All through August, something cool takes place. The makeup aisles get a little busier, beauty forums get busy with questions about money, and people keep talking about the same brand: Morphe. There’s no chance about it. Morphe has quietly become one of the best options for students who want to build a real makeup kit without spending all their money.
There’s something that stands out as soon as you walk into a Morphe store before the new school year starts. The people there are young, mostly students, and they’re not just looking around for no reason. They know why they came. Take a brush and put it there. People are comparing shades under the store lights and holding brushes up to see how heavy and dense they are, giving it a kind of purposeful energy. It doesn’t feel like shopping as much as it feels like getting things.
These brushes are where Morphe first became known. Single brushes can cost as little as $4, but more specialized ones can cost over $20. It’s more important than it sounds that range. When students go back to school, they can walk in, pick out only the things they need, and leave the rest. You won’t be forced to buy a kit you won’t use all the way. Some people who have used the brushes for a long time say they last for almost a year and still work the same way they did on the first day. It’s really hard to argue with that kind of durability at that price.
Let’s talk about the palettes in a different way, and it’s important to be honest. One example is the 35N eyeshadow palette, which has a great range of colors. Some of the shades are really pigmented, so you can see them right away. Some are a little less big; one longtime user called them a “whatever” payoff. The 35W is also a great value for the price and number of shades, though some colors can feel a little chalky and take longer to blend than others. It’s not great. But at the price, it doesn’t seem reasonable to expect perfection.
The cool thing about Morphe for back-to-school time is that it rewards people who figure out what they like. The ELITE brush line always gets better reviews than the larger kit lines. Once a student has tried different things for a year or two, they usually buy specific items instead of starter packs. A brand literacy that tells you which products work and which ones you should skip builds over time. Being able to say that is almost like a rite of passage.
Something about Morphe makes me think that it finds a useful middle ground that not all beauty brands can. In the sense that some people use the term “drugstore cheap,” this isn’t that cheap. It’s not super-expensive, which can make it seem out of reach for someone who is trying to pay for school and books. That’s where most students really live, in the middle of those two worlds. The contour palettes, eyeshadow collections, and brush lines cover a lot of ground, so a student could really put together a full kit without ever leaving the brand.
As more companies enter the accessible beauty market, it’s still not clear if Morphe will be able to stay in business. Its name keeps coming up near the top, though, as another school year starts and shopping lists are made.
