🔗 Share this article

Rachael Parnell

After discovering one shopper learned Aldi was offering a new product collection that appeared akin to items from luxury brand Augustinus Bader, she was "incredibly excited".

Rachael rushed to her local store to purchase the store-brand face cream for under £9 for 50ml - a tiny percentage of the £240 price tag of the Augustinus Bader 50ml cream.

The streamlined blue tube and gold lid of each items look remarkably similar. While she has not used the luxury cream, she says she's satisfied by the product so far.

She has been purchasing beauty alternatives from high street stores and grocery stores for a long time, and she's in good company.

More than a 25% of UK buyers state they've bought a skincare or makeup alternative. This increases to 44 percent among 18-34 year olds, based on a recently published study.

Dupes are beauty items that mimic bigger name companies and offer affordable alternatives to luxury items. They frequently have similar names and packaging, but sometimes the components can differ substantially.

Victoria Woollaston

'Costly Isn't Necessarily Better'

Skincare professionals argue certain dupes to high-end brands are reasonable quality and aid make beauty routines less expensive.

"It is not true that more expensive is invariably better," says skin specialist Sharon Belmo. "Not every budget beauty label is bad - and not all luxury beauty item is the best."

"Certain [dupes] are truly impressive," notes Scott McGlynn, who presents a podcast about famous people.

Many of the products inspired by luxury brands "sell out so fast, it's just crazy," he remarks.

Scott McGlynn

Skin specialist Ross Perry believes dupes are acceptable to use for "simple routines" like moisturisers and cleansers.

"Dupes will be effective," he explains. "These items will perform the essentials to a satisfactory degree."

Ketaki Bhate, thinks you can cut costs when seeking simple-formula items like hyaluronic acid, Vitamin B3 and a moisturizing ingredient.

"When you're buying a single-ingredient item then you're likely going to be fine in using a budget alternative or something which is quite low cost because there's very little that can go wrong," she explains.

'Don't Be Sold by the Container'

However the experts also suggest shoppers do their research and state that costlier products are sometimes worthy of the extra money.

Regarding premium beauty products, you're not only funding the name and advertising - sometimes the increased price tag also stems from the ingredients and their grade, the concentration of the effective element, the technology used to create the product, and trials into the products' efficacy, the expert says.

Facialist she suggests it's important questioning how certain alternatives can be offered so at a low cost.

Sometimes, she believes they may have bulking agents that do not provide as numerous positive effects for the skin, or the materials might not be as carefully selected.

"The big question mark is 'Why is it so cheap?'" she remarks.

Commentator Scott says in some cases he's purchased beauty products that appear comparable to a well-known label but the item has "no connection to the luxury product".

"Do not be fooled by the packaging," he cautioned.

SimpleImages/Getty Images

Regarding advanced products or those with components that can irritate the skin if they're not made accurately, such as retinoids or vitamin C serums, she recommends using more specialised companies.

The expert explains these will likely have been subjected to expensive trials to assess how successful they are.

Beauty items need to be tested before they can be available in the UK, notes consultant dermatologist another professional.

If the label makes claims about the efficacy of the item, it requires data to back it up, "but the seller doesn't always have to do the testing" and can instead reference evidence done by other firms, she clarifies.

Read the Back of the Pack

Is there any ingredients that could signal a product is low-quality?

Components on the back of the tube are arranged by quantity. "The baddies that you want to avoid… is your mineral oil, your sodium lauryl sulfate, parfum, benzel peroxide" being {high up