Disappointing products: high end edition

Disappointing products happen. Brands bring out a new collection and spend a fortune marketing it to you, placing it in magazines and on the blogs you love, so of course you get sucked into the hype and shell out your hard earned cash for new makeup, only for it not to live up to your expectations. It hurts even more when you could have bought a better product for a much lower price, if only you’d known!

Here’s my list of products from high end brands that could have been a million times better, and the “dupes” that are a fraction of the price, but will actually work.

Chanel Illusion D’Ombre Long-Wear Luminous Eyeshadow in Rouge Noir, £25

Now, Chanel Rouge Noir (the nail polish) is by far the most expensive polish I own, and it’s worth it because I love wearing it all autumn/winter long, so when Chanel announced last year’s Rouge Noir themed Christmas collection I was 100% down for it.

My must have from the incredible press shots and reviews was the cream eyeshadow, you can see from the pictures it looks like an incredible shiny deep plum shade. But what I received was a weirdly dry feeling shadow that swatches as a matte dark grey sort of colour with red glitter in it. It’s not particularly blendable when you use it, and it transfers.

Also, after a couple of months it dried up completely and became much smaller in the jar, and I didn’t leave the lid undone. According to the packaging it’s supposed to be good for 12 months after opening, but it isn’t. For £25 I expected a lot more.

Dupe but better

I love the formula of the Maybelline Colour Tattoo cream shadows and the Metallic Pomegranate shade looks pretty close to what I’d imagined this would look like, also they’re £4.99 (and they’re always on offer), so a fifth of the price!

YSL Fusion Ink foundation £31.50

This is NOT a cheap foundation, and I don’t hate the formula, however the packaging is just horrible. In my opinion all foundations should come with a pump or in a squeezy tube. It’s pretty unhygienic to have a swabbing stick thing you’re supposed to stick straight from the product, onto your face and then back into the product. However, where it seriously went wrong for me is when I had a major mishap with it because of the pointless gold lid you have to click on top of the functional black lid that needs to be screwed on.

To cut a long (and messy) story short, I merely clicked the lid on when I should have screwed then clicked, and it exploded all over my handbag. Disaster.

Dupe but better

Literally any foundation that isn’t £30 and has proper packaging.

By Terry Ombre Blackstar £29

These were hyped up massively last year so I bit the bullet and bought one for nearly THIRTY QUID. The colour I got (Misty Rock), is beautiful, but it creases on me where much cheaper cream eyeshadows don’t. Thumbs down.

Dupe but better

The KIKO Long Lasting Eyeshadow Sticks are amazing, and number 5 “rosy brown” looks identical to Misty Rock – check out this blog post about it. Also they’re £6.90, so, about 20% of the price of the By Terry ones.

MAC False Lashes Extreme Black mascara £19

I had this as a free sample, but I expected a MAC mascara to perform better. This was really dry and crumbly even on the first use, it didn’t give me amazing looking eyelashes and it ended up all over my cheeks.

Dupe but better

I find mascara is a personal preference, but I really like Rimmel Wonder’Full Wake Me Up for £7.99 or Max Factor False Lash Effect for £10.99. Both are about half the price of the MAC mascara I tried, and more than twice as good.

Have you ever tried any of these products? Did you like them?

Bronni Hughes

Hey! I’m Bronni and I’m a financial journalist and deals hunter in my mid 20s. I’m really into cats, pop music, the internet and barely substantiated celebrity gossip.

bronni.co.uk