If you’re anything like me, you love discovering new makeup shades but don’t love the prices of some of them on the more expensive end. I enjoy experimenting with products and researching to find cheaper alternatives. That’s why I’m starting a new series of swatch files—real, honest swatches of the latest products I’m trying out, so that I can show exactly how they look in comparison to each other.

I’ve got a few lipliners that I’ve heard are shade twins. Naturally, being a fan of a good dupe, I couldn’t resist buying both to put the claims to the test. I prefer to be cheap, but somehow I’m still the one who ended up spending the money — but hey, that’s research, right?

The mac pencils are $25 a pencil so it doesn’t hurt to find a shade that’s the same color or close to it. And its not like anyone will know the difference just by looking at you anyway. One of the liners is Mac lipliner in the color Whirl. It is a muted dusty rose color. I’ve had the lipstick version of it for a while. But I wanted to give the lipliner a try even to compare those. On an internet search I found that Nyx Mauve is a dupe for Mac Whirl. I’d already had Mauve for a while because I bought it when I found it was a dupe for Whirl. But recently curiosity got the best of me and I finally bought Whirl. And I put the two colors to the test.

Here are the pencils and both of them look very similar just by looking at it before you ever swatch it.

And here are the swatches. They are hard to see because they are very muted tones. But they are very spot on in color. And the mac pencil is much softer compared to some of their pencils I’ve bought years ago. It goes on very smooth without tugging and has an almost a creamy texture to it. The nyx pencil is a bit harder but not too much. These two pencils are so close in color that you do not need the Mac pencil at all. The Nyx one is $5 which is one fifth of the price of Mac. If you’re smart you’ll save 15 dollars. If you’re a little bit crazy like me you’ll buy both of them.

I also read somewhere that Mac Stripdown and Nyx – Nude Truffle were dupes.

Just by looking at these you can tell that the Nyx – Nude Truffle shade is a deeper brown than stripdown and seems to lean a bit cooler.

Andddd… the swatches proved me right. Nyx nude truffle is more of a brown taupe color. And Stripdown is very warm almost caramel shade.

So, if you’re hunting for a mauve lipliner dupe, NYX Mauve is a great budget-friendly option—and though Mac Stripdown and Nyx Nude Truffle are not shade twins they’re still both good all on their own.

Call it beauty detective work or just plain curiosity—either way, this case is closed. But with a million more out there to explore, I’ll be on the lookout for the next shade story to crack.

Until next time,

-Amber