Ilia Super Serum Skin Tint Dupes: 5 Tested Swaps for the $48 Tint

This is the pick if you care about what's actually in the bottle. Pull both INCI lists and e.l.f. shares seven of Ilia's defining ingredients (Zinc Oxide, Butyloctyl Salicylate, Propanediol, Niacinamide, Silica, Bisabolol and Allantoin) and, like Ilia, uses 12% zinc oxide as its only sunscreen active. SkinSort logs 16 ingredients in common and ranks it Ilia's most-liked dupe: a 65% overall and 46% ingredient match. The finish lands close too: sheer, luminous, buildable. Where it splits is the base. Ilia is a squalane-and-water emulsion; e.l.f. leans on silicones (isododecane, dimethicone, lauryl PEG-8 dimethicone), so it reads a touch more like makeup and skips Ilia's squalane and added hyaluronic acid. You get SPF 50 instead of 40, a minor upgrade, but 18 shades against Ilia's 30, which is the real catch at the fair and deep ends. At $14 for 30 mL versus $48, it's the closest you'll get to Ilia's formula without Ilia's markup.

If what you love about Ilia is the wet, lit-from-within finish, this is the nearest drugstore match. L'Oréal's tinted serum dries to the same wet, slightly bouncy glow and carries 1% hyaluronic acid, echoing the Hydrolyzed Sodium Hyaluronate and Sodium Hyaluronate in Ilia's list. It's a genuine serum-fluid texture, sheer and buildable, $15.89 for 30 mL against Ilia's $48. The gaps are real. There's no SPF, so this is makeup over sunscreen, not a sun-protective tint. Alcohol Denat. sits high in the formula — fine for most skins, but it can sting if you're reactive and feels drying if you're already dry, which is exactly what Ilia's squalane base avoids. You also lose the niacinamide, squalane and zinc that make Ilia a quasi-skincare step, and 14 shades is the tightest range in this lineup. Buy it for the finish, not the ingredient list.

Ilia's own numbers are the problem this solves: Live Tinted's wear test puts the skin tint at six to eight hours and notes it can slide or look greasy on oily skin. Maybelline's Super Stay is built the other way — a longer-wearing, sweat-resistant base that reviewers get roughly ten hours out of, especially with powder, drying down to a natural, near-matte finish rather than Ilia's tacky dew. It swaps the skincare story too: the active here is a Vitamin C derivative (Ascorbyl Glucoside) rather than niacinamide, and the base is more isododecane and silicone. Coverage is a step up, light-to-medium and buildable. The trade-offs are honest. There's no SPF, so pair it with sunscreen; the finish is flatter than Ilia's glow; and the longwear silicone-and-alcohol base can catch on dry patches. At $13.99 for 30 mL, it's the one to reach for when Ilia doesn't make it through your day.

At $7.50 for 30 mL this is the cheapest way into the serum-foundation format, and its 36 shades actually out-range Ilia's 30. The texture is genuinely serum-like, pigments suspended in a spreadable silicone system, so it goes on thin and builds. That's where the resemblance stops. The Ordinary dries to a semi-matte, real-skin finish, not Ilia's dewy glass-skin glow, so you'd need a separate liquid highlighter or a dewy setting spray to fake the wet look. There's no SPF in the US version (the UK one carries SPF 15), and none of Ilia's skincare payload: no niacinamide, no squalane, no hyaluronic acid, no zinc. Coverage runs a little heavier and more pigmented than Ilia's sheer wash. Treat it as a bare-bones base at a bare-bones price — right if you want the format cheapest and don't mind adding your own glow, wrong if the dewy skincare-tint feel was the whole reason you wanted Ilia.

Besides e.l.f., this is the only pick here with any SPF, and it leans hard on skincare: triple hyaluronic acid plus vitamin C and E in a runny serum that blends fast. Reviewers consistently describe a satin, fresh-skin finish that doesn't settle into lines — which is also the catch, because satin isn't Ilia's wet dew. The SPF 15 is the bigger asterisk: it's a real filter blend (ethylhexyl methoxycinnamate with titanium dioxide and zinc oxide), but 15 is well short of Ilia's 40 and not enough to lean on as your only face protection. Shade range is 16, and at 0.94 fl oz the bottle is smaller than everything else in this list. MSRP is $18.99 on Revlon's site, though drugstores routinely discount it toward $14. Pick it if you want a hydrating tint with a little sun cover and like a natural satin; skip it if the dewy glow or the SPF number is the point of Ilia for you.