These are the BEST drugstore makeup products in every category 😍

Hey you guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I am very excited to be kicking off my end of year series. We are starting things off today with the best drugstore and affordable makeup of 2025. This year I'm breaking it up into three categories. We're doing the drugstore, high-end, and then I have a miscellaneous category that will include skincare, fragrances, hair products, tools, some other miscellaneous things thrown in there as well. So I hope you guys are excited about this. I look forward to filming these videos all year. I love watching them. And I can't wait to share with you guys what made the cut for 2025. Before we get into all the great makeup, I want to give a special welcome to my new visitors. Thank you so much for stopping by today. I hope that you enjoyed this video. Please be sure that you subscribe to my channel before you leave and make sure notifications are turned on. And with all that out of the way, let's jump right into it. All right, so let's go kind of in order of how I apply things to my face. We'll start with foundation, actually a primer. I do have one primer. This one probably won't surprise you if you've been watching my videos throughout the this. It's such a great dupe for the Milk Makeup Hydra-Grip Primer, if you like that green primer. It's a little on the sticky side. I think it's kind of hydrating though at the same time. And once it is kind of set down, it doesn't feel sticky on, it doesn't continue to feel sticky on the skin. And foundations go great on top of this. I have yet to find a foundation, high-end or drugstore, that doesn't look great on top of this. I'm on the older side. I have a lot of fine lines and texture. I have dry skin and I don't find this to dry out my skin. I do, however, like to add a little bit of hydration underneath. So either a serum, sometimes I'll just simply do like a little bit of spray, facial mist or hydrating setting spray underneath and that works just fine as well, or just a good layer of moisturizer. It's great. It's affordable. It's one of my favorite primers of this kind of category. It's really, really good. Foundations, this one was a little bit tough. I wanted to narrow it down to one foundation, but I have two that sort of tied and one that I need to mention because it's kind of an unsung hero, as in I use it nearly every single day or at least multiple times a week to kind of get my other foundations to work a little bit better. But let's start with the two foundations that have tied. So they're both from Maybelline. First off, the Maybelline 30 Hour Lumi Matte Foundation. I love this foundation. It works great on my more mature skin. It wears well. The shade is fantastic. I love when I have a foundation, especially from the drugstore, where the shade matches you just right because I feel like it's so rare. I use the shade 128, which works great for me. I generally prefer more dewy looking and hydrating foundations. This one's a pretty soft matte foundation. I don't know how to explain it. It looks radiant on your skin, but it's not dewy. It doesn't move around. I imagine this is a foundation that would work for a lot of different skin types. In fact, I've seen a lot of people recommend this one. I've also seen a few people say they didn't like this one. True with anything, right? It's just a really nice kind of universal finish. It's not too drying on my skin. Easy to blend. It's a little bit more lightweight. I wouldn't necessarily say it's like thin and serum-like in the way that something like the Futurist Hydro Rescue is. It's a little more creamy than that, but it's not a thick kind of cream like one that I'll mention in just a sec. Great foundation. I really like this one. It's one of my most worn foundations throughout this last year, only to be topped perhaps by this one. I think I may have mentioned this in my 2024 favorites as well. I think I discovered it at the end of last year. It's the Superstay Skin Tint from Maybelline. I have two right here. I kind of mix these in a different ratio depending on where my tan level is. If I've applied self tanner recently, this one is 220, and then right here I have 118. 118 on its own is way too light for me. 220 today actually is a perfect match for me because I just applied self tanner. It's so good. This is such a pretty foundation. It's a thick kind of cream. It has really good medium coverage. By the way, I didn't mention this one also has medium buildable coverage. This one layers really well. If I start with one pump and then I add just a tiny bit more in areas where I need it, it builds up really nicely. This one comes out pretty high-medium right out of the gate, but it's so creamy and hydrating that my skin really loves this foundation. It also has, you won't be able to see this on camera, but if you own this foundation and you notice as it gets lower, you'll see this pearlescence to it that's very hard to detect, but I think it's what makes this foundation look so beautiful and luminous on the skin. Anytime I wear this foundation, I feel like I have an extra youthful glow to me that obviously is coming from the pearlescence in this that just looks beautiful, but it's not so strong to where it's emphasizing all the texture on my skin. I have a lot of texture. Again, I'm 44. I have a lot of fine lines. I don't have any filler or Botox or anything like that, so a lot of fine lines I'm working with, starting to get larger pores that are getting larger the older I get, and I still feel like this one doesn't emphasize that texture too much, but we need to give a little nod to this. This is the Wet n Wild Dewy Foundation. This one specifically is in the shade Caramel. This