'I did a full face of Poundland make-up - I was orange but £1 item impressed me'

18 January 2023 , 10:44

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'I did a full face of Poundland make-up - I was orange but £1 item impressed me'

With the cost of living crisis ongoing, many people are having to make savvy swaps in their everyday lives to save money, from changing where they shop to buying cheaper products.

One area where many people might find themselves needing to cut costs is beauty, as make-up can be particularly expensive.

So we decided to put budget make-up to the test to see if you could easily swap the contents of your make-up bag for bargain items from Poundland.

Make-up artist Deirbhile Kearney headed into her nearest store to pick out what she would use when doing a full face of make-up.

Deirbhile picked out products from Poundland

Initially, we'd planned to see if she could do this for as little as £5, but we quickly realised this would be an impossible task, as not everything in Poundland costs £1. In fact, very little of the make-up is at that price.

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After going through the somewhat limited options available, the pro picked out a 2-in-1 primer and setting spray, foundation, mascara, concealer, blusher, bronzer, pressed powder, eyebrow gel and lipstick.

There was no eyeshadow or eyeliner left in stock.

Her total came to £16 at the till, which is still far cheaper than you'd get in many other stores, but more expensive than we'd hoped it would be.

Deirbhile then attempted to work her magic on my face, using the products as best she could - but it's fair to say things didn't exactly go so well.

The foundation made Courtney look like she'd been Tango'd (Eugene Sowah)

The Glow Foundation range in Poundland only contains five different shades, so right off the bat we weren't expecting to find a great match for my skin tone.

I'm incredibly pale so normally opt for one of the lightest shades going, but the fairest one available in the store was shade number 2, which is called Vanilla.

I didn't expect it to look good on me but the results were so much worse than I'd imagined.

Before Deirbhile even lifted a brush to my face, we knew the £3 foundation was going to be terrible, making me look like I'd been Tango'd.

The pro used the smallest amount of product possible and did her best to blend it out, but even her skilled hand couldn't save me from resembling a pre-teen who'd slathered on too much Dream Matte Mouse in the 00s.

And it didn't improve from there...

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The finished look didn't impress us (Eugene Sowah)

The £1 concealer did little to brighten my under-eye area, settling in nicely to my fine lines and showing them off instead of concealing them, while the blusher (also £1) was a vivid pink colour that clashed horribly with the orange foundation, giving off clown vibes. It also contained a lot of glitter, which isn't necessarily something you'd usually want all over your cheeks.

The bronzer (£1) was far too dark for my face, though it did work nicely as a stand-in for eyeshadow. Deirbhile swept some over my lids, before adding The Bomb black mascara (£3) to my lashes.

Poundland sold two different types of mascara, including a cheaper version for £1, but as that one contained fibers, which Deirbhile claims can be irritating for the eyes, we decided to steer clear.

The Bomb mascara, which promises to give "high impact" was a little disappointing. It didn't clump or smell too chemically, but it also didn't wow us with volume and create length as stated. If you've got fair lashes, it's good for achieving a darker look, but that's about it.

"It just opens up the eyes," explained Deirbhile. "It's not bad, but it's not great."

Courtney's face before applying the Poundland make-up (Eugene Sowah)

Everything was rather dark for Courtney's skin tone (Eugene Sowah)

One product that did earn the stamp of approval from the make-up artist was the clear eyebrow gel, which was a bargain for just £1.

Though it does nothing for the colour of the brows, it did a great job of putting them neatly into place and keeping them there.

"It's quite nice, I've got nothing bad to say about this," Deirbhile said as she wielded the gel wand.

She then shared her top tip for getting fierce-looking brows, saying: "If you brush them upwards and across like you're following the hands of a clock, starting at a 1pm going to 2pm and ending at 3pm as you shape, that will help give your brows a little more lift."

The full face of make-up was finished off with the Get Lippy moisturising lipstick (£2) which ended up being much darker than the packaging indicated.

Deirbhile thought she'd grabbed a rosy nude colour, but as she used a brush to apply it to my lips she quickly found it was a deep, vampy shade that really didn't compliment the rest of the look.

But as that seemed to be the theme of this experiment, we just rolled with it.

Aside from the surprising colour, the lipstick proved to be pretty decent, however, the pro did give one caveat for its use.

"You would definitely need a lip liner with it, because it's not matte so you don't get a really sharp line on the edge, if you want more shape, you'd need a liner," she warned.

Once the look was complete, we went over it with a generous spritz of the setting spray (£3), which felt quite nice and refreshing on the skin and coated the face with an even mist.

Taking a step back, Deirbhile examined her handiwork and concluded that the £16 in Poundland was not money well spent. However, she did admit there was one product she would be keen to use again.

"With the finished look everything's a bit dark, the colours aren't an exact match on Courtney which is a shame as it makes it hard to tell if they're good products or not," she said.

"I really liked the eyebrow gel, I joked that it was only because it was clear, but it is really nice and I think I would buy it for myself to use on a natural day, to brush the brows up and give them some lift.

"The blusher is also quite nice but it's a bit too glittery to use as blush, it's somewhere between blush and highlighter.

"I wouldn't spend £16 on it all again, I'm not loving it."

Have you tried any of these products? Let us know in the comments below.

Courtney Pochin