Spend vs. save

By Dinna Chan Vasquez

Beauty need not be expensive always. Makeup artists always advocate investing in a good foundation that lasts longer on the face. But with other products, one can save a lot of pesos by choosing cost-effective alternatives to popular but super-expensive favorites.

Cleansing oil

Shu Uemura High Performance Cleansing Oil is the perfect all-in-one cleanser for the busy woman who wears full makeup. You don?t really need a makeup remover for the face and the eyes and a foaming cleanser to get rid of the gunk on your face and frankly, most of us don?t have the time to go through more than one step every night. It leaves skin smooth and not dry and tight like most cleansers.

Two pumps of this wonderful oil are enough to remove makeup and dirt. If you are wearing mascara, perhaps you?d need a non-alcoholic face wipe to complete the process but otherwise, Shu Uemura Cleansing Oil is just great but at nearly P5,000 a bottle, it?s a bit impractical.

A great alternative is Elianto?s Cleansing Oil in Green Tea and Honey. The Malaysian beauty company?s Web site describes the cleansing oil as ?a rinse-off oil-based cleanser especially formulated for quick and easy removal of long wearing makeup, clear skin impurities and clogged pores while maintaining skin?s moisture and smoothness.?

The Elianto Cleansing Oil is a good dupe of the original at a fraction of the fraction at only P599. In these times, this is wonderful news.

I?ve used this product for about two weeks and so far, it hasn?t caused any breakouts. It goes on very smoothly and is easy to rinse off. And like the original, the oil leaves skin soft and smooth without any annoying dry patches.

You have to put this on your face while it?s dry, rub, then wet your fingers to emulsify and rub some more before rinsing.

Lipsticks

MAC lipsticks have a cult following and rightly so. The lipsticks are highly pigmented and go on like butter on the lips. The shades also stay true, unlike other and sometimes even more expensive brands that change color once you apply them.

But at P900 per tube, MAC lipstick is quite pricey. Another disadvantage of using MAC is that for some women, it can be drying on the lips.

NYX Round Lipsticks are great alternatives for MAC lipsticks at $4 (or $2 when it is on sale) per tube online and in the United States. A store in Glorietta sells NYX lipstick for P150, which is still a very good price.

NYX lipsticks are very creamy and have excellent pigmentation. The only bad thing one can say about it is that the color doesn?t last very long. But it doesn?t look cheap or garish and even the brightest shades look classy.