is my go-to mix-in foundation when I have a shade that is just a little bit too light for me. I always recommend having a foundation on hand, particularly an affordable one that you don't have to spend a lot for, in two or three shades too light and two or three shades too dark for you, so when your foundation doesn't quite match, you can add just a touch of that other foundation, depending on what direction you're going, that will get your foundation to match without affecting the finish or the formula of the foundation that you're really wanting to use. This one's such a good mix-in. I don't think I found a foundation that it didn't mix well into. Now, part of that is because I don't need to add very much of it, but I use this so often. I actually need to replace it here pretty soon, but I feel like it needed a mention today, maybe not this one specifically. On its own, this is a really pretty foundation. I actually don't, I just decluttered the one that's in my shade because I don't wear it all the time anymore, and the only reason for that is because it just is not very long-wearing on me. Okay, concealer. Let's talk about, I only have one concealer this year, not that there aren't other drugstore concealers that I really like or enjoy, but this was like the, this might be the product of 2025 if I was to crown one thing. It's definitely in the top five. It is the Skin Silk concealer, which you guys probably knew I was going to mention this one. I've been raving about this since I first tried it out in the summer. This is specifically for targeting this little area right here under the eye. It just makes my under eyes look so bright. It completely erases this little, I mean, I don't have terrible dark circles, but I definitely have this little pocket right here that is the dead giveaway, especially if you're getting older. You really want to try and counter some of that blueness or whatever. I know everyone's is a little bit different color, but that kind of dark, the dark circle, it's not that hard. The little shadowing that you get under your eyes, if you can counter that, I feel like it takes at least a couple years off of your face. And the thing I love about this is it's such a lightweight formula, but it just has so much pigment in it that you don't need to apply very much to get that brightening effect. Very hydrating. I don't apply it anywhere else. If I was to apply this in other areas under my eyes, it would slide around because it's just too hydrating, but it works perfectly for this little pocket right here to brighten up my eyes, which has been a game changer for me this last year. I think last year I mentioned the Cali Ray Hideaway Concealer in Pale Sun. Now this shade is light peach. It has a little bit more of a peach tone to it, whereas Pale Sun has a little bit more of a yellow tone to it. I think the peach works a little bit better for me. I still like the Cali Ray. I haven't tried the more peach version of hers. I imagine it's the same thing though. Formula-wise and pigment-wise, they kind of remind me of each other. Another thing I love about this concealer is this little metal doe foot, which I thought was so weird the first time I tried it out, but I love the little massaging it gives my eyes as I'm applying it. I don't know that it does anything, but I like to pretend that it does. Either way, great product for under-eye circles. Okay, let's talk about a couple of other face products. So I first want to start with blush and bronzer. I'm going to give the win for this one to one brand, and that is NYX for their Buttermilk Bronzer and Blush. I almost did that backwards. Love these products. Love this formula. Great packaging. They're affordable. They're $10. I have the shade. I actually have two and three. I use them both. Usually in the summertime, I'll reach for number three more. In the fall and winter, I'll reach for number two more. I'm wearing it on my cheeks today. It's just such a great bronzer. It has a slight rosy tint to it, which I love. I love a good rosy bronzer. In fact, I would say shade number two is a very close... I haven't done a side-by-side comparison of these two. I should probably do that. Maybe I'll come back and do a dupe video for you guys, but it reminds me a lot of the Laura Mercier bronzer, which I also love in Marseille. It has that kind of like warming but like rosy effect. You could almost use it as a bronzer and a blush at the same time. It's beautiful. I actually think number three is a little bit more brown. It has a little bit less of the rosy effect to it. For my light-skinned girls out there, this is just such a great product. I just really think NYX knocked it out of the park, these Buttermilk products, including their blush. Now, the only thing about the blush, I have about six of these, maybe seven. I think I have seven of these colors. Some of them, the colors are a little bit too bold or a little bit too shimmery for me, but there are a few that I absolutely love. My favorite two shades is this one, number six, for the butter, which is, it's a soft mauve. It's the one that I'm wearing on my cheeks today. It's lovely, very pigmented. So if you have very fair skin, you're going to want to be very light-handed with probably most of these blushes because most of them have quite a bit of pigment in them, but they're so buttery and smooth. You can totally get them to work for you just by kind of going on the back of your hand first, maybe taking some of the excess off on a towel before you go onto your cheeks, but they blend like a dream. They're just so lovely. I absolutely love them. The other shade that I really love more for like summer and fall is this one, which is a shimmering terracotta. It's filling butter, number