Products I Need To Tell You The Truth About: Deep Dive Edition
Charlotte Tilbury Products to Avoid, Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation Dupe, Lululemon Leggings Dupe, Chanel Suit Inspo and More!
Hey Let’s Talk About: Charlotte Tilbury Products to Avoid, Estée Lauder Double Wear Foundation Dupe, Lululemon Leggings Dupe, Chanel Suit Inspo and More!
Hi everyone! Helen here! Hope you’ve been enjoying these weekly newsletters, I certainly delight in writing them! I don’t write them for free, however: I’m supported by my awesome patrons who are smart, strong women just like you, who understand that this is (beloved) work for me and make this free for everyone to read.
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Because I have a bunch of new subscribers (hello to all of you!), I thought I’d do a nice little product deep dive here. Most of these reviews also either exist as YouTube videos or will be released over this fall, but you’re getting the preview right here.
Get in the car already, let’s go! 🚘
La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baume B5
This is an affordable thick viral moisturizer from France. La Roche Posay, which you’ll sometimes see abbreviated as LRP is a French drugstore brand. Typically you can get a big bottle for around $20.
Look, I don’t want to say I’m the OG YouTube reviewer of La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baume B5…but I am the OG reviewer of this moisturizer. I’ve got the receipts! This video is from almost 6 years ago. Check out that growing-out-from-chemo pixie cut!
PSA: Use DOTS of moisturizer not big SMEARS to apply this product. That’s where everyone goes wrong and then they complain it’s too thick or it won’t absorb.
Other things you need to know about Cicaplast Baume B5 moisturizer
It’s a great dupe for Charlotte Tilbury magic cream and not as stinky. That stuff is like glue
It’s an amazing thick base for under makeup
Cicaplast Baume B5 plays with humidity in weird ways. It’s not great in very humid (Caribbean, Florida, Louisiana etc) and very dry (Palm Springs) climates because of the evaporation rate.
Don’t layer skincare underneath it, it will give you a white cast
Don’t put it on a damp or wet face, it will also leave a white cast
Is Cicaplast Baume B5 moisturizer suitable for deep skin tones? I’d say maybe: use dots, not smears and layer it on if needed. You may need some patience for it to sink in
Here’s a Target link to La Roche Posay Cicaplast Baume B5.
For my Canadian girlies, try Rexall or Shoppers Drug Mart.
A Dupe for Estée Lauder Double Wear Foundation
So this foundation is the Number 1 top seller in the United States. It’s also been around since 1997 when Elizabeth Hurley was the face of the ad campaign (remember her, she of the Versace safety pin dress and also she was Austin Power’s Wife/Fembot?).
Thing is though, it can be an overly matte foundation that really still looks like it came straight out of the 90s. I mean, just pluck out all your eyebrows, grab your MAC Twig lip liner and Revlon Toast of New York lipstick and you’ll be all set.
It also oxidizes like a mofo, which means it turns a slightly different color once it dries down.
On the other hand, if you have oily non-acne-flare-up skin, this can be a savior product. It also comes in 55 shades, which is really inclusive and I’m here for it.
If you have dry or normal skin, you can cheat it a bit by using the moisturizer above, Cicaplast Baume B5 as a base.
The other utter scam about this $64 (Canadian) foundation is that it comes with a twist top and if you want a pump top, you have to BUY the pump separately. For $16.50. What a complete grift. Estée Lauder marketing people, if you’re reading this, put a pump on this thing already before I lose my everloving mind.
Anyway, here’s my dupe and it’s Revlon Colorstay Foundation for Dry/Normal skin (they also make one for oily skin). IT COSTS MORE THAN $40 LESS! It’s been recently reformulated and I haven’t tried the reformulation, but I suspect it’s the same stuff they just added Hyaluronic Acid, which they’ve been adding to goddang everything lately, it’s the new hype ingredient.
Here’s a link from Target to Revlon Colorstay Foundation.
And here’s a Sephora link to Estee Lauder Double Wear Foundation.
The Best Drugstore Mascara You’ve Never Heard Of: No.7 Stay Perfect Tubing Mascara
We are living in a time of bold eyelashes, and so for a mascara to be popular, it needs to make you feel seen from far away. But if you want a more pared down look, consider a tubing mascara.
