DIY High Beam Dupe

Like I said before, I'm on a major DIY kick lately. I want to buy all the things, but instead I'm trying to make them. It's fun. Even my husband is enthused about my recent projects, though that might be

because he is cheap.

One of the things I love is High Beam from Benefit. It was one of the first "nice" cosmetics I bought myself when I became a grown up. But it's $26 price tag is too steep for me at the moment, so I set about thinking about a DIY version. It actually turned out waaaay better than I expected.

Supplies:

Your favorite lotion: I started out using CeraVe, but switched to the lighter Cetaphil

3 cheap eyeshadows: I used ELF Ivory, Wheat, and the lightest color from the Party Purple palette.

containers: I bought a 3 pack in the travel section

alcohol, for sanitizing

tongue depressors for crushing and mixing

you're going to have to cut me some slack on the lighting.
I did this at 5pm, and the light sucks.

dry swatches of the shadows. ELF is so powdery

The Process:

Break the shadow from it's palette and crush the hell out of it. The put about two pumps of lotion into your jar. (You'll see CeraVe here, but I only used that on one. It was too thick and didn't spread nicely.) Dump your crushed shadow into the lotion, and mix it. A lot. I probably stirred for about 60 seconds on each one. There are still a few grainy bits here and there, but it doesn't seem to effect the final product.

My Results:

The Ivory

 The Lilac

The Bronze

Finally, the true test. I compared it to a sample of High Beam. I couldn't find a good pearly pink, so I missed duping the color. But I think I did fairly good on the finish. My version is definitely less oily feeling on the skin than the High Beam. It also spreads a lot easier, for me at least. I definitely won't be buying High Beam anymore, that's for sure.

Bonus!

For all you nerds out there, I figured out that to make these three highlight creams it cost me about $6.30. That includes buying the jars. Each container has 0.20 ounces of product. In contrast, one bottle of High Beam is $26 for 0.45 ounces. So not only is this fun, it is definitely within my budget!

this post originally appeared on Pretty Girl Science on 2 September, 2013 and is represented here with permission of the original author.