nine. It looks crazy in the pan. It almost looks like a bronzer shade, but it looks beautiful on your cheeks. This one has a little bit more sheen than the names of these, just gets so mixed up in my head. So I'm going by the number, number six, for the butter. This one's a little bit more matte. It might have a tiny bit of sheen in it. I would say it's more of a matte though. The ones that say they're shimmering do have some shimmer in them. So I try to keep them away from this area of my face, because if I get them in too far, they will emphasize your pores on your face a little bit more than I like. But the blendability, the color, it's lovely. I absolutely love these blushes. They're great. Highlighter. I almost gave the highlighter also to the filling butter highlighter from NYX, which I do like. I have shade number one, I believe. Actually, it's right here. I did pull this out. No, it's number five, Brighten Butter. It's the lightest shade that they offer. I do still really like this highlighter, but I've noticed that even this one, when I'm not at my most tanned level, it is a little bit more, I don't know. It has just the tiniest bit of yellow in it that I don't love when I'm a little bit more on the fair side. So I'm going to give the award for the drugstore highlighter this year to this one right here. This is from Pretty Smart. Such a good underrated brand from the drugstore. Everything they offer, at least at my drugstore, is under $10, which I really appreciate. They have so many great products. So many of the things I've tried out from this brand, I've absolutely loved. This is one of my favorites, though. It's their highlighter in Golden Bloom. This one's fantastic, though. I am wearing it on my cheeks today, and it does pack some punch, be warned. If you like a more natural highlighter, maybe this one's not the way to go, but you know me. I love a good strong highlighter, and this is one of the best from the drugstore. Let's go to eyeshadow. I only have two sort of recommendations for you guys. First off, this one. This is from Alter Ego, and really, I'm kind of just bringing up Alter Ego as a brand in general. If you're not aware of who Alter Ego is, they release a lot of dupe palettes for Natasha Denona palettes. If you don't know anything about me, I am obsessed with the Natasha Denona eyeshadows. I have most of her midsize palettes, and I use them all the time. I love them. It is easily one of my favorite high-end eyeshadow formulas, and also her color stories are just so great. If you like your neutral palettes in particular, she puts together some of the best neutral kind of everyday palettes. They're fantastic. This one right here is supposed to be a dupe for, I think, the Golden palette. It's called the Amber Glow. Her Daylight palette is supposed to be a dupe for the I Need a Nude palette, which is my very favorite Natasha Denona palette that I feel like everybody should own if you like a neutral color story. As much as I love Natasha Denona's eyeshadow palettes, they are ridiculously expensive. $69 for a palette is way outside of many people's budgets. It would be outside of my own budget if I didn't do this on YouTube and justified buying those and reviewing them for you guys, but I love that there's an affordable alternative out there, and I think the formulas of the Alter Ego ones are almost as good. Not exactly. I do think Natasha's are maybe just a little bit higher quality, a little bit more pigment in some areas. You have to build these up just a tiny bit more, but as a bit of an eyeshadow snob that has tried a lot over the years, I'm perfectly happy with these. They do such a great job, and they're like a third the price, so I will link them down below. But I've got to give a shout out to this palette. You guys are going to laugh at me for mentioning this as the best palette of 2025. It is a repurchased palette for me that's been around forever from ColourPop. It's the Going Coconuts palette. I know this thing's been around forever. I actually decluttered this years ago, and for a couple of years, I just kept thinking in the back of my head, why did I declutter that palette? Now, in my defense, at the time that I decluttered it, I did a lot more, I mean not super colorful, but I played with a lot more colors and more creative eye looks. I really liked different color stories, and this one's just kind of a little bit on the boring side, but I've definitely evolved. I've gotten a lot more boring with my eyeshadow looks over the last couple of years, as I know some of you, to some of your disappointment, I'm sure. But as I get older, I just find that it suits me better having just more neutral looks. It kind of just is maybe a style thing, and this is such a great neutral palette. It is beautiful. It's kind of brown, but they almost have a bit of like a pink shift in them. I'm wearing it on my eyes today. They're kind of warm, but also some of them are kind of cool at the same time. It's a palette that I feel like would look good on absolutely anyone, regardless of what your tastes are. That's probably not news to any of you that have been watching YouTube beauty videos for a while now, because this palette has been, I mean, maybe it's been forgotten by everyone, but I feel like everybody, if you decluttered yours, or got rid of it, or used it up, go buy it again, because it still is one of the best neutral palettes out there. By the way, I wanted to give a little honorable mention to the 11.11 palette from ColourPop. This one's fun. It's definitely different. It's a little bit more on the cool side. I feel like the formulas inside the Going Coconuts palette across the board are a little bit better. There are a couple of the matte formulas in here that are