Hello Everyone! Hope everyone is doing good! End of year, end of year. 2024 went really fast. Honestly, I am so shocked this year. Everything just went so fast. Anyway, hope you are all doing good?
I am fine. Today's post is a continuation of discussions that occured around Septmber 2024. A group of my friends were talking about the rising cost of drugstore makeup. Some are getting up there to just a few dollars seperating them from what can be termed premium brands.
Lets' take a simple example. Blush from Loreal infalliable is USD16. Clinique blush going for USD30, was on sale for USD21, with a USD5 difference, just make more sense to splurge on the premium brand.
Someone else raised a point that both were costly and best to explore from brands like Shop miss a, where you can get individual items for max cost of USD2 an item and they were just as good as drugstore or even high end products, We all said nope and she insisted.
So.......I decided to try this out.....
The picture shows all the products I got for a full face of Shop miss a makeup products.
Are they as good as drugstore or premium brands?
Also went further and got brushes for base makeup from there as well. Foundation and concealer brushes.
Tested this out twice. Worn for about 7 hours each time. Worn while I worked from home and when I had to visit my friend at her home.
Lets' get into this......
To start with, clean face. Skincare completed. Sunscreen on. Needed to see how these products interacted with my regular skincare.
AOA No pore face primer. This is silicone based primer. Off the bat, I hate this primer. Has a strong chemically scent. The silicone in this is also weird. It does not sink in, just stays on my face like a film.
Its uncomfortable on. However, it did seem to mattify my face and made it seem smooth for makeup application. However, could not get over the film sititng on my face. Felt like a mask.
I am a strong believer in Setting sprays and use them several times during the makeup process. The AOA Lock in your makeup setting spray is another weird one. Best thing about this setting spray is the nossle. If Shop miss a can get a good nossle, drugstore and premium brands with crappy nossles have no excuse. A few brands I am side eyeing right now. Another good thing is the scent. This is very minimal but nice.
This did nothing for me. Did not mattify and worse still, when you spray it, leaves a film of liquid on your face that requires about 3 to 4 mins to dry down. Enlongated my makeup process unnecessarily.
The AOA I love dew lip oil. This one I like. It does not have staying power and if using this, will forever be re-applying but then same goes for a lot of lip oils.
I like the aplicator but it also has a chemically scent. Given what it is, I don't really mind but if it finishes, will i re-purchase? No.
The eyeshadow primer. I really like this. Goes on smooth and the tackiness is very slight and yet still grips onto your eyeshadows and improves application. Would recommend this.
Some eyeshadow primers I have used in the past is so tacky they need to be set or some have a base colour that is so far off your natural skin colour that they are just impossible.
You do not get any of those problems with this. Comes across as translucent.
The lip primer is another one I think i like but need to use this more than the 2 times I have used it to make a final decision. It fills up my lip lines and makes my lip products go on smooth.
Cosmic cowgirl lip liner - what a name. This is a product with good intentions and design but does not match the finished product.
When i swatched this product on my hand, went on great and creamy. When I used the brush, blended into nothingness.
When applied to my lips, nothing! Literally no pigment I could discern. Worse still the pencil inside kept breaking.
Almost half was gone with one application that was no pigment. Don't care how much his cost, you are only paying for the packaging. Threw in the bin.
The AOA Sculpting brow pencil. Another horrid one. Pointing out now, forgot to get a brow gel so only working with this pencil. This is pigmented (off to a good start), spooley at the other end. That is where the positives end.
Have a preference for hair like strokes or at least, thin strokes to make my brows fuller but looking natural. That is my jam. Yeah... this is like taking a marker to your brows. It was just painting it on.
No, no, no.....
The LA Colors eyeliner....now this is where they shine. Beautiful. Long lasting and does not hurt my eyes, nor does it bleed. Stayed in place. Happy to get other shades of this eyeliner. My one gripe is, the sharpener at the top is a wasted opportunity. It does not work.
AOA Yumi's debut 6 colour eyeshadow palette....Another let down. This is powdery to a fault.