Tubing mascaras are not very popular, but they should be. Each mascara brand carries at most one tubing mascara, and some brands don’t make any. For me, they have the best features of waterproof mascara and regular mascara. Tubing mascaras work by forming tubes around your eyelashes, and once you use a bit of water and cleanser, those tubes slip off. Easy! Much easier than messing around with waterproof mascara, which never comes off.
But tubing mascaras are not all created equal. I tried one from Blinc that’s carried by Sephora and it was no good, it flaked like crazy and it was wimpy. Enter No.7’s entry to this market. I’ve been using it for almost a decade and it doesn’t give you big oomph BUT you can also use it as a primer for your regular volume mascaras and you’ll get the tubing effect.
Here’s the link to this mascara at Target.
Charlotte Tilbury’s Worst Products
I am not a Charlotte Tilbury stan, but I love some of her products. I do not love these ones:
Charlotte Tilbury Magic Cream
It smells like stale flowers, it’s too oily.
Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter
There is no reason to buy Hollywood Flawless Filter when you can get ELF Halo Glow for literally a fraction of the cost. It’s pretty much the same product, but they are both kinda garbage in my opinion. They highlight lines you didn’t even know you had. So what are we doing here, Charlotte? No one wants that! It shines as a liquid highlighter, however, which is what it always should have been marketed as, if you ask me.
Hollywood Flawless Filter (and ELF Halo Glow) does not work as a complexion product unless you just want to have a full face of highlight.
HOT TAKE: I think in general Charlotte Tilbury’s liquids are not worth the price, they have a way of settling into lines that doesn’t work for mature skin, but the kicker is they’re ALWAYS marketed to mature skin with words like “Youthful,” etc. The whole thing is a marketing grift.
Here’s a link to ELF Halo Glow via the ELF website.
Charlotte Tilbury’s Best Products
By contrast, the best Charlotte Tilbury products are the powder formats. Powder highlights, powder contours, powder eyeshadows: I don’t think any drugstore brand competes with the lovely Italian-made powders of her line. My current favorite is the Charlotte Tilbury eyeshadow quad in Sophisticate, a true neutral.
Charlotte Tilbury Eyeshadow Quad link (many options pop up so be sure to pick out the Sophisticate palette) at Sephora.
The Chanel Four-Pocket Suit on a Cava budget: St. John Knitwear
Listen, you may be rocking some Champagne tastes but if you’re not ultra loaded, I know you don’t have the money for Chanel suits. Even used Chanel jackets cost over $4,000. In which case I say (again, I’ve mentioned this in a past newsletter) that you need to check out St. John Knitwear, particularly in the vintage and secondhand markets. I mean, it’s knitwear, it can be cleaned and refreshed like a breeze.
Seek it out on Poshmark, Ebay or a consignment store near you. St. John is a legitimate and respected American design house, the knits last forever and look amazing (they are heavily inspired by classic Chanel women’s suiting), but they don’t hold their resale value like Chanel does so you can get it A WHOLE DANG SUIT for a song.
Lululemon Leggings Dupe
This is a very famous Canadian success story, and I won’t get into how well it’s been doing on the stock market, but Lululemon is a hit.
Did you know that Lululemon makes leggings slightly differently for Asian markets? They have something called Women’s Asia Fit which you can see here on the Hong Kong website. Notably, the tank tops are more modestly cut, and the leggings have a different fit for a more petite (i.e. shorter) frame.
I’m here to tell you though that you can get this look for less simply by shopping Old Navy’s Powersoft High Waisted ⅞ leggings. The ⅞ refers to the ankle length, they are longer than a crop but shorter than the regular length.
Generally I do not advocate for fast fashion but because I think you’ll have these for a long time (I’ve had mine for years) I will actually give this a pass, this time.
The way I cut down on fast fashion is I allow myself one fast fashion item each season, no more than four items a year. This year I’m actually at zero items, it’s not that hard to accomplish once you build a nice wardrobe of essentials.
Canadian link to Old Navy Powersoft 7/8 Leggings
For my US and International ladies, copy this search term and Google/Bing it:
Old Navy High-Waisted Powersoft 7/8 Leggings For Women
Alright my friends, I hope that was useful, fun or both! See you next week, same time same place!
Warmly,
Helen
P.S. Here are the Drugstore Mascara and Estée Lauder Foundation Dupe videos that are up on my channel.