk Blush. I have mine in the shade Butter Together, but they have a ton of shades in this. Now, one thing I'll say right off the bat is the formula is pretty different than the bronzer. Like, I can see where they're similar, and they both fit under this, like, buttermelt line, but what I was just saying about the bronzer being a little bit more softly pressed and having kick-up doesn't apply as much to the blushes. Like, there's some kick-up, but you can tell they're pressed in the pan in a different way than the bronzers. So these have a little bit of a glow to them, but I don't want that to be a deterrent because it's not like a highlighter quality. It's not overly shiny. It's not sparkly, but there's this radiance and this life to the skin with this blush that looks really healthy even though it is a powder. Sometimes with powder blushes, it can be tough to get it to look natural because powder blush tends to look very flat because powders are flat, but because this has that subtle glow to it, I just think it livens up the cheeks without being too much. It's not so glowy to the point that your pores are going to be emphasized. It's not so glowy to the point that it looks bad on the cheeks because sometimes blush can move over into that territory and that's bad too. No. This just looks natural and has a glow, tons of shades. I love this line. It's so good. Hmm. I have a couple other blushes. Should we stick to like a little blush segment? How about this one from Milani? This is not new, but I feel like these blushes get slept on, and I want to talk about these again. It is the Cheek Kiss Blush line. I have the shade Berry Smooch, which I think is a beautiful shade, especially as we're going into fall. And what I like about this formula is that A, it's very easy to blend out, very easy to work with, but B, it sits on the cheeks in a way that's a little bit dewy. It's not overly dewy, but it adds this life to the skin because it doesn't sit down as like this dried down matte liquid product. It looks very natural without being so dewy, again, that it's emphasizing pores, like that's always the tough midpoint to find with products. You want enough of a glow that it looks natural and radiant, but a lot of glow can often be unflattering on the skin, especially if you do have acne or large pores, and that's something that you're self-conscious about. A glowy product only emphasizes that, so finding something that's in the middle is often tricky to do, and I think this really like finds that balance in a way that's so beautiful. One comment I will make, I don't think it has the longest wear time ever, but I think unfortunately that's a symptom of it being a little bit more dewy. But if you set it down, it will stay for sure. I really like mixing this with my liquid highlighters though, I think that always looks so pretty. It can be an actual liquid highlight, or if you have a glowy primer, that will mix in with this as well and give the same type of look. It kind of looks like one of the Charlotte Tilbury blush light wands, you know? Like the highlighter beauty wand, whatever they're called. You can get a similar look if you mix it with a highlight. The other blush I want to mention is one that I don't think gets talked about a lot, and it is the powder blushes from e.l.f. I see people talking all the time about their liquid blushes, about their blush wands, not these. And these are great too if you like a powder blush. This shade in particular, I'm obsessed with. This is the shade Always Cheeky, and it's a very light peach shade. So I have a little bit of this blush on today on top of that Milani one, and even though they're very different tones, like that is obviously more berry and this is more peachy, I think they look really pretty layered together. But I've also used this, because it's so light, I've used it as kind of an under-eye powder to get that brightening peachy effect. Now I'm almost a little too pale to do that, but I would say if you have more of like a light medium skin tone or even a medium skin tone, this shade could make a really beautiful brightening powder. And even if it's not this one, I just want to mention that makeup can be used anywhere for any purpose on different parts of the face than what it's designed for. And blushes, especially if they're a little bit light for you, can look really pretty as an under-eye powder. And it's perfect for giving that really smooth, almost like ombre effect from like one shade into the next, that beautiful gradient. So I like this for doing that, but I also just love this as a blush shade. It's a very smoothing powder, but it doesn't look too powdery on the skin. I just think it's such a great formula and nobody talks about these. Let's talk about eyeshadow primer. That's a category that we don't talk about too much. It's not necessarily an exciting product to talk about, but it's necessary for some of us. For myself, it is absolutely necessary. And the one that I always go back to, again, over my high-end eyeshadow primers, is this one from Ulta Beauty. So it looks different now because they repackaged it. I noticed that recently. This is how it used to look, but it is the matte eyeshadow primer. As you can see, I'm almost out of this and I use it constantly. You really only need a tiny little bit of it, but I think that speaks to how often I use this product and how much of a must it is in my routine. I like this because it's quite pigmented, so if you have a lot of veins on your eyelid and you like to cancel those out first, this is really great for doing that. And that's not always the case with eyeshadow primers. A lot of them are clear, which, I mean, you know, you could use a concealer. You could definitely, like, blank out that space in another way, but this is really wonderful for doing that, just kind of all in one step. Keep in mind, the tint of this is light, so it works for myself and my skin tone, but I did want to call that out in case you have a deeper skin tone, just know that this is a light color. But I like that this is a matte eyeshadow primer because it gives me a really smooth base to blend shadow on top of. I've tried other eyeshadow primers that are a lot more tacky, and yes, they can be nice for amping up the shadow and, like, making it look super vibrant, but they don't make blending as easy because they're too tacky for the brush to move freely. This I feel like just gives me that smooth base where I can really easily blend things out, but then it lasts. Like, eyeshadow primer used to be a category that was kind of irrelevant to me. I was like, you know, I could use concealer, I could use whatever, but as I've gotten older, that is one thing I've started to notice. Like, I can't skip eyeshadow primer or it will crease and, like, quickly, and this is one of my favorites. I always use this. You need, like, almost nothing, and it saves the day. Okay, one that I actually repurchased lately because I used it up is this brow gel. This is from NYX. This has little tiny fibers in it, and it's also pigmented and it has a bit of hold, so I kind of look at it as a three-in-one product. It's bulking up my brows, it's tinting them a little bit, but it's making them stay in place. Now, it's not necessarily your extreme heavy-duty hold, so if that's what you need and what you look for in a brow gel, just know this is a bit more of a soft hold, but what I like this for really is bulking up my eyebrows. My natural eyebrows are pretty blonde, almost transparent, so I like that this gives them a tint and it makes it look like I have a little bit more brow there, but even lately, I've been wearing my brows a little bit thinner and just very light and minimal, and even for that desired outcome, I still think this is really effective at it because I feel like this is kind of all I need these days. A lot of times, I just wear this. I just dust it over my brows, and I feel like it kind of grips on each brow hair and makes them more visible because, again, mine are just so light and almost see-through that this just kind of amps them up, gives me the shape I want because I like a pretty arched look like that, but it's also super natural and not very detectable in the brows, which is important to me as well. I will say, though, this is a bit expensive for the drugstore, so I have a dupe for this that is also at the drugstore. e.l.f. has a brow gel that is almost identical to this. The only difference is the wand on the... Did I say e.l.f.? It's Essence. The wand on the Essence one is slightly larger and wider than this, but even this spoolie is semi-large for a brow product, but performance-wise, the Essence one is almost identical, so I love both, truly. It's like whatever one you can get your hands on, whatever brand is more accessible to you, I would recommend either one, but the Essence one is quite a bit cheaper than this one from NYX. Let me know the drugstore products that you are using consistently that you're reaching for over your high-end favorites, but I hope you enjoyed this video, and I will go ahead and see you in my next one. Bye!