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Rachael Parnell

After discovering a consumer found out Aldi was selling a new product collection that looked akin to offerings from luxury brand Augustinus Bader, she was "extremely excited".

Rachael hurried to her nearest shop to purchase the supermarket face cream for £8.49 for 50ml - a small portion of the £240 cost of the luxury brand 50ml cream.

Its streamlined blue container and gold cap of each products look strikingly similar. While Rachael has not tested the premium cream, she states she's pleased by the product so far.

Rachael has been using beauty alternatives from high street stores and grocery stores for some time, and she's not alone.

Over a 25% of UK consumers report they've bought a skincare or makeup lookalike. This increases to 44% among younger adults, based on a recently published study.

Dupes are skincare products that imitate well-known brands and provide affordable options to premium products. They frequently have similar names and packaging, but in some cases the formulas can differ considerably.

Victoria Woollaston

'Expensive Is Not Necessarily Better'

Beauty specialists contend some substitutes to high-end labels are decent standard and assist make beauty routines less expensive.

"I don't think more expensive is necessarily more effective," comments dermatology expert a doctor. "Not all budget skincare brand is bad - and not all luxury beauty item is the finest."

"Some [dupes] are absolutely impressive," notes Scott McGlynn, who presents a show about public figures.

A lot of of the products modeled on high-end brands "sell out so fast, it's just crazy," he observes.

Scott McGlynn

Medical expert Ross Perry believes alternatives are acceptable to use for "basic skincare" like hydrators and cleansers.

"Dupes will be effective," he says. "They will perform the essentials to a reasonable level."

Another skin doctor, advises you can save money when you're looking for single-ingredient products like hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and squalane.

"When you're buying a simple item then you're likely going to be alright in using a dupe or something which is fairly low cost because there's minimal that can go wrong," she adds.

'Don't Be Influenced by the Container'

But the professionals also suggest shoppers investigate and say that higher-priced items are at times worthy of the premium price.

With premium beauty products, you're not just covering the brand and promotion - sometimes the increased cost also stems from the formula and their grade, the strength of the key component, the technology employed to produce the product, and tests into the products' effectiveness, she notes.

Skin therapist Rhian Truman suggests it's valuable considering how some dupes can be offered so inexpensively.

In some cases, she says they could contain less effective components that don't have as significant benefits for the skin, or the materials might not be as high-quality.

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

Expert McGlynn says in some cases he's purchased skincare items that appear similar to a established label but the product itself has "little similarity to the luxury product".

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

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For advanced products or ones with components that can aggravate the skin if they're not made properly, such as retinols or vitamin C serums, the specialist suggests sticking to more specialised companies.

The expert states these typically have been subjected to comprehensive trials to evaluate how effective they are.

Skincare items need to be evaluated before they can be marketed in the UK, explains expert Emma Wedgeworth.

If the label makes claims about the efficacy of the item, it needs data to verify it, "however the brand does not always have to do the trials" and can alternatively use testing conducted by other brands, she says.

Read the Back of the Bottle

Is there any components that could suggest a product is low-quality?

Ingredients on the list of the tube are listed by concentration. "Ingredients to avoid that you should look out for… is your petroleum-derived oil, your SLS, fragrance, benzoyl peroxide" being {high up