Face off: High vs Low (Cream Eyeshadows)

Face off: High vs Low (Cream Eyeshadows)

It's so rare that I focus on makeup but I feel like lately it's been my whole world- especially now that I'm getting into the idea of airbrushing. (Whaaat? I know. One day I'll be so pro.)

But when I really thought about it, I was like, "What's the difference between high and low end? Seriously?"

Here's the facts: Half the time parent companies will own both a department and drugstore makeup lines to maximize sales and profits. The difference between certain products? Packaging. That's all. For example: L'oreal owns Lancome. And Estee Lauder you ask? EVERYONE, even MAC.

Don't believe me?

http://www.elcompanies.com/Pages/Our-Brands.aspx

BOOM. Did I blow your mind?

So now let's open up the can of worms. I know a lot of people are dedicated to MAC, but now that we know MAC is owned from a different parent company, it's time to look twice at comparative products. Being dedicated to just one line in a company is just silly. Why commit to just Dior when we know L'oreal has the identical product, in practically identical packaging for a fraction of the cost? Why buy MAC when we can go Maybelline.

I just saved you money. You're welcome.

OK. So while I'm not going to spend all my waking hours finding the identical dupe for certain products, I CAN DEFINITELY show you some stuff and talk a lot about it. Ready, here we go.

FACE OFF: High vs Low (Cream Eyeshadows)

I love me some cream eyeshadows. I do. They're easy, fast, efficient, and you can even double them as pigmented eye shadow primers. This face off in particular is between Benefit Creaseless Cream Shadow in "Recess" and Maybelline 24 hour color tattoo cream shadows in "Barely Branded", but I'm gonna talk a little bit about the MAC paintpots as well.

So as you can see, the colors are practically identical. MAC has a similar color in "soft ochre" or "painterly" I believe too. They all have the similar effect- neutral beige. 

The stats:

Benefit retails at $19 and has 0.16oz

Maybelline retails at around $7 and has 0.14oz

MAC paintpots retail at $18.50 and has 0.17oz

You guys, these are practically identical. Other than slight tonal differences, they're pretty much the same in consistency, packaging, and they're almost the same in ounces. the only 2 differences I can tell are this:

Maybelline's color tattoos don't dry out nearly as fast and they're so much cheaper.

Now before you get all crazy about your beloved MAC. The paintpots are great too and don't dry out too badly, but the clincher for me was that they can't be as easily used as a tinted primer. They don't hold up it seems. And really, for almost 20 bucks a pop, who cares? I'd rather buy 3 of Maybelline's and actually get to enjoy all the colors then to buy one "decently ok" MAC paintpot.

Although I love Benefit to death, and have several other products from them- the cream shadows are just not that great. I feel like they blew a lot of their money in producing awesome foundations and face products that they really didn't spend as much time developing their eye products.Their powder shadows are good enough, but really they aren't great.

Maybelline, for whatever reason, bounced back super hard these past couple years. They have awesome brow products and cream shadows, and their lipsticks are growing more and more popular. I feel like if they keep growing in the direction they're moving- eventually there's going to be a stand out product in every category. 

Sometimes it's good to root for the underdog.

-SamanthaK