Today I’m focusing on favorites – but not just any favorites. We’ll talk about favorite drugstore products from six of my favorite drugstore brands.

Let’s face it. When we walk into Target, CVS, Walmart – or almost any drugstore makeup section – and face what seems like a never-ending sea of products, it can be a bit overwhelming.

And while drugstore brands are definitely more affordable than what we find in a department store or specialized beauty retailer, we still don’t want to waste our money on a blush that will be patchy, a foundation that ages us or a mascara that results in more clumps than volume. Or products that may have worked on our 30-year-old skin but definitely not on our mature skin. So today I’ll be sharing specific products from favorite brands that we can always count on.

Elf Cosmetics and Maybelline

I’ll start with brow and eye products and then focus on face products. And let’s first start with the brand Elf. What an amazing few years this brand has had! When they debuted their Elf Halo Glow Liquid Filter last summer – which is an amazingly good dupe for Charlotte Tilbury’s far more expensive Flawless Filter – they ended up with a waiting list of more than 75,000 people.

As for their eyebrow products, Elf makes several really good ones. Because my brows are quite sparse and need more definition, I like to start off with a brow pencil to better define my upper and lower brow line. And the $3.00 Instant Lift Brow Pencil does a great job.

Elf’s “Wow Brow” is a dupe for several more expensive products. What makes this product especially helpful for those of us with mature skin is that it has fibers which add volume to our lashes.

To cover up grey brow hairs, I’ll also sometimes one of my favorite Maybelline products: their Brow Fast Sculpt Eyebrow Gel Mascara which comes in 8 shades. It’s one of the few brow gels I’ve found that actually covers grey and white brow hairs effectively.

And one of my other Maybelline favorites is their Eyebrow Pomade or Cream which comes in six shades. A brow pomade is a great product to use if you have very sparse brows since it adheres well to bare skin.

There are three other products from Elf that are real favorites – their Bite Size Eyeshadow Palettes: “I Love You a Latte,” “Cream and Sugar” and “Pumpkin Pie.”

And if you’ve watched many of my videos, you’ll certainly not be surprised by this next favorite: the Elf Hydrating Camo Concealer. I use one shade for color correcting my dark circles and the other shade as a concealer over the corrector.

And the final Elf favorite I want to mention today is Elf’s Putty Blush which comes in eight shades. It’s comparable to many high-end blushes since it applies and blends so well.

Next: ColourPop Cosmetics

Now let’s move onto one of my favorite eyeshadow palettes which happens to be from ColourPop. If you love eyeshadow, you’ll want to have the ColourPop website bookmarked. They literally have hundreds of eye shadows – from super shock singles (which are very high shine), to 4-, 5-, 9-, 12-, 15, 24- and 30-pan eyeshadow palettes in every conceivable color story. The quality can vary a bit, but overall, these shadows are excellent.

In the accompanying video, I’ll dip into one of their 30-pan all-matte eyeshadow palettes called “Gone Matte.” One of the things I love most about this palette is the layout because there’s no guesswork involved in what color combinations can work together well. Each vertical column has colors in the same color family – from light to dark – that will always look good together. And there’s a wonderful combination of warm, cool and neutral colors.

L’Oreal

Several years ago, L’Oreal came out with a makeup line specifically for those of us over 50 called Age Perfect. One of their products in this line is the Age Perfect Serum Foundation which comes in 30 shades.

In the video, I’ll mix some of this foundation with just a little of one of my other drugstore favorite foundations: Wet and Wild’s Photo Focus Matte Foundation. The Age Perfect Foundation creates a lovely soft glow which is really beautiful on mature skin.

Three of my other favorites from L’Oreal are their L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise Mascara, their Lumi Glotion which comes in four shades and their Age Perfect Lip Liners which I’ll be using later in the video. The Lumi Glotion is a great multi-tasker since it can be used as face primer, highlighter, mixed with foundation or worn alone. It’s also hydrating and is infused with Glycerin and Shea Butter.

What sets the L’Oreal Age Perfect lip liners apart is that they prevent lipstick from migrating into those pesky vertical lines around our mouth, and they come in eight gorgeous colors. I’ll be applying this lip liner a little bit later in the video.

To color correct under my eyes, I’ll apply two of the Elf Hydrating Camo Concealers I mentioned earlier. I’ll use “Light Peach” to color correct and then apply the shade “Fair Beige” over the corrector. And to ensure that these concealers don’t crease, I’m going to use one of my favorite Maybelline products: their Lasting Fix Banana Setting Powder. 

Wet and Wild Beauty

Contouring is a wonderful way to minimize areas of the face we want to bring less attention to (such as jowls and a high forehead). It can also help our cheekbones stand out and can make our nose look thinner.

One of my favorite contour products is from Wet and Wild. It’s their Megaglow Stick Contour which comes in three shades. The shade I’ll use is the darkest and is the only cool tone contour: “Where’s Walnut.”

My other Wet and Wild favorites are their Photo Focus Foundation – which I mixed in earlier with the L’Oreal Age Perfect Serum Foundation – their Color Icon 5 and 10 pan eyeshadow palettes, and three other products which I’ll be applying a bit later: their Megaglow Liquid Highlight, their Silk Finish Lipstick and their Color Icon Zodiac Lip Gloss.

Be sure to check out Elise’s YouTube channel which specifically focuses on makeup tips, techniques, and product reviews for those of us 50+. Don’t forget to subscribe!

Flower Beauty

For blush, I’m jumping to another favorite drugstore brand: Flower Beauty. I’ve tried so many drugstore cream and liquid blushes, but the drugstore blush I keep coming back to is the Flower Beauty Blush Bomb Color Drops. There are eight beautiful colors in this blush, and my favorite is “Bubbly” which is a cool pink.

Another product I love from Flower Beauty is their Spotlight Liquid Highlight – which is one of their newer products – in the white/gold color “Opal.” This liquid highlight also comes in two other shades: “Gleam” which is a rose/gold and “Gilded” which is a bronze gold.

And the third outstanding product from Flower Beauty is the Day Glow Highlighting Glaze. In the video, I’ll swatch just a little of this Day Glow Highlighting Glaze along with the Spotlight Liquid Highlight so you can see how they look.

Highlight and Lips

Now let’s apply some highlight to the cheekbones to give them some more visibility. I’ve already mentioned three highlighters I love, but the one I’m going to apply today is an oldie but a goodie I mentioned earlier from Wet and Wild: their Meglaglow Liquid Highlight.

And now we’ll finish up with lips. I’ve already outlined my lips with concealer so I can better create the lip line I want. And the lip liner I mentioned previously from L’Oreal’s Age Perfect line comes next. I’ll complete the lip look with my Wet and Wild Silk Finish lipstick and one of my favorite lip glosses: Wet and Wild’s Color Icon Zodiac Lip Gloss in the shade “Libra.” There are 11 other gloss colors in this line.

The last two favorite lip products I want to mention are from Maybelline: a lipstick and a gloss. First, Maybelline’s Iconic 24-Hour Liquid Lipstick which comes in 17 colors, has been around for years and is specifically formulated to be long lasting. And Maybelline’s Lifter Gloss which I have in the shade “Opal,” and which comes in 17 other colors.

I hope you enjoyed today’s article and video and found them helpful. And I do hope you’ll share some of your favorite drugstore brands and products with all of us in the comment section below.

Let’s Have a Conversation:

Do you have a favorite drugstore brand? If so, what are your favorite products from this brand? What are some of your other favorite drugstore brands?