I do love a good bargain and I love to have a rummage around the 'beauty section' in Poundland. I have had some great finds in there, including a Lilac Sally Hanson Nail Polish which I love and retails for £6.99 in Boots next door.
I usually steer clear of the brands I am not familiar with in there including this one. Its called 'Chit Chat'. The name just screams high class and good quality. I think it is aimed at the teenage market, and is a brand that is 'exclusive to Poundland'. I know many products that are in one branch of Poundland wont be in the next, but with this brand I think it is sold in all of them.
It looks such a rip off of High Beam, but as it was only £1 I thought I would give it a go. I have a mini High Beam which I love but couldn't justify buying the full priced one in my financial predicament.
I will get on with the review and compare both products...
The outer packaging is very similar, even down to the white lid. They are both the nail polish type packaging and have the little brush attached to the lid. The brush on High Beam is great, keeps its shape and applies the product nicely.
The brush with the Chit Chat highlighter is useless. It has completely lost its shape and the product applies unevenly because of this. But I can look past this as I usually dot the product on and blend with my fingers, or use my Real Techniques stippling brush to apply it. I have never really come across a 'budget' brand that has great quality packaging anyway.
When the products are heavily swatched there are some differences in the colour and amount of shimmer. I would say that the Chit Chat highlighter has more white in it and the Benefit more pink. The glitter in both products aren't that detectable in normal light, but under harsher light I can see it. Chit Chat it is slightly chunkier than Benefit, but not at all chunky if you get what I mean. When blended out, they look like the same product. Both are a pinky white colour and give a nice glow to the skin.
The formulation of both is also slightly different. The Benefit is more of a creamy consistency where the Chit Chat is more watery. The Benefit is slightly easier to blend and get it to go where you want it to go, but the Chit Chat is by no means hard to apply.
In the name of research, I wore both Highlighters on each cheek bone for a day, and found that they looked the same and lasted for the same amount of time.
Overall I think that Benefit High Beam has a slight edge over the Chit Chat highlighter in terms of packaging and ease of use. The Chit Chat highlighter is a good product and I found that I ended up with basically the same results. It is definitely worth giving the Chit Chat a try, it is only a pound after all!
Have you bought any beauty products from Poundland?
Gem x
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