I was looking for for a palette to showcase a neutral look. However, this blended into nothiness despite packing it on. Nope....Only the deep brown shade showed up to the party.
Used my highlighter as a shimmer shade to balance it out.
A positive is while powdery and getting everywhere, when applied, it does go on smooth but the blending is when the issue rears it ugly head.
I could not get my foundation shade on the site, so the closest that would be a match was the AOA Perfect BB Cream. This is another product I would not recommend. No coverage. Used it with the AOA buffing brush which I would also not recommend.
This brush soaks up product and left me with streaks. Can understand the issue. A Youtuber who uses this product recommeded after applying with a brush to also go in with a beauty blender which I did. Did take out the streaks.
I tried building up coverage and nope, does not work.
I used quite a lot of this prodcut over the 2 days test period,
If I continued, will finish in a little over 2 weeks. Was scared for my skin honestly.
AOA Top secret concealer. This one is bad folks. Cappuccino was the deepest shade available. Cannot recall if this was the deepest shade on offer or the deepest available.
However, it was the deepest shade I could buy at the time I shopped there. I assumed it would be fine. At most, would brighten my under eye.
This is a terrible product. It is thick and cakey. Hard to blend. I had to put this at the back of my hand, warm it up with my finders before applying.
Made my under eyes heavy, cakey and sank into my fine lines.
Bad enough that the AOA concealer brush could not blend it out. Just kept pulling my skin. The 2nd time I used this, just tapped it in with my finger and still got similar result. not sure how to save this.
This is the one product I would advising avoiding.
AOA Perfect pressed finishing powder. This is a redemming product. I used this to set my whole face.
Gave me some more coverage from the shennigans of the BB cream.
It is excessively powdery but got the job done.
Given the price, this is a win, for me. By no means perfect but will do.
AOA Perfect bronzer powder - Sigh another one....
How is this a deepest shade? For whom? This is the exact same thing as the setting powder with a different label on it.
Did nothing for me as a bronzer. Powder, did not bronze me at all given the shade.
Hard pass.
The blush dup petal pop - This one I am conflicted about.
The cream went on patchy with a brush, went in with a beauty blender and smoothen it out, The powder side set the cream and the shade was beautiful.
Now my grip with this is, the pans for each is too small. No matter the tool, the cream mixes into the powder and the other way round as well. it became a mess.
The Duoflex mascara is just wrong. If you want to add volume, use the white opening and if you want to add length, use the blue opening at the top.
The problem with this is, its the same brush. the blue portion is the actual brush and the white portion is just a thicker stick. The thin stick supporting the brush is though a thicker colume. The brush is the same.
The premise of this is if looking for volume, thick lashings of mascara and if looking for length, when you pull out through the blue side,a lot of the gunk is filtered through the smaller opening.
It gives the exact same effect not matter the side you use which is gunky, clumpy lashes. Avoid.
The idea makes no sense unless a different type of brush is available to achieve the different looks. The formula is also thick and clumpy.
Binned this.
Another great idea with somewhat good execution. This is 4 mini lipsticks in one. I like this because you have to unscrew the one you want to use out of the set.
The formula is thin like a lip gloss rather than a lipstick and disappeared within 30 mins.
To use this successfully, you have to keep reapplying and it also dried out my lips.
Would not recommend either even with the low price.
AOA Studio Everglow highlighter.
Really like the embossing on this highlighter.
This is more glitter than highlighter. Placing on my face, its hard to blend out and stays stark on my face.
I used this as a shimmer shadow and worked better that way for me.
I would not consider this experiment a success, some products were blah, some were hell no and found some staples.
My mind remains unchnaged. Cheap or expensive does not guarantee a product will be good. Tested out luxury products that were horrid. Its not about the products themselves. If you find a gem stick with it. if price is out of control as most things are these days, research and you will certainly find a dupe that works similar for cheaper price.
For now, putting the eyeshadow and lip primers as well as the eye liner into regular rotation. Any questions, happy to answer down below.
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