Do we need drugstore makeup to do the job?
Genuinely, the Drugstore does the job with an occasional high-end setting spray to lock it in and make it last the way a full face of high-end makeup would last throughout the day. “There are many effective products that are available from the pharmacy that are as good as, and even better than, the higher-priced ones found in premium department stores. You just need to look at the ingredients and disregard the hype. Find out what ingredients actually work. “Because with a lot of high-end brands we pay over $35 for a small thing of concealer, and depending on the brand, for example, we can use Tarte shape tape or Nars radiant creamy concealer; they both tend to crease, be patchy, and overall cakey vs. drugstore concealers like Maybelline Fit Me concealer and L’Oreal full-wear concealer tend to be around $10-15 and tend to be hydrating, have no crease, and blend flawlessly. Now, high-end brands do, most of the time, have better ingredients for sensitive, acne-prone skin. Still, sometimes drugstore brands have good ingredients and perform relatively well or even the same depending on the brands, but some just aren’t as good as others. “It is often assumed that one of the major differences between drug-store and high-end is the formula: ingredients put in the products. However, the ingredients aren’t the major difference between the two. The design and packaging of a product greatly contribute a large part to the increased price of high-end makeup. The ability of high-end makeup brands to manufacture with packaging that looks more designer and established, compared to drug-store packaging, makes the product appear more luxurious to the target audience.”
Moving on from price vs. quality, we’ll move into brand prestige. Most of the time, high-end brands were paying for the name; for example, from my personal experience, Dior, whose blush is horrible, was paying solely for looks because when you swatch the blush on your skin, there is no pigment transfer. Why are we paying $45 for a blush that goes on looking like a translucent pressed powder? Now, that’s not the case with all high-end brands; of course, Charlotte Tilbury is one fantastic brand that is pricey but whose quality and performance are 100%. Drugstore blush like Milani baked blush is nicely pigmented, blends flawlessly onto the skin, is only $10, is entirely worth it, and is a better alternative than a Dior blush. And if we were talking about longevity and wearability, they last the same depending on the brand, high-end, and drugstore. As seen in online review videos by beauty influencers, they do one side of their face with drugstore brands such as Elf, Maybelline, L’Oreal, and Milani. The other side, which has a high end, consists of Charlotte Tilbury, HourGlass, YSL Beauty, Channel, Kylie Cosmetics, and Too Faced. The influencers will wear it out, do everyday activities, and check in with the video throughout the day to see how the makeup is holding up, and at the end of the day, they both hold up reasonably well.
Of course, the drugstore may be a little oily, but that’s nothing a little touch-up couldn’t fix. So, to say drugstore vs. high-end, what’s the difference besides ingredients? If they both wear fairly the same on a daily basis, why are we all paying for high-end at such high prices when we have drugstores that will save our money and wear the same? So, ultimately, we were paying for the name.
