L’Oreal Lash Paradise vs Too Faced Better Than Sex + L’Oreal Matte Mattic vs Urban Decay Perversion

I consider it a good beauty day when a drugstore brand comes out with a product that is SUPER similar to one I love at the department store. I mean, I’m practically L’Oreal Brow Stylist Definer‘s #1 fan because it’s SO MUCH like department store brow pencils (the ones that have the mechanical pencil on one end and a spooly on the other) and at $8 vs $20, I don’t need to tell you anything else. I am someone who does value quality and convenience over price so I will of course go for the better product even if it comes with a heftier price tag. I’m not about to have to apply something with a heavy hand and add to it to get it to work like its pricier counterpart. Mama ain’t got that kind of time.

Now when it comes to mascara, I’m almost always going to choose the drugstore one. There are some exceptions—mascaras that are more than about $8/9 that I don’t mind forking over the extra cash for (Too Faced Better Than Sex, YSL Faux Cils Shocking, etc.). But for the most part if a mascara is over $8/9, I’m not checking for it. Drugstore mascaras quite often can do the same job (and many times the drugstore mascara is owned by the same company as the department store one and the formulas might be very similar), you have to toss a tube of mascara after three months so why spend $$$, and I personally wear lashes pretty often (if I’m not wearing lashes, typically I’m also not wearing any makeup at all) where I don’t need my mascara to do any heavy lifting that a pricier mascara may claim it does.

I received a few tubes of new L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise mascara for review consideration. I’ve heard some mumblings around the beauty web that it’s a dupe for Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara so since I happened to have both at the same time, I figured I #minuswell compare the two.

I have a demo video on my Youtube channel with me talking briefly about the difference between the two, so make sure you check it out here or embedded below. But I’d say that one isn’t better than the other, nor would I say that L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise is a dupe for Too Faced Better Than Sex Mascara at all because I feel that the two are different mascaras altogether. Too Faced Better Than Sex has a curvier and thicker wand and the mascara formula is goopier and much darker than L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise. L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise has a pretty thick wand, but it’s straight and skinnier than the Too Faced Better Than Sex wand. You might find a skinnier wand easier to grab smaller lashes particularly corner lashes. I can’t say one is better than the other because they’re just different mascaras. I can say that if I’m not wearing lashes, I would prefer the look of Too Faced Better Than Sex.

Now when it comes to eyeliners, my longtime fave has been Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Perversion. Before that it was Urban Decay Zero—but Perversion is much blacker than Zero so I switched. I would buy at least five Perversion pencils at a time during either the UD F&F sale or the Sephora VIB sale. They’re $20 a pop and I wasn’t minding spending the money on it at all BUT if I could find a less expensive dupe, I’d be good money. L’Oreal Matte Mattic comes very close in appearance—it looks just as jet black and creamy as Perversion BUT the mechanical pencil applicator isn’t very sturdy so it takes more handling to apply it. I ain’t got that kind of time so I’ll just stick to UD Perversion for now…lol. I’ll keep looking for dupes—there are drugstore brands who make pencils that are creamy and rich like UD Glide-On pencils, but none I’ve looked at are as jet black (albeit I haven’t tried EVERY one out there—I’ll let you know when I personally come across a dupe).

Unrelated but related, I also found a dupe for the Urban Decay Naked Heat palette. You can check out my review of the palette here and watch below for my side by side demo comparing it to its $18 dupe. You can also see me comparing L’Oreal Voluminous Lash Paradise and Too Faced Better Than Sex as well as L’Oreal Infallible Matte-Matic vs Urban Decay Perversion.

Shop the products mentioned in this post via the widget below

Which of the products mentioned would you choose? The dupe or the dept store? Tell me in the comments!