a little bit stiff. You really have to work to get them on. You have to kind of layer them up a lot more, work a little bit harder with these. They're not bad. They're not patchy or anything. They just take a little ... I don't think the quality is like ... ColourPop's the very best, but the color story of this one is fantastic. Okay, let's talk about a couple of mascaras. My number one mascara for the year is going to go to the Lash Extender from e.l.f. I love this tubing mascara. I've tried a lot of tubing mascaras this last year. So many companies have released them. This one's my favorite. It's a little bit more of a dry formula. It goes on very quickly, gives good length. It's not overly clumpy. I can get it on so fast. It's very water resistant, which is a necessity for me. It also removes relatively easy. This is the trick that I feel like a lot of tubing mascaras that I've tried have had a hard time mastering. I still not a word. It's still the Thrive Cosmetics. That's an experience to remove the Thrive Cosmetics mascara if you haven't tried that one. It's fascinating. This one is close though. Your water does need to be warm, but it doesn't have to be boiling hot to get the mascara off of your lashes without using a remover or a soap, but it does hold up to my very, very watery eyes. So I love this one. It's affordable. You can find it at almost any drugstore. I did, however, want to give a shout out to two others. The Panorama mascara, this one's been a favorite of mine for a couple of years now. So, so good. If you want a little bit more fullness to your lashes, this is one of the best in my opinion. And then I wanted to give a shout out to this one for just how incredibly affordable it is. This mascara, I think, is like $2.98. It's from Profusion, which is a brand that is surprisingly a great brand considering they're super low budget. They make some really great stuff. I actually have another thing that we'll be talking about from them in a minute here. This mascara really impressed me. It is not the easiest mascara to apply. It heavily coats your lashes, but it gives you this almost like you're wearing false lashes effect because it's so heavy and thick. You definitely need to make sure that you have a clean spoolie on hand or a little comb kind of like this to kind of brush out as you go. But man, it gives your lashes the richest, darkest, thickest look that is incredible. It's not the most water resistant. It can hold up to my eyes if they're a little bit on the watery side, but I was wearing this a couple of days ago and I actually was crying. No reason. It was just one of those days. You don't need to feel sorry for me. I'm fine now. But it definitely ran on me. So it can hold up to a little bit of watering, but if you're looking for something that's like you're going through something or you're going to a sad movie, this is not going to do it. It definitely started to run on me a bit. But for $3, pretty impressive. Oh, I do want to mention these. It's just a set of lashes. These are the half naked lashes from Ardell. I've been a long time fan of half lashes. I cannot stand full strip lashes. Now I don't wear these all the time, but if I'm on a date or maybe for a special occasion, I love throwing on a half set of lashes because they're easy to apply. They're way more comfortable and they're just not too heavy. If you have smaller eyes or if you're self-conscious about being able to even apply lashes, which that's me, I cannot apply a full set of lashes. I don't know if it's my smaller eyes or what, but they don't look good on me and I can't get them on right and they're terribly uncomfortable. So these are the perfect happy medium. I've been recommending the Eylure 003 lashes for years. These I just discovered this year. They're a little bit thicker and more fluttery. They're going to give you a little bit more drama to your eyes. I'm wearing on my eyes today, but they're very pretty. And for a half lash that gives you that almost like a full strip lash effect, I highly recommend these. They're also super affordable, which is great. All right, brows next. The only thing I felt deserved to mention for this last year is my Soko brow soap. When it comes to brows, I am by no means an expert. I have very difficult brows in that they're very thin and long. So for me to get my brows to look kind of nice and feathery, it's a challenge. Not all products will get me there. And I've tried a lot of things that I've liked, a lot of different brow gels and brow pencils. But the thing that really gets my brows to look a little bit more full, a little bit more feathery, but also have kind of the texture that something like a Gimme Brow would give me, not too stiff. This is so good. There's a learning curve with a brow soap. Now this is just a cheap one that I get on Amazon. Honestly, there's a lot of brands that make a brow soap. They're basically all the same. I think on Amazon, you can get this for like $4.99 for a two-pack. I am due for a new one. By the way, if you do try these out, you can always turn the little... My soap's a little stuck right now because I just used it. But if you can get the soap bar out, when one side gets too much of a divot in it, you can flip it over and use the other side. So there's a little money-saving tip for you guys. I just love a brow soap though. It works so well for what I need from my brow product or what I want from my brow product. As far as filling them in, any slim brow pencil or pen or powder will do that well for me. And I wobble back and forth between all of these methods all the time, as you guys know if you've been following me for a while. Getting something to hold my brows in place and keep them kind of light and feathery looking that will actually hold them throughout the day, a brow soap is really the only way to get me there. Nothing else quite has the ability to hold them for that long without them looking too stiff or wet. Or the ABH Brow Freeze Wax, which I really like that one. If I apply too much product, it gets too plastered to my face looking, which I don't like. But if I don't apply enough, it doesn't hold them in place. I just think a soap is an easier and cheaper way to give me that effect that I'm looking for. So just know there's a bit of a learning curve with these. You have to get... I always put water on my spoolie. You can use any spoolie. I'll just put some water on my spoolie and then start rubbing it into the product. And you don't want too much water, but you need to have enough water. So there's kind of like a learning curve there. But once you get it down, I don't know. Nothing looks quite as good on my brows. It's just a good old-fashioned brow soap. Lip liner, my favorite lip liner from this last year was from Maybelline. It is their Lifter Liner Lip Liner. This one in small, old lips that need to be overlined. It's a tough thing to do to get the overlining thing down and get it to look kind of natural, but to also be effective. And if you're dealing with the vertical lines in your lips as you get older, it's tricky to find the right product to do that. This is so good. Drugstore-wise, I think this is the closest formula dupe I have found to the Charlotte Tilbury lip liners, which I absolutely love, or the Natasha Denona ones, which are both very thicker and waxier, so they don't feather into the lines on your lips quite as much as some other formulas do. But they're also very long-wearing. This one, too, is long-wearing. The shade of this is so good. It's kind of like a deep... I don't know if you can see the tip of it. I'll swatch it for you guys. It actually looks a whole lot like Iconic Nude from Charlotte Tilbury. So good. More affordable than Charlotte Tilbury, but every bit as good. And it's so good over lining. It will stay. I'm wearing it on my lips today. Smudges well, sets down, and then stays there, and you can top it with any lip gloss or lipstick, and it looks amazing underneath anything. It's so, so good. I love this. Had to give a mention to my Profusion lip pen. I've tried a lot of these lip twisty, kind of clicky pens now, and this is still my favorite one. Super affordable. You can get this for like three or four bucks at your Walmart. Is Walmart the only place that sells these in person? Maybe Target. I think I might have seen this brand at Target as well, but if you happen to see this one, particularly this shade, which is pretty in pink, I'm wearing it today on top of that lip liner, and it's beautiful. Formula's great. Color is perfect. If you like a light nude, this is one of the best that I've tried. But as you guys know, this has been the year of the lip balm for me. I have dried so many tinted... Well, mostly tinted lip balms or just lip balms in general this year, and my favorites from the drugstore are these two, the ColourPop Fresh Kiss Lip Balm in Cherry. This is such a great dupe for the... I thought I just had it here. I think it fell on the floor. For the Summer Fridays Lip Butter in Cherry, which I absolutely love. This one's just as good. The color's exactly the same. I have probably had this lip gloss in my purse more than any other product this last year, which says something. It's great. I absolutely love this one. The other ones that I really like, though, are the Super Peptide Lip Balms. What do they call these? Glossy Lip Treatment, these ones are. These are from Essence. Super affordable. My favorite one is this one, which is the shade Coralized. I also have the shades Toffee Tastic, which is more of like a brown-toned nude, kind of like Madeline from NYX, if you're familiar with that one. This one's also pretty. This is Pinkified. Those are the only three that I've tried. I think there's also a clear one as well but I don't do clear gloss. If I'm going to get gloss, I just want a little bit of color in it. These are great. I would say both of these provide, I don't know, a 50% opacity. They're semi-sheer but they do give your lips some color. If you're just on the go and you need something to give you a little bit of color and shine, these are perfect for throwing in your bag. That brings us to my last thing, which is a setting spray. The e.l.f. Power Grip Setting Spray has been my most used this year. I'm almost out of this. So, so good. Such a great sprayer. I will say it's mine at least. I don't know if every bottle is like this. It's the only one I've ever had so far. I will definitely be repurchasing this though when it's gone. It's a little hard to press on but the mist, I mean, it is the finest mist I've ever gotten from a drugstore setting spray. It is micro-fine. It smells amazing. It sets my makeup beautifully. It's a little bit luminous and hydrating. If you are a setting spray person, this is such a good one from the drugstore and affordable of course, which is why we're here today. And I think that is everything you guys. Those are what made the cut for the best products from 2025. I would love to know what was your favorite drugstore product that you tried this last year. Please let us know down in the comments below. I am sure there's some things out there that I overlooked and I would love to try them out if you love them. Thank you guys for joining me today. I hope that you are all doing well. Let me give you one last reminder to subscribe before you leave. I will be back next Friday with my high-end version of this video. So don't forget to hit that notification bell. Thanks again, you guys. I will see you in my next video. Bye.