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It’s thrilling when you find a designer makeup alternative that works just as well as an expensive one but costs a lot less! I find that e.l.f. Halo Glow Liquid Filter makes for the perfect Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter alternative. And it’s a fourth of the price of the designer illuminator.
But just because something is cheaper, it doesn’t always mean it’s a good deal. That’s why I did some research to find out which one is actually a better buy. Let’s look at the ingredients and numbers to figure it out.
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With this Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter alternative, you’re paying a fourth of the cost of the original.
When shopping for a makeup deal, a cheaper price tag isn’t always a slam-dunk win. From a cost-only standpoint, you want to look at the size of the container, how long it lasts, and the quality of the product. Factor all that in, and then see how it translates to the price.
For the purpose of this investigation, I found the cheapest prices for the e.l.f. Halo Glow and Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter. Since one is considered a drugstore makeup product and the other is more high-end, they aren’t sold at the same retailer. But I was able to find both on Amazon, Target, and Sephora, which tend to have better deals compared to the brands.
The e.l.f. Halo Glow retails for $14 across all the big-box stores, but we often seen it go on sale on Amazon for $12.52. If you buy it from Target and use your RedCard for a 5% discount, you’ll only pay $13.30.
Meanwhile, the best deal you can get on the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter is $43.70 at Sephora, which only happens when you sign up for auto-replenishment. Otherwise, you’ll have to pay $46 retail.
As for the formula, both are complexion boosters, which means they’re made to make your skin glow. Both even share the porcelain flower extract in their ingredients list, which is supposed to help brighten the skin.
Related: 18 Best Drugstore Makeup Alternatives of Cult Favorites in 2023
When you put Charlotte Tilbury’s Flawless Filter mini next to the alternative, the alternative still wins by a long shot.
If you really want to figure out whether or not you’re getting the best deal on makeup, calculate the cost per ounce. All you do is take the product’s price and divide that by the number of ounces in that product.
At Sephora, the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter costs $46 and is one ounce, making its cost per ounce $46. At Amazon and Target, the e.l.f. Halo Glow costs $14 at 1.06 ounces. That makes the cost per ounce $13.21. Since the e.l.f. Halo Glow is slightly bigger and costs $33 less per ounce, it’s clearly the better deal.
I dug further and looked at Charlotte Tilbury’s Mini Hollywood Flawless Filter. It costs $17, but the tube only holds around 0.18 ounces. At that size, the cost per ounce skyrockets to $94.44 per ounce. Yikes! While the price tag on its own might seem cheaper than the full-sized version, it’s not a good deal in the long run.
Final Results: The e.l.f. Halo Glow is cheaper and comes with skincare benefits. It’s a win-win!
Overall, if you’re looking at things from a cost standpoint, the e.l.f. Halo Glow is the best option. It costs just $13.21 per ounce, compared to Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter’s $46 per ounce price tag (or $94.44 per ounce if you’re looking at the mini option). However, there are a few more noteworthy features of each product to consider before determining the best choice.
From a color standpoint, the e.l.f Halo Glow comes in only eight different skin tone shades, while the Charlotte Tilbury option comes in a more specific range of 12 shades. Both offer very similar applicators for easy application. But if skincare-infused makeup is important to you, e.l.f. might actually be the better option. It comes with nourishing ingredients like squalane and hyaluronic acid that naturally hydrate the skin.
