Charlotte Tilbury’s Flawless Filter vs. Catrice’s $10 version: Which is best?

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We can’t expect our skin to look flawless 100% of the time — real skin has texture, breakouts and uneven coloration. But we love when we find makeup that can help give our skin that airbrushed or Instagram-filter look. Enter the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter, which has developed an online cult following for the glowy, smoothing effect it claims to give skin. While it might seem like Charlotte Tilbury has seemingly captured magic in a bottle, I wondered if for just $10, the Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid could give that same radiant look for less.

Both products promise to give the skin a luminous, soft-focus finish, but which one will help get you closer to that ideal complexion? I tested them side by side to find out.

Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter

Perfect for refining your high-glam looks for special events, but still comfortable enough for daily wear, the Charlotte Tilbury Hollywood Flawless Filter helps boost your base makeup for an airbrushed skin look with a subtle, shimmery glow.

Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid

That dewy, wet skin look is just a few swipes away with the Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid. Its lightweight formula is made with vitamin E and squalane delivering high shine even on dry skin.

What are filter products?

“Filter” products are a complexion category all their own. Most will feel like a hybrid between a light skin tint and a liquid highlighter and often promise to give you an extra glowy base, adding a soft blur to your skin for an IRL filter look (hence the name). Think of them as the cherry on top of your makeup sundae — you might not necessarily need them but they can help add a little oomph for an even more scrumptious look.

Both the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter and the Catrice Soft Glam Fluid list the four same ways you can wear them as part of your makeup routine:

• Alone, on top of your last layer of skin care

• Underneath your foundation

• Mixed in with your foundation

• Or on top of your foundation as an illuminator

I tried all four methods, but found that using the products as an illuminator in the final steps of my routine showcased them best. Personally, I’ve always loved the idea of highlighters, but almost every one I’ve tried ends up looking like I smeared glitter on my cheek, so I was excited to see if these filter fluids would be a better fit for my natural, soft glam daily makeup.

My personal makeup ritual calls for a mix of creams and powders layered over my foundation, so by the time I finished my beat, any glow the filter fluids provided from being layered underneath or mixed in was basically moot. You can also use these products in place of your regular foundation as an ultra-light alternative, but I felt that neither of these products had enough coverage to help conceal my skin’s daily redness and blemishes on their own.

Instant added radiance

Upon first application, I was impressed by the instant glow both products added to my skin. I applied them on top of my regular makeup in the areas where I would normally place highlighter: on my cheekbones, bridge of my nose and around my eyebrows.

The Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid added a dewy, nice sheen to those areas, but not in a way that added a ton of shimmer to the skin. If anything, it reminded me more of the sheen you’re left with after applying sunscreen. If you’re using this as the last step in your makeup routine, I would recommend letting the rest of your makeup fully dry down and settle before applying the Filter Fluid. I found that applying it immediately following concealer and foundation tended to move around and dilute the coverage of my base makeup.

The Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter had a slightly creamier consistency than the Catrice Fluid. Even though they’re both water-based products, the Flawless Filter felt thicker, though it still spread and blended easily into the skin. I definitely noticed a slight blurring effect with the Flawless Filter, particularly in the under-eye area; the skin there looked more uniform and the semi-matte finish helped to hide fine lines and small imperfections in texture.

Side by side, the Catrice Filter Fluid has a more glossy, wet look on the skin that reads super dewy. While this looked great on my dry skin, if you’re naturally more oily, this might look a tad greasy. The Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter has a more satin finish that gives a much less intense glow, but has more power to conceal and filter the appearance of the skin.

Lightweight and long-lasting

Both products were easy to blend out, quickly drying down on the skin with a comfortable and lightweight feel.  But do their effects last? My answer to that is — yeah.

Priced at just $10, my expectations of the Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid were low, but even after five hours of wear (with no reapplication), I was still stopping to admire my glow in the mirror.

As I mentioned, the actual radiance produced by the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter is much less intense than the Catrice, but it’s just as consistent. It reflects light beautifully with a diffused shimmer across the face, it just doesn’t project as much. Regardless, after five hours of wear, my skin still had that softly blended look with no signs of separation in the product.

Charlotte Tilbury filters better, but you’ll lose some glow

Both of these products are great, but I think they have slightly different uses. As far as filter fluids go, the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless Filter definitely improved the look of my skin more and “filtered” over areas of redness and texture. It won’t give you an ultra-dewy finish, though, and instead delivers more of a subtle, shimmery, glow-from-within kind of effect. If you’re after an airbrushed look, this is going to help get you there. It works in tandem with your base makeup to give your skin a polished look, but to me, it’s a collaborative team player more than an outright shining star.

On the flip side, the Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid didn’t do much to actually filter or improve my skin anymore than my foundation already had, but it does deliver a pretty prominent illumination to the skin. If you’re looking for a highlighter replacement or a product to give you glazed, dolphin-skin, the Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid will give you all-day glow for just a few bucks.

The large price gap between these two products also left me wondering if there were any substantial differences in their formulation.

I took a gander at the ingredient lists for each product and my takeaway is that the Charlotte Tilbury formula includes an additive called mica, a finely ground mineral dust often found in foundations and eyeshadows. It helps reflect light to give your skin shimmer and shine while also adding opacity. You might not be able to see a massive difference in these photos, but in real life, I think this helps provide extra pigment and coverage that better achieve that uniform blur on the skin. Ultimately, the ingredients in the Charlotte Tilbury formula give you a stronger “filter” than the ones in the Catrice Filter Fluid.

Both brands offer a range of shades for their filter products; the Catrice Filter Fluid comes in nine shades ranging from fair to deep, while Charlotte Tilbury has a slightly more expanded offering with 12 total shades. I felt like any of the lighter shades would have worked on my skin, since I wasn’t expecting either of the products to be high coverage and didn’t need a skin-exact match as with a heavier foundation. While I went with the shades closest to my own skin tone for this testing, you could definitely use a slightly deeper shade if you wanted a more bronzy glow to layer with your contour.

Bottom line

If a filtered look is what you’re after, the Charlotte Tilbury Flawless FIlter is your best bet. It delivers a hydrated, soft-focused luminous look that will hold up throughout the day. But, if you’re still skeptical about splurging on the full size bottle, you can try out the mini version first for $19.

The Catrice Soft Glam Filter Fluid is still a solid option if you want that ultra hydrated, high-shine finish on your skin and performs exceptionally well for just $10. Just don’t expect it to be a big saving grace for instantly transforming your skin texture and tone.

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Note: The prices above reflect the retailers' listed price at the time of publication.

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