Clinique Black Honey Dupes: 6 Cheaper Alternatives That Work

A Beauty Edit tested this heart-shaped balm stick directly against Clinique Almost Lipstick in Black Honey and called it nearly identical in texture, a verdict Krazy Coupon Lady and Bustle each reached independently in their own roundups. The glossy, non-sticky finish and vitamin E core give it the same buildable, sheer-to-medium wash Black Honey is known for, and at $8 for 0.09 oz it undercuts Clinique's $25 for 0.06 oz by a wide margin even before you account for the larger tube.

Where it splits from the original is undertone. Black Honey reads as a warm brown-plum that shifts with each wearer's natural lip color; Ecstatic leans a touch more purple and cool, a gap flagged by more than one reviewer working the two products side by side. The format differs too: a rounded balm stick instead of Clinique's thin bullet, so the swipe-on motion feels closer to a chapstick than a lipstick.

A February 2025 UK write-up (The Sun's Fabulous) priced it at £6 through Boots, more than £17 cheaper than Black Honey by their count; we couldn't confirm a live Boots URL or a current Black Honey UK price this pass, so treat that gap as their figure, not ours. In the US, buy it at Target or directly from e.l.f.; the Ulta listing for this specific shade returned an error on our last check, so don't count on that link working.

CoverGirl's Clean Fresh Tinted Lip Balm in Bliss You Berry is the pick three separate roundups, A Beauty Edit, Glam.com, and duuupe.com, each independently called their overall favorite Black Honey match, and for once they're pointing at the same thing: shade depth and opacity that line up closely with Clinique's original rather than just a similar color family. Both use a moisturizing tinted-balm base; CoverGirl's version adds hyaluronic acid and pomegranate oils, confirmed straight from the brand's own product page.

The shape is where it departs from Clinique. Black Honey comes in a thin, flat-top bullet you can angle into the corners of your mouth; Bliss You Berry is a thicker, rounded balm stick closer to a chapstick, so first-time users may need a swipe or two to get used to the application feel.

One correction worth knowing before you buy: older roundups list this around $4.99 to $6.99, but CoverGirl's own site currently prices it at $7.99, confirmed directly from the product page's embedded pricing data. That narrows the gap with Clinique considerably, though it's still a fraction of the price for 0.14 oz against Black Honey's 0.06 oz. CoverGirl has also pulled back from UK retail, so this stays a US-only recommendation.

Burt's Bees Tinted Lip Balm in Red Dahlia comes up more than any other name in this research as the original, pre-TikTok answer to what dupes Black Honey, repeated across four independent roundups going back years. It shares Black Honey's core idea, a sheer, buildable wash instead of full lipstick opacity, built here on shea butter and a mix of olive, sunflower, and coconut oils rather than Clinique's own conditioning blend. The formula is 100% natural-origin and paraben- and phthalate-free, which makes it the pick for anyone who reacts to synthetic bases in tinted balms.

It's one of two dupes here with an actual UK price attached, £5.39 through Cosmetify; the other is e.l.f.'s Ecstatic, at £6 through Boots. Add Nivea, which is confirmed for UK sale without a public price, and half this list has some real UK footprint. That's more than most roundups this size manage. The US price runs $4.99 to $5.49 at Target and Walgreens.

The tradeoff is depth. Red Dahlia goes on sheerer than several of the other dupes here, so one pass won't get you Black Honey's full color; expect to build with two or three swipes if you want more presence. A few reviewers also note it fades a bit faster than Clinique's version over a few hours of wear. We could not verify the £5.39 UK price against Boots' own product listing directly, so treat it as a starting estimate.

Nivea's Blackberry Shine Lip Balm, sold in the US under the name Blackberry Lip Care, is the cheapest pick in this whole comparison by a wide margin, cited around $4.49 against Black Honey's $25. It's a shea-butter sheer balm with a plum-blackberry tint that several reviewers say reads closer to Black Honey than other Nivea shades they tried first, and Nivea backs it with a 24-hour hydration claim in the US and a 72-hour claim on the UK product page.

We confirmed this is a genuinely current product in both markets: Nivea's own US site lists it at niveausa.com and the UK site carries it at nivea.co.uk, each with matching shea-butter-and-blackberry copy. That's an upgrade from earlier research, which had treated UK availability as unconfirmed.

The catch is the price itself. Nivea's brand sites are informational, not transactional, so neither page shows a checkout price, and Boots, Superdrug, Rite Aid, and Walmart all blocked automated price checks during this research. Treat $4.49 as a starting estimate from secondary sources rather than a live number. The other thing to watch for: Nivea sells a redder Cherry balm in near-identical packaging, so read the label before you check out.

If the balm-stick dupes on this list bother you because Black Honey is an actual lipstick bullet, e.l.f.'s Sheer Slick Lipstick in Black Cherry solves that directly. It comes in a 0.06 oz tube, within a tenth of a gram of Clinique's own 1.9 g Black Honey, so the size in your hand and your makeup bag barely changes. A Beauty Edit's tester, after working through 13 different dupes for this comparison, named it a personal favorite over every balm-format option, citing the meadowfoam seed oil and vitamin E formula for a cushiony, buildable feel close to the original.

The color runs slightly less brown than Black Honey, leaning more into straight berry, and more than one reviewer noted it doesn't hold up on the lips quite as long as Clinique's version, so expect to reapply sooner. Confirm you're buying this exact SKU and not e.l.f.'s separate Hydrating Core Lip Shine line, since the two get mixed up across roundups despite being different products with different textures.

At $6 for the same net weight as a $25 tube of Black Honey, it's one of the largest gaps in this list on a true size-for-size basis. Buy it directly from e.l.f.; we could not confirm a working Ulta or Target link for this specific shade.

Glossier's Ultra Lip, sold on the brand's own site as Ultralip, in the shade Ember occupies the same territory Almost Lipstick built its reputation on: a buttery, buildable tinted balm meant to look like your lips, just better, using hyaluronic acid and seed oils instead of Clinique's conditioning blend. One reviewer who tested it side by side with Black Honey called the shade match spot-on.

Here's the number that changes this pick's framing. Older roundups price Ultralip at $18, which would make it a real $7 discount off Clinique's $25. We pulled the current price directly from Glossier's own storefront data and it's actually $22, sold in 13 shades total. That's a savings of about $3, not $7, which puts this closer to a lateral prestige swap than a genuine budget dupe.

The formula also runs more pigmented and opaque straight from the tube than Black Honey's sheer wash, so it reads as a bolder version of the same idea rather than a match. Buy it through Glossier's own site; we found no dedicated Sephora product page for this exact shade during this research, and no confirmed UK price, though Glossier ships there directly.