Drugstore Cosmetics

With high end brands dominating the cosmetic market, drugstore brands often get pushed to one side and considered not as good.

 We decided to go on a shopping spree and test some of the UK's cheaper brands to see how they matched up to the more luxurious competitors.

We shopped in Superdrug and Primark for all these goodies with the prices ranging from 0.99p up to a maximum of £9.99.

 We played with a few different brands and thought we would share the hero and the zero products from each brand.

Accessorize Cosmetics

The packaging for this brand is achingly pretty. As with everything at the moment there were pieces printed with the Union flag.

 We actually quite liked the baked mineralize eyeshadows (£3.95).They look beautiful and visually are similar to MAC's Heavenly Creatures eyeshadow collection.

 Colour payoff is good with a two toned metallic finish. There is a frosted glitter effect running through them also. Colours blend easily but be careful not to over blend otherwise your left with little colour!

 The mascaras we were not so fond of. The flutter Curl mascara (£4.95) was so dry and flaked off on application. The other mascaras we found to be much wetter and of a better quality although when building layers it began to clump.

Collection (Formerly Collection 2000)

You may already know, we are big fans of the Lasting Perfection Concealer (£3.99). It's creamy, good for a dry skin and blends easily.

 The gel liners (£3.99) are also fabulous. They are the perfect texture, neither too dry or too wet and if you use a thin liner brush you can achieve a nice line that dries very quickly and lasts the day.

 The lip glosses looked vibrant in the packaging but were much more sheer upon application. They do smell incredible though!

MUA Academy

The BB cream (£4.00) from MUA has more coverage than any other BB cream we have tried. Very creamy and great for those with dry skin, that tend to find suitable drugstore foundations hard to come by.

 The eyeshadows are absolutely amazing quality for the price. The trio of eyeshadows (£2.50) in the centre of the picture called Innocence is an exact dupe for MAC club eyeshadow!

 These blended well, colour payoff was excellent and they lasted well on the skin. 

Beauty UK

These lipsticks (£3.49) come in quite a small selection of colours but they give a really opaque creamy finish and smell incredible. The brighter colours are vibrant and if you like a really pale nude lip that almost represents a concealed lip look then you would love the paler shades.

 Beware though these colours are not very forgiving on a dry or cracked lip.

MeMeMe

 The tinted moisturiser (£9.99) felt light, creamy and gave a radiance to the skin. Again this is suitable for dry skin but may feel a little greasy on oily skin.

The cheek and lip tint (£6.50) is split into two colours of nude beige and soft coral. Designed obviously, to be used on both cheeks and lips however on the cheeks it felt a lot like lip balm on your face!

 It disturbs the make up underneath when you blend it in and never really dries so it constantly feels tacky. The colour payoff is very sheer also so you can't really distinguish between the two different colours.

Nice and moisturising for the lips though.

Our overall conclusion is that there are some really great little gems from drugstore brands but you absolutely must test them before you buy to rule out the not so great products.

We know how over priced some premium brands are but generally they do perform much better and  in the long run it pays as your product will last longer on the skin, generally be made from nicer ingredients and you won't need to use quite as much products, of which there are many.

 It's really awesome that it's possible to buy a lipgloss for £1.00 but I do wonder of the quality of ingredients put into these products for companies to be able to produce and sell them so cheaply.

This is just our own opinion though and we would love to hear of any great products you have found at a bargain price that rivals a premium brand.

Check out our drug store haul tutorial below for more on our opinions.