Alternatives To Try If You Can't Afford Charlotte Tilbury Makeup

If you've ever wanted the fresh and glowy supermodel face, a beauty advisor at your local Sephora would probably point you toward Charlotte Tilbury. Charlotte Tilbury is a professional British makeup artist who has done makeup for several A-list celebrities and has been lead makeup artist for the Victoria's Secret's Fashion Show (via Charlotte Tilbury and Beauty Packaging). Tilbury released her own makeup line in 2012, per Allure, and since then the line has been a big hit. But with the bombshell look you get from Charlotte Tilbury products comes the bombshell prices.

The company has some cult favorites, like their Hollywood Flawless Filter ($44), Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder ($45), and the Matte Revolution Lipstick in Pillow Talk ($34), via Allure. The Hollywood Flawless Filter is a tinted, luminous primer that you can wear on its own or under makeup for a dewy face, while the Airbrush Setting Powder contains emollient rose wax and almond oil, so the powder doesn't dry out your skin. The Pillow Talk lipstick is a rosy-nude lipstick that gives you that "my lips but better" look. But if you want that smoke-show look without breaking the bank, the good news is that there are plenty of more affordable products, or dupes, that will give you an identically flawless finish.

Beauty guru Tara Lynn listed drugstore dupes to popular Charlotte Tilbury products on her YouTube channel. Among them, she listed NYX Born to Glow Liquid Illuminator ($7.50) as an alternative to the Hollywood Flawless Filter and the FLOWER Beauty Light Illusion Liquid Foundation ($14) instead of Charlotte Tilbury's Light Wonder Foundation ($44).

Lynn says that the FLOWER Beauty foundation offers more coverage than the Charlotte Tilbury foundation, but that FLOWER Beauty's shade selection isn't as extensive as Charlotte Tilbury's. Jessica Braun, another makeup reviewer on YouTube, suggested L'Oréal Age Perfect Radiant Serum Foundation ($15.99) as a slightly more glowy and higher-coverage dupe to the Charlotte Tilbury Foundation. 

Jessica Braun used to apply the Airbrush Flawless Finish Setting Powder under her eyes, until she found a better, and cheaper, dupe — the No. 7 Lift & Luminate Triple Action Translucent Finishing Powder ($12.99). Braun said, "It's really a finely-milled powder. It's brightening. It's blurring." Braun added, "This does an even better job at flattening out that area [the undereyes]."

Charlotte Tilbury's Luxury Eyeshadow Palettes ($53), via Sephora, which consist of four shades, are a popular item, but they seemed lackluster to Braun at first. "I just wasn't impressed. Given the price you pay for just a quad, they should be really good" (via YouTube). Braun ended up trying their Pillow Talk quad, though, and ended up loving it to the point where she almost used up one of the shadows in the quad. But then she bought the Revolution XX XXpress Quad in XXposed ($15) and found it to look virtually the same on her eyes.

"It's an incredible dupe," said Braun. It's not the first time the Revolution brand has managed to duplicate Charlotte Tilbury. In fact, Makeup Revolution caused controversy when they released their since-discontinued Renaissance Lipsticks, for allegedly copying the Pillow Talk Lipstick, down to Charlotte Tilbury's signature packaging, per Cosmopolitan UK.

But if you do want dupes of the iconic Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Lipstick, Stylecaster listed a few alternatives, like NYX Matte Lipstick in "Euro-Trash" ($6), Maybelline Color Sensational Inti-Mattes Lipstick in "Almond Rose" ($5.79), and MAC Cosmetics Amplified Lipstick in "Cosmo." While MAC Cosmetics' lipsticks are $19, they are still cheaper than Charlotte Tilbury lipsticks ($34). MAC also has a recycling program called "Back 2 MAC," in which you can give six empty, used MAC containers for a free lipstick.