Splurge or Steal? Soap and Glory Kick Ass Concealer vs Laura Mercier Undercover

So I was browsing Boots lately and came across the new Soap and Glory cosmetics stand (which has replaced the Prestige stand, meaning I can no longer buy my favourite Skin Loving Minerals foundation, boo!). While checking out the new offerings (very impressive and haul worthy) my eyes alighted upon their concealer duo, which seemed to have borrowed more than a trick or two from my Holy Grail Laura Mercier Undercover. Of course, like a good beauty blogger, I brought it home to investigate. Here’s Kick Ass Concealer in the shade light in all its (soap and) glory.

As you can see, step 1 (in the pan on the left) is a salmon-toned concealer for dark circles and marks. Step 2 (in the pan on the right) is a yellow-toned blemish/redness concealer. Step 3 is a translucent setting powder, which can be applied using the teeny powder puff supplied. The packaging is very functional and beyond adorable.

[Note: I have the previous version of Laura Mercier Undercover (I'm using up my backups). It's the very same product just without the loose powder pot]
Quite the resemblance eh? The Laura Mercier offering retails at about €36 if I recall correctly and gives you 5.8g total product.  That’s about €6.20 per gram, ouch! For €14 Soap and Glory give you 2 x 2.6g concealer pans and 1 x 2.5g powder, totalling 7.7g product (and a much more palatable €1.82/g). That’s an impressive saving, but I’m all for quality over quantity. Does Kick Ass Concealer really give you as much bang for your buck?

The Soap and Glory blemish concealer, though it doesn’t look it in the pan, is more yellow on the skin than Laura Mercier Undercover. This will actually work to your advantage if covering redness is your main concern, as yellow will help to neutralise it. The consistency of the Soap and Glory blemish concealer is creamier than Laura Mercier’s, but it’s just as pigmented. Because of my quite oily skin I prefer the drier Laura Mercier formula, but I don’t feel too strongly about it. I’d imagine that the Soap and Glory formulation would be much easier to work with for people with Combination/Normal/Dry skin.

The Soap and Glory under eye concealer is less salmon toned than Laura Mercier Undercover. Because of this I found that it didn’t cover my dark circles quite as well as Laura Mercier, but again it wasn’t a huge difference.

 

The Result

Soap and Glory Kick Ass Concealer puts up a valiant fight against the heavyweight. For me, it doesn’t quite kick the ass of Laura Mercier Undercover, but it’s a close match. For the less than half the price  it does a bang up job.

So should you go for the steal or the splurge? Definitely the STEAL!