I Wore Only Drugstore Makeup for a Week — Here’s What I Learned
I’ve just given up high-end makeup cold turkey, and suddenly it’s all I can see. My bathroom countertop is piled to the ceiling with Becca highlighters, Too Faced lipsticks, and Nudestix brow pencils I’m now forbidden to use. At the office, every Byrdie editor’s desk is overflowing with loot from Sephora, mocking me with its fancy labels and gleaming encasements. A package arrives for me from Nars. I don’t even open it. Because for the next five days, I’m not allowed to use it. Any of it.
Starting today, I’m embarking on a little beauty experiment. Perhaps “beauty cleanse” is the more accurate phrase. I’m going to use exclusively drugstore makeup every day for a week to see if I can tell the difference.
This really shouldn’t be difficult. Throughout my high school and college years, I only ever used the cheapest makeup available. I’d enter Sephora under one circumstance: to do my makeup, swipe as many free perfume samples as I could get away with, and leave.
But my ever-intensifying beauty fixation and unique day job have slowly coaxed me into believing that sometimes you have to pay a little more (or in some cases, a lot more) for the formulas and results you want. Earlier this summer, for example, I decided that $55 was the price one had to pay for the ideal red lipstick.
But I wasn’t raised to be like this. So I decided it was time for a makeup detox. Here’s how it worked: For a week, I replaced every last one of my luxury makeup products with a drugstore option, and I didn’t tell anyone. I chose classic products I’d loved years before and new releases whose formulas intrigued me. The goal was to see how I liked the products and how other people reacted to them.
To be honest, my prediction was that I’d feel “meh” about most of the makeup and promptly return to my regular routine once the detox was over. I certainly didn’t expect to fall in love with dozens of products and question everything I thought I knew about the price of makeup.
Keep scrolling to see the 100% drugstore looks I wore, the products that rocked my world, and the lessons they taught me.
MONDAY
To kick off my experiment, I went with the look I’m most comfortable with: winged liner and a tangerine lip. With skepticism, I broke into my new drugstore arsenal, praying the concealer would blend, the eyeliner would stay put, and the lipstick would offer pigment. I had a dinner engagement that night, and I didn’t want to embarrass myself.
First, L’Oréal’s Visible Lift Blur Concealer bamboozled me with its impossibly creamy, crease-less formula. (Dare I say I’ve continued using it every day since the experiment.) The CoverGirl blush and bronzer I used bore an uncanny resemblance to my favorite Hourglass Ambient Lighting products. The fine-tipped Nyx liquid liner swished across my lid with the flexibility and pigment of products thrice its price. So far, so good.
But by far what struck me the most about this look was this Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick, which I’d pulled from the obscurity of my lipstick drawer after having abandoned the stuff for half a decade. Five years ago, when I was living in New York City, this was my absolute favorite lipstick — I wore it almost every day.
Rediscovering its moisturizing consistency, lightweight feel, and vibrant color not only left my lips on-point all day, but sent me back, as if by time machine, to my former life in New York. Every time I looked in the mirror, I caught a glimpse of my 19-year-old self — that naïve hot mess with her orange lips — and it reminded me of how far I’ve come since.
Fueled by nostalgia, my enthusiasm about the experiment spiked. Suddenly, I couldn’t wait to continue reliving and exploring the miracles of the drugstore.
Star product: Revlon Super Lustrous Creme Lipstick in Kiss Me Coral, $9.
TUESDAY
My Tuesday look was a bit more trend-driven: a fuchsia lip and glossy lids.
Remembering the glory of the drugstore that I once knew so well, I decided to get crafty: Instead of hunting for a highlighter explicitly intended for glossy lids, I whipped out my trusty Carmex lip balm (which I picked up alongside a Diet Snapple at little-known beauty mecca 7-Eleven). I slathered layers of the stuff onto my lids with abandon, paired it with a bright pink lip, and was #feelingmyself the entire day.
This look also introduced me to Pixi’s Natural Brow Duo, which has permanently replaced the $33 brow product I was using before. Featuring a teardrop-shaped pencil on one end and a tinted setting gel on the other, the product is alarmingly luxe.
Another thing I love about this look is that 100% of the products used are cruelty-free, which I was impressed to find at the drugstore.
Star products: Carmex Original Tube, $2, and Pixi Natural Brow Duo, $16.
See the rest of the week’s looks on Byrdie.com! Do you have a favorite drugstore product? Tell us in the comments below.
Originally published at www.byrdie.com on August 24, 2016.
