There is a situation that I know too well, as I’m sure most beauty addicts do. You’re out and about when you get a compliment on your lipstick and for a brief second you are overjoyed until you remember it is a… dun dun dun “drug store” brand. Suddenly they ask you what shade it is and while telling them you feel the need to reduce the lipstick the complimented to just a drug store brand before you go on to tell them what brand it is. But why do we feel this way? Sure the makeup is less expensive but if you’re receiving a compliment, it is obviously doing its job. Yet there is an ounce of pain that comes when you feel the need to tell someone you’re just using a drug store brand; this shouldn’t be the case.

I am VIB, and aspiring VIB Rouge, at Sephora so I get it¾ high-end makeup rocks. But, as much as you’ll catch me in Sephora, you will also catch me in the cosmetic aisles of CVS. So, I believe that Drug Store makeup deserves some credit as well. Less expensive makeup gets a bad reputation that it doesn’t necessarily deserve. We need to realize that it serves a completely different purpose than when we go into Sephora or a department store and Splurge on the good stuff. But when your bank account is running low and you are in dire need of some more primer the drug store makeup will be there waiting for you, most times not even a five-minute drive away. Just because it is less expensive doesn’t mean you’re’ necessarily settling.

A lot of drug store makeup delivers a huge bang for your buck. A higher end and more expensive might go on better or be more pigmented but that doesn’t make the less expensive makeup complete trash. Buzz feed recently made a video in which they had women blindly try a high-end product and the dupe to that product, to see if they could tell the difference. In some cases, the women could not even identify the more expensive product. They even stated that just because in some cases they could tell the difference doesn’t mean that they prefer the high-end product; sometimes the liked the “cheap” one better.

Amazing makeup looks can be created even with cheaper makeup. If you go on YouTube, you’ll easily be able to find drug store looks on almost every beauty guru’s channel. A major key to pulling off drug store makeup is knowing what to get. Just like you would before buying a high-end product; do some research. Google is an amazing thing that will supply you with hundreds of products that are nearly identical to ones that you love yet won't deplete your wallet. Also, not only do your beloved beauty gurus create drug store looks but they often do drug stores hauls equipped with their reviews and impressions of the products to point you in the right direction. There are a lot of gems that I have found hidden within the aisles of CVS.

There are some drugstore brands that u personally use all the time. One of my favorite brands is Milani. I use their retractable eyebrow pencil everyday, which costs me under five dollars. Within the last year or so they have come out with a new lip line¾Amore Matte Lip Crème’s¾ which go for under ten dollars and they are absolutely amazing. The formula feels amazing on your lips and they’re long lasting, rarely ever needing to reapply. Sticking with the theme of lips another great inexpensive brand for your lip needs is Wet n’ Wild. Their lipsticks literally go for a couple of dollars and they are some of my favorites. They go on easy and stay on, and they also offer a fairly wide variety of shades. These are just two of the many great brands that drug stores have to offer. I would also recommend picking up some stuff from NYX, E.L.F, and Maybelline, as these are also brands I use on an almost daily-basis.

Drug Store makeup is not all bad. A lot of times the quality is really good for the price of the product. This is not me trying to convince people to stop spending a lot of money on makeup because I can drop a couple hundred dollars on Sephora easily, but inexpensive makeup deserves recognition too. I believe in a healthy blend of splurging yet saving where you can. If you’re completely against drug store makeup get to your local drug store ASAP and try out some of the brands and products I mentioned¾ I highly doubt you will be disappointed. And if you’re like and you embrace the drug store brands, keep looking for those dupes.