I Love Drugstore Makeup TAG

 What is your favorite drugstore makeup brand?

I like more  products from Maybelline than for any other brand and I feel like it's just one of those things where you can make almost everything in their brand work. The possibility of being confined to a single brand puts things in perspective as far as prioritizing what kinds of products are of most importance to you. If nothing else I want my makeup to give me a flawless complexion: evening out skin tone and hiding blemishes while accentuating eyes and lips in a natural way. For me it's foundation, concealer, mascara and moisturizing lip products. I use the Dream Fresh BB Cream in medium/deep as a foundation (I already wrote about this product in a previous post but basically I'm like the only person in the world who likes it). The Maybelline concealer of choice would be from the Fit Me line in 35 (or something).The mascara would have to be the Colossal Mascara. I know that stuff is so passé but It's just one of those things that has been a constant, or a staple in my collection for a very long time. As far as lip products go miniaturization is more important to me than color and my favorite Maybelline lip product is the Baby Lips lip balm in Grapevine. It looks scary at first (because it's purple), but it comes off as a sheer berry. One of those things you can put on as often as you like without a mirror and not worry about how it looks. 

  

 

      What are your favorite face, cheek and lip products?

Face- Elf Flawless foundation in Almond and Caramel.  I really love the finish and how well it matches my skin tone. Rimmel Stay matte translucent setting powder, Wet 'n' Wild's Bronzer in Bikini Contest, Hard Candy's Blush Crush in bombshell, L'Oreal Colour Caresse Lipcolor in 180 Silky Java. I went in looking for Sheer Linen on the Recommendation of ItsJudyTime on youtube, but I find this one to be a better fit for me personally, (I think Sheer Linen was a bit too sheer), but this is pretty much my go to holy grail nude lip color. Not only is this my lips perfected, but one of those moisturizing lip colors. Similar to the Revlon lip butters except this one is even more moisturizing. I also really enjoy my Revlon Kissable balm stain in Crush. When I'm wearing a bold lip I apply it under whatever lip color I happen to be wearing that day. The logic is that when my bold lip color inevitable fades the balm stain will remain and I won't have to touch up the color (which I don't like doing because you have to whip out your mirror and your lipstick and look and feel super pretentious/bougie). Or I wear it in its own and just continue to top it off throughout the day with the dark baby lip in Grapevine, which makes me feel far less high maintenance.   

       Least favorite product(s)?

The product that really disappointed me was the Elf Studio blush in tickled pink and pretty much all of the Maybelline fit me blushes. It's a very light matte light pink shade. It's not pigmented,  it's powdery and when you apply it to the skin nothing happens. Another product was the Maybelline fit be blush, and honestly I do n't remember the shade but it was the darkest one in the line and it completely disappeared on my skin. No pigmentation at all.Maybe some if you happen to be transparent. 

                        What is the best makeup bargain?

Rimmel Clean Finish liquid foundation. I bought this product at Walmart for only $3.97 because I was looking for an awkward transition foundation from my summer color to my fall color. It provides medium coverage and is buildable. It also sets relatively fast so it's the kind of product that needs to be worked in quickly. The best part is that it looks and feels like skin! This is a great bargain, my only complaint is that the packaging is weird.  It comes with a spatula-like applicator that can be applied directly to the face, but for sanitary purposes should be applied to clean hands and then to the face with clean fingers/ brushes.

         What is your favorite underdog product? (Something you love that often gets overlooked?)
 

Two things: The Sonia Kashuk Eye on Neutral Palette and L'Oreal's line of nail polishes. I like the Eye on Neutral Palette because it comes with 12 100%  matte shades that compliment every skin tone and guidelines for three wearable looks. Sometimes you just get tired of shimmer and sparkle so this is  my go to for a very  natural looking smokey eye and would work well for older women who don't want to emphasize any wrinkling that might be going on with glitter and sparkle. But if that's something that you do want Sonia Kashuk's Fall/Winter palette, Eye on Dazzling Color, is nothing but shimmer and sparkle but still surprisingly wearable. I have just been loving some of the limited edition L'Oreal nail colors. My favorite is  Brit Invasion, warm gray with gold shimmer. I believe it's a limited edition color for the Fall. 

                          A drugstore product that is overpriced?

General Brands- Neutrogena and Physician's Formula are two of the more expensive drugstore brands, and for what? I only have one tinted lip balm from Neutrogena that cost me a whopping $9 which was comparable to Maybelline's Baby Lips that run for $3. I only had on item form physician's formula and it was a translucent setting powder and I justified the $12 price tag because it was an SPF 20 and I thought it was great because I always forget to incorporate a sunscreen into my skincare routine. A week later it cracked. That's the kind of thing I expect from a Wet 'n' Wild powder. Rimmel makes a similar Stay Matte translucent powder that's around $5 and Elf makes a slightly tinted loose setting powder with an SPS 45 for only $6 (different from the loose HD powder). 
 

                            Show your best drugstore dupe(s)!!

Hair One from Sally's Beauty Supply is a great dupe for Wen's cleansing conditioner. It really is an all in one bath product. It washes and conditions at the same time which makes it a good choice for people who obsessively wash their hair everyday. There are no sulfates or detergents in the product so it's good for sensitive and damage prone hair types, like mine. You can even use it as a leave in conditioner and a shaving cream! When you message this product into your hair it makes you scalp tingle. If that doesn't say clean, I don't know what does. 

The Elf Baked Eye Shadow Palettes in California and NYC are Dupes for the Sephora  brand Baked Moon Shadows. Tisk Tisk Elf. Tisk Tisk. And they knew they would get away with it because no one cares about Sephora brand cosmetic products!

NYC's Smooth Skin Bronzer in Sunny is very similar to Benefit's Hoola Bronzer. 

Wet 'n' Wild's Nutty, NYX's Iced Mocha, and L'Oreal's Bronzed Taupe are all dupes for MAC's Satin Taupe.

                Drugstore product that isn't worth the hype?

Nothing disappoints me more than a failed concealer. This is probably going to sound like sacrilege but I'm not fond of the Maybelline Instant Age Rewind concealers in neutralizer nor the brightening shade. I find that when I apply the neutralizer under my regular concealer or the brightener over my regular concealer it creases like crazy and there is no noticeable improvement when I wear it compared to when I don't wear it. Other people manage to make it work so it might have something to do with the fact that I have slightly more prominent fine lines than most other people my age, and my dark circles are like I've been punched twice in the face. Concealer works best in thin layers but the problem is I need a lot of help so my concealers need to be very pigmented, very full coverage so this doesn't work as well for me as it would on  most others.