 Several years ago, I started doing a series on my channel that is called Cheaper and Better, or by this, not that, and it's not necessarily about dupes. It's about what you can get at the drug store that is almost identical to the very high end or the very luxury product, but you really don't feel like you can continue to pay that kind of money. Also in here, I put in things that I feel like they might be slightly better because of their wear time, because of maybe the finish or the sheen they have on them. So I put all that kind of stuff in here too. There are alternatives. So sometimes when I do these videos, it's not an exact dead on product, but you get it on your face and you cannot tell the difference and that's what I love about them, because it's gonna save you so much money in the long run. Hello everyone, my name is Melissa. I'm 55 years old and I'm a beauty content creator that loves makeup, skincare, hair care, fashion, jewelry, all of those things that we love so much as girls and then as we get into mature age, as I am right now, that love doesn't diminish, we just have to switch gears a little bit to make sure that it's okay for mature skin and our changing needs. So if you are interested in all that, please subscribe today. I would really like it if you do that because I did find out that about 65 to 67% of you that watch my videos are not subscribed and if each of you took a moment and just did that, it would really get my channel growing and that would be fantastic. Also give it a like on your way out of here, please, I would appreciate that as well. All right, before we get started on the buy this, not that, or the cheaper and better, I always like to tell you what I have on for top because I always get asked what I have on. So this is a really fun, different t-shirt. It's got a very light material on it. I love royal blue. It's one of those colors that I always gravitate towards and it's got this crisscross detail on a cold shoulder right there. Deep v-neck, not too deep though, doesn't show my cleavage, which is nice. It's a little bit on the tighter side. I think I got this one in a small. I wish I'd gotten it in a medium. So it's a little bit fitted just so you know that. It does come down over the rear if you need that but it's not quite tunic length also. Also the rings, the fingernails are press-on nails and I always make sure that I list and link those down below with any makeup that I don't talk about today and the jewelry that I have on, that will all be listed and linked below for you. All right, let's get started into the cheaper and better by this, not that, alternatives. One of the things that I'm super excited in this video about is that Charlotte Tilbury finally came out with a pillow talk fare and what is really beautiful about this new pencil, it's her lip sheet pencils. What's really beautiful about it is she finally came out with a cool toned mauve or a cool toned rose. This is absolutely gorgeous. I just think it's one of those ones that anybody that has a very fair complexion or if you wanted to buy one of her other lip sheets, put that around your lips and then fill this in on your lips, this would be beautiful too. Very cool toned, very gorgeous color. I'm really excited about this one and I was immediately excited about it and wanted to find a dupe for you. Well, I think I got it pretty darn close. So this one is from Maybelline. This is my favorite lip liner of all time. I love that it's an automatic pencil. I love how smooth and creamy these are so you can completely fill in your lips if you want to or you can just outline them if you want to. Now, what you're gonna see on this and this is why I'm a little bit more excited about this one than the one from Charlotte Tilbury and let me tell you what this one is, what color it is. The color is Dusty Rose. So on the Dusty Rose, hopefully you're gonna be able to see this. On the Dusty Rose side, it has just even a little bit more of that blue pink in it and then the Charlotte Tilbury is on that rosy side, that warmer side. So why I am excited about it is because even still, even though Charlotte Tilbury did come out with this new one that is supposed to be very cool toned, this one from Maybelline is even more cool toned. And yes, as you know on this channel, I am very cool toned. So I love to gravitate towards those. But if you are somebody that doesn't, you like warm tones and find some of these other Maybelline lip liners because they are so, so good. Now I have shown this other one to you but I wanted to show it again. This is from Makeup by Mario and this color is the Lip Liner Kevin. It's one of those colors that I use on a daily basis when I'm working with my makeup. I love the red color of it, but I love that it's still a berry. It's got some of that coolness to it. This is probably the only color in his line that I have completely fallen in love with because they all lean warm. And it's really hard for me as somebody that is very, very cool toned to wear anything that's warm. So I like, I've loved this a lot. It's not a mechanical pencil but it does have a really nice brush on the other side. And I've been wearing this for well over a year. It's what lives in my bag and I absolutely love it. But as I was shopping my stash, I did find one from Essence. This is the eight hour matte lip liner. And this one is in the color cool mauve. So when I swatched this, I was like, okay, well, I guess I'll be using this other one instead of the one that is Kevin from Makeup by Mario. They're so close. There's no way you could even tell if you had that on your lips. And somebody was going, well, do you have Kevin on or do you have cool mauve on? You wouldn't be able to tell. So this is really nice. The one that is Makeup by Mario is a little bit stiffer formula, a little bit drier formula. This one from Essence is a little bit more creamy. So if you find that you're not getting the wear time out of something that is a little bit more creamy, you can always put it on, blend it out how you want to pat just a tiny, tiny bit of powder over it and then put another coat on and you're going to have something that is majorly budge-proof with your lip liners. So these are great for alternatives. Now along the same lines, here we go, Charlotte Tilbury came out with the Pillotalk Fair in the lipstick. And I was so excited about this and I'm like, oh, oh yes, yes, yes. Let's see if this is going to work for me. So I bought it and sure enough, it has a lot of coral in it. It's much lighter than Pillotalk Original, but it's still in that hue of having not quite a blue-pink in it. And I was really disappointed in that, but I do like the formula of them. I like that this does have a little bit of a satin finish, a sheen to it. So it's really pretty, but at the same time, if I can't get exactly what I want from a high-end brand, why am I paying almost $30 a tube for a lipstick? When you can go to Flower Beauty, and I've talked about this one so much lately, and get one called the Naked Blush. Now, what's the difference in these two is the sheen in them or the finish in them? So Naked Blush is much more matte than the Charlotte Tilbury. That does mean that it's going to last a little bit longer, but, and it does make the look of them look just a tiny bit difference in their hue, but they're not. It's just the sheen on them. Beautiful, beautiful lipstick. I told you about this in one of my very recent videos where I was talking about my very favorite things, and this was one of them, the beautiful Mid-Tone Nude. And it is what I have on today. I do have a little bit of a gloss over top of it, but the Mid-Tone Nude goes with so many things, and I really like it. I like the Charlotte Tilbury, but again, I was a bit disappointed that here we are looking for something that has that cool tone to it, and she cannot quite get there. But if you're wanting one that is so darn close, Flower Beauty's Naked Blush. I love it. Love it so much. Right now, every time I turn on TikTok or I get into TikTok, I am seeing Tarte everywhere. And I think it's because people over there have just all of a sudden found Tarte sales, and then they also work with TikTok Shop in selling sets of products. So I was there and I got this fake awake from them. It is a waterline pencil, and it is in just kind of a nude color. Hopefully we're gonna be able to see that. So this is nice because it's a little bit drier of a formula, and it goes into the waterline really nicely. Let me just show that to you so you can see. By the way, I do have on one side of my makeup is high end. And then the other side is the drugstore, just so you know that. But I've been raving about the L'Oreal Infallible Grip Liners. They're just amazing, amazing products. This one from them is called Bright Nude. Let me tell you why I like this so much better than the Tarte one. I like it because it's brighter for one thing, but I also like it because it has a tendency to be able to go into the waterline and really deposit some color better than the Tarte one. And I like the Tarte one, yes. I think it's very pretty, yes. But I don't think that it quite deposits enough of the color that everybody is looking for. So as I was doing my makeup, and as I was looking for one, I wanted something that I could get brightness in there even more than the Tarte. And that's what this one did for me. And you do have to kind of go back in and do a second coat. If you're anything like me and your eyes water a lot, doesn't matter, you're gonna have to do a second coat. What I found out about it in, this may or may not come across on camera, is that the one from Tarte, the color on it was just a little bit too deep. It was like a really peachy nude, whereas the color from L'Oreal Infallible Grip was a brighter nude. So I really do like both of these, but I would reach for the one from L'Oreal way before I'd reach for the one from Tarte, not only because it works better, but also because of the price point. Recently, I once again started working a little bit with the Charlotte Tilbury Contour Wand. And this one is in fair medium. These are beautiful colors, I really do like them. However, as you're working with them, and again, if you are a cool tone person, this isn't really a contour stick, it's more of a bronzing stick. Now what's beautiful about her product, it does blend out so easily, and then you can go back in and you can build it up. So it's a really beautiful product in how seamless it is, but I just wasn't crazy about the color. So I wasn't working with it a lot, but I wanted to use it up because, you get these high end things and you want to be able to use them. I wish that when they talk about contour, that they would strictly stick to what a contour is. It makes whatever you're trying to contour recede. So if you have a high forehead, it's gonna kind of disguise that. Instead of bringing your eye to it, which is what some colors like this do, that are so warm, they're gonna warm up whatever they're on. But when you're somebody that is cool and you're saying contour, I want you to stick to what an actual contour is. But guess what? I did find this one from LA Girl. And I do find that the reason that I like this so much is because of its tone. This plays the same exact as the Charlotte Tilbury, but this tone is so much more on the cool side. What's great about it is that as I'm working with it as a cool toned contour, I can also use this as a bronzer because it does have just a little bit of that warmth to it. Not a lot, but enough that it's going to show up. So I don't know if you can see the difference here. We've got really warm and then we've got a fairly cool tone. You can build this up just like you can the Charlotte Tilbury. It's a very thin product, so it blends out very seamlessly. I am really impressed with this from LA Girl. I mean, I've reviewed a lot of these sponge tip applicator contour situations that we're trying to stand up to the Charlotte Tilbury, but this is the first time that I had found one that works on a cool tone person that really just takes a few minutes to do, gives you warmth, but gives you contour at the same time. So even though it's not a true contour and that it's not that muddy color, it's a beautiful bronzer, which is such a weird name to me, but I love this one as well. Save your money, go for the LA Girl. All right, this one to me is fun because if you have ever purchased a Christian Dior product, you know that it is expensive as all get out. It is so expensive to buy Dior. It's called Dior Forever Couture Luminizer. This one is in pink glow and it's beautiful. It's bright, it's glowy. There is no glitter in there, nothing chunky. It really blends out well. It isn't a cream product, it's a powder product, but it acts like a cream because of how creamy it is when it sits on your face and how pretty it is. I really like this. This is the one that I have on the high end side today, but at the same time, they're crazy expensive just like I was saying, but this one that I actually like so much better from Catrice, which is called more than a glow highlighter. And I think this is called Supreme Rose Beam. This one I like even better. Now, I wanna show you something. Can you tell that I have two different highlights on? This one, the color is just slightly different. So I would say that the one from Dior has a little bit more of that rose in it and the one from Catrice has a little bit more of the champagne color in it. But look, when you get it on, there's no way to tell. So the consistency of these two though, even though they are powder products, they lay so gorgeous across your skin and they don't emphasize texture. It's very easy for a mature woman if she has large pores or wrinkles or whatever or the highlighter to emphasize texture. This does not do that. And look how beautiful it is. It just gives this gorgeous, gorgeous glow. So to me, even though this isn't an identical color match, this is an identical formula match. And I would purchase the Catrice over and over again if I had it to do again and I didn't purchase the Dior because this is every bit is good, less, every bit is long and is just a beautiful product. Let's talk about one of my very favorite blushes which is the Fenty Cheeks Out Cream Blushes. I love these. And this one is called Summertime Wine. This color is a color that I used like crazy last summer. I was dipping into that color every time I turned around and they're very creamy, they're very easy to work with and they're very pigmented, very, very pigmented. So if you want to share that out, if you are a very light toned gal like I am, I've got it on my cheeks and it works so pretty. But for this little thing, it's like $20 just for this little tiny compact right here. Again, I'm always on the hunt for you. I'm always looking for you to be able to find what you need in order to make a substitute and it's from Elf and this one is their Luminous Blush and it is in St. Bart's. Now, here's the difference in these two just barely. One is a little bit more of a emollient product which is the Fenty. The one from Elf is a little bit more of a drier product. I actually like that for summer because when I am looking at my blushes, sometimes my blushes go away so quickly. When you have one that is almost just a little bit more dry, it clings to your foundation already. I love that they're pretty darn close in colors. I love that they both have that luminosity to them and I've gotten blush clear up underneath my fingernails. So let's try to get that off. When you're looking at them, there's really not that much difference. You dip your brush into them and you work with them on your cheeks. There's not that much difference. Again, could you tell which one I had on which side if I hadn't told you that this was the drugstore side? So these are beautiful blushes, yes, from Fenty but I think that the ones from Elf are Supreme. They're just Supreme Rosebeam, no. They're just sublime, let's say that. They're absolutely beautiful and definitely would purchase the Elf over the Fenty because I think the Elf is like $6 or $7 and the Fenty is 20 and I believe that you get a little bit more product in the Elf one. Next time I've talked a lot on my channel about how much I love the dupe but I didn't realize that Super Goop has their glow screen and they have it in a few different colors and I got this as part of a Sephora Favorites while the sale was on and as I'm working with it, I'm like, oh, now I get it. Okay, it has a little bit of a tint to that sunscreen but has this amazing, glowy, just beautiful look to it. Hopefully you can see how beautiful and how glowy it is. This one is called Sunrise. So the SPF in here is a 40 and then you get that glow with it and you get a little bit of a primer here too. Just helps your skin look so bright and beautiful and that all over beautiful glow that we want so much but like I said, I've mentioned this from Elf so many times recently on my channel because I'm so impressed with the Elf Woe Glow. This one has a SPF of 30 whereas the other one has an SPF of 40. This one's color is called Sunlight. So I'm sure they're kind of doing sort of the same verbiage on there. This one I love. It's a little bit lighter than the other one in color and so for me it blends a little bit easier on my skin but you can see that the two. So I have the High End Supergroup here and the Elf here. You can see on the two that once you got that underneath your makeup because we wear a sunscreen underneath our foundation or if you mixed it in with your foundation whatever you decided to do it just really doesn't matter which one you buy as far as color, just make sure that you get one that kind of goes along with your tone and then I like the Elf Woe Glow a little bit more because yes, the Supergroup is a little bit tacky and a little bit dewy right now but the Elf I can feel that hydration and that tackiness so it's gonna grip onto your primer. Also the Elf, I've looked up the ingredients in it and it has this great dimethicones in it or the silicones that act as a primer. So between the two, I would go for the Elf Woe Glow every single time. Okay, if you're curious about what I have on my eyes today it is a mix of the alternative palette that I'm going to give you here in a minute and then Natasha Denona Retro Glam palette. When this first came out, I ran out and got it immediately because I was like, this is my jam. This is 100% the colors that I would use if I was going to look for a spring palette. I just think it's so pretty. It has some of the most beautiful greens in here, something that I just think that they hit out of the park and then you get these neutrals in here that are exquisite and I am not exaggerating when I say that. They are truly, truly beautiful neutrals in here. We're not talking warm tones, although you do have a couple of kind of warm tones. The rest of them in here are extremely neutral and then you have the greens that can go either way. And I just was like blown away at how beautiful and how pretty these are. And I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to put those right down here because my hand is still got the other colors on it. But hopefully you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. How beautiful all of those colors are. They are so pigmented, so rich and they just blend easy. It's a Natasha Genona palette. She has great palettes and this one was no exception. As far as what the quality was, I just really like it. I was really impressed with it. However, Alter Ego came out with an alternative for us and I think that this is one of the most beautiful palettes as well. I do appreciate how Alter Ego set up this palette. So this one right here kind of looks like a jumble of colors, whereas this one from Alter Ego, you can look and you can go, I can make a look out of any of these three palettes here. And then you can go ahead and mix them up if you want to. So I'm going to go ahead and swatch that so you can see I'm going to just do it right above here. What's beautiful about Alter Ego is they are every bit as blendable as Natasha Genona is, but they definitely are on the side of being so much more affordable. Now I would say that the Alter Ego is not quite as pigmented, but sometimes when you're fair like I am, that's a blessing because you don't get too carried away too quickly. I have always loved Alter Ego. So I do have a code for you. I am affiliated with them. This is obviously not sponsored by them or I would have already told you that, but I do think that they produce some beautiful palettes and I do think when you're thinking, should I buy something that is this high end or should I go with the alternative? And then you take a look at what the colors are. I would say definitely go with the alternative. And again, I hadn't told you that I had the high end on this side or the drugstore on this side would you have been able to tell it all. Alter Ego really is that good. They're beautiful shadows and I definitely don't think that you need to go look in anywhere else and cause you're gonna save a boatload of money. It's next to I cannot take credit for because I actually saw them on my sweet friend Jen Phelps channel and I just wanted to pass them on to you guys. Natasha Genona again, we're talking about her palettes. The first one is the Glam palette. This is the one that everybody went to before and you can WD40 on mine apparently. But I love the way that this palette is set up. This is for anybody from the very first to the very deepest. This is a great palette for you because the saturation can be built way up or you can take it and you can have a very natural everyday look on a very fair girl. Gorgeous palette. And then the Natasha Genona I Need a Nude Palette. Don't ask me why that one squeaks. I can't tell you. It's just like I got the one that of course it's like when you go in the grocery store and you find a cart and you always get the one that squeaks or the wheel that won't turn right. That's me. I get them every time. So this one is the I Need a Nude palette. This has become everybody's ride or die palette. So many of you have told me that the Natasha Genona I Need a Nude is it for you. And I get it. They are absolutely beautiful. And I love these tones in here. But Jen showed on her channel from LaMour Beauty. This is the Attraction palette. Now this is the one that is an alternative for the Glam palette. Absolutely gorgeous. I think that these colors are so close. They just, they knocked it out of the park. Now you do get 12 in here. You get 15 in the Natasha Genona. So please keep that in mind when you're purchasing it. But I didn't find that I missed any of the colors from the Natasha Genona because you know when you get a palette this big and you get something that has just kind of the same colors in it, you really only need a few colors. You're not looking for all of those colors that are across the gamut. So really I didn't miss them. It's what I'm trying to say to you. And right here I'll show you a comparison on my arm so that you can see the difference in the two. There really truly is not any difference. The way that these blend are really close to the same as far as the pigment as well. So darn close. Shocked at how beautiful these are. And the LaMour Nude eyeshadow palette again, we're taking a look at the difference in the two and there's only three colors that are missing but they're not three colors that I missed too much because this isn't a whole neutral palette. If it were colors like green or burgundy's or mauves, you know, that were different all over the place then you might miss a color. But when you're working with something like this you really don't need 15. You can settle for 12 and especially at the price point. Oh my goodness. It's just crazy how much difference in the price this is and they work exactly the same. So really, I don't think there's any need to go out and buy something like this as long as companies like this keep producing great quality in their eyeshadows, blendability, building up, lasting all day long. I was really blown away at how beautiful this LaMour formula is and every bit as nice as the Natasha Jonas. So save yourself some money and get a palette like this. They're so beautiful. All right, if you love seeing dupes or alternatives please give this video a thumbs up. I really appreciate that and share it if you get a chance to. I would really appreciate that too. Now have any of you out there discovered dupes that I need to know about? Are there any other influencers showing dupes like what Jen did with that LaMour palette? I know somebody told her about that on her channel. You guys need to give me input. Give me input. I love hearing it from you guys. Anytime that you find a fantastic dupe I would love to hear that from you. We love to save money. And so that's what we're always trying to do. All right, everyone. I hope that you're all doing really well and you have no idea how much I appreciate your support but it means the world to me. So thank you so much for spending a bit of your time with me and I will see you in my very next video. Love you much. Goodbye my friends.