Charlotte Tilbury Dupe – Desert Haze Palette
Well hello folks. Today I find myself stumbling upon some greatness. A potential Charlotte Tilbury dupe of the Desert Haze eyeshadow palette, that wait for it, is on the highstreet and is a fraction of the cost. Want to know more? Of course you do!
Now look, I adore the Desert Haze Palette, like really adore it, you can read it’s merits in this post where I cover both the eyeshadow palette and the Airbrush bronzer here, so this isn’t to say I’m trying to outdo it, rather that I happened upon a palette with freakishly similar tones and well, have to share this discovery with you all.
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Can You Guess?
Ok, so which eye makeup is Charlotte Tilbury and which is the Charlotte Tilbury dupe? I’ll pop the answer a little further below so not to ruin the guessing game!
Which Palette Is it?
And the highsteet/drugstore eyeshadow dupe is… [insert drumroll here] the Elf Retro Paradise Eyeshadow Palette! It was as I was recently reviewing this palette and thoroughly enjoying playing with it’s colourful tones that I noticed some of its mattes reminded me of the Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze Palette. Of course, I had to put it straight to the test.
For the purpose of this Charlotte Tilbury dupe post I’m discussing the shades Fuego, Caliente, Sandy Bum, Cacao.
Read my review of the ELF Retro Paradise Palette here!
Ok, did you guess correctly? Looking at the photo, my left eye is the Charlotte Tilbury palette and my right eye is the ELF!
Swatches
Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze vs Elf Retro Paradise Palette (shades listed).
Colour wise, it’s a pretty good dupe eh?
The shades from the Elf palette are brighter and ‘Cacao’ is a cooler darker brown. The Charlotte Tilbury shades are warmer and softer. When I created the two eye makeup I really tried to apply the shadows in a way to make the two eyes appear as similar as possible to show how much of a shade dupe the Elf palette can be. To do this I used a softer touch when applying the Elf shadows ‘Feugo’ and ‘Caliente’. I think where you can see the difference is with ‘Cacao’ and the Charlotte Tilbury ‘Smoke’ shade but this is ever so slight. It’s an impressive dupe!
Difference In Blendabilty
Matte eyeshadows are notoriously tricky to formulate. Thankfully as technology and use of ingredients improve we are seeing a a beautifying of this type of eyeshadow. Once where chalky, dry mattes were the norm, or at least the tell tale signs of a ‘bad’ matte eyeshadow they are becoming out shadowed by the newer smooth, buttery formula and that is what we see with both of these palettes. There are of course, some differences in quality. The Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze shadows are very finely milled. They are velvety, smooth and a dream to blend. They do not increase any texture on the skin, nor do they sit in fine lines. There is little fall out and they are very easy to work with. Blending is quick and easy.
The matte shadows of Elf Retro Paradise are, especially for their price point, pretty fantastic. If I wasn’t comparing the two I’d be saying that these blend well (which I did in the palette’s stand alone review here), so it isn’t that they don’t, it is taking into mind the other palette as a comparison. These shadows are smooth and soft but have a touch of a chalky, crumbly side to them. This leaves them slightly more difficult to work with as there is a little fall out (just be sure to tap off excess product off your makeup brush before applying) and blending is slightly more time consuming as the shadows take a little more work to smooth away.
As you can see by my image, both eyeshadow palettes create a very similar look, I’m really picking at the bones here!
Difference In Pigment/Payoff
Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze shadows are very pigmented, even the lightest ‘prime’ shades shows up more peachy than in expected on my skin tone. They are rich shadows and because they blend so easily this density is easy to work with and create a pretty eye makeup.
The Elf eyeshadows are also pretty pigmented and it’s impressive. The shadows have a great payoff.
Difference In Longevity
In a 10 hour wear test both eye shadow looks (eye 1 being Charlotte Tilbury, eye 2 being the ELF) lasted well. By the end of that time there were creases in both, minimal in the Charlotte Tilbury eye and slightly more defined in the ELF eye. It was a slight different. In terms of wear, it was the same, there was slightly more wear to the pigment of the ELF eye than to the Charlotte Tilbury eye.
Price
Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze Eyeshadow Palette £40.00
Elf Retro Paradise Eyeshadow Palette £13.00
Claims
Charlotte Tilbury is cruelty free. Although they list vegan friendly products (find Charlotte Tilbury vegan friendly products here) this palette is not one of them.
Elf is cruelty free and Retro Paradise eyeshadow palette is vegan friendly.
Charlotte Tilbury Dupe?
Now look, the Charlotte Tilbury shadows are really beautiful and they do top the Elf shadows in terms of quality, they should, they’re in a different price point all together and their quality should reflect that. This of course, does not mean that more expensive equals better, just that one would hope that you were buying great quality when spending £40.00 on an eyeshadow quad. That being said, for £14.00 the quality of the ELF eyeshadows is impressive. Very much so. We are getting 18 shades in this palette as well. However, frustratingly ELF do not state the gram/oz on their packaging (unless that was on a sleeve and I threw it away in a recycling fit 🤷🏻♀️) or online so I can’t do a ‘price per gram’ comparison to work out true value for money.
What I can tell you is that these shades are pretty darn similar and that’s pretty awesome to pick something up from the highstreet that’s so. What do you think? Is this a good Charlotte Tilbury dupe? Would you buy it?
If the Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze palette is something you’ve lusted after but it’s just a tad too spenny then perhaps this ELF palette is right up your street. I have a feeling it’s limited ed though, so I’d act fast!
Elf Retro Paradise Eyeshadow Palette £13.00 Available here
Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze Eyeshadow Palette £40.00 Available here
You can read how much I truly love each of these palettes in their own entirety here:
Elf Retro Paradise Eyeshadow Review
Charlotte Tilbury Desert Haze Eyeshadow Palette
