I remember the days when I used to love Urban Decay’s Primer Potion.

Then I realised it’s really quite expensive for such a small part of my routine. I set about trying to find a cheap dupe and was let down repeatedly. I heard rave reviews about products, went out and bought them, and decided they were useless.

Recently I was putting in an order with my favourite shop for Korean Beauty products and came across this Etude House eye primer. As I was placing an order anyway and was getting close to triggering the next level of freebies, I added it to my order. I’ve been really impressed with Korean make up and at less than £5 it was worth a try. 

In terms of size, this is comparable with the Urban Decay primer potion. It’s a mere 0.02oz larger. As you can see from the colour on the bottle, it looks almost exactly the same too. It has the same kind of wand and applies exactly the same. If it weren’t for the packaging looking differently, you could be forgiven for thinking it was the exact same product!

Usage

I’ve got way more eyeshadow than I really need at the moment and so I’ve been using this pretty much daily. 

Paired with my favourite eyeshadow (Tarte) I get all day wear out of my eyeshadow looks. In a direct comparison with the Urban Decay potion, this Etude House version actually makes my eyeshadow last longer. With eyeshadow formulations that I don’t normally get a full day out of (Mac, Lottie London) I can just about get a day of work out of them now. This is thankfully helping me to use up my stash now. I had quite a few palettes that I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of, but weren’t good enough for daily wear.

Overall thoughts

It’s surprised me how much I like this eye primer. Impulse purchases tend not to work out for me, but this time it has. Instead of finding a dupe for a once Holy Grail product, I’ve actually found something better.

Given my current tube of Urban Decay primer is over a year old I do wonder whether it’s just started to go off and that’s why the performance is different to that of the Etude House. However, given how little of the product you actually need I would struggle to use it all up in a year. I hate buying products that I can’t use up before it goes off and so if I can find something at less than a third of the price that will do the same job (if not potentially better) then I’m absolutely going to purchase that one instead.

I really like Etude House products and this is just another winner to add to the list. I’ll definitely be purchasing a back up next time I’m placing an order!

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