How do skincare dupes compare to luxury brands?

When Rachael Parnell heard Aldi was selling a new skincare range that looked similar to products from luxury brand Augustinus Bader, she was “super excited”.

She rushed to her nearest store to pick up the Lacura face cream for £8.49 for 50ml – a fraction of the £240 price tag of the Augustinus Bader 50ml product.

The sleek blue tube and gold lid of both products look remarkably similar. And though Rachael has never tried the high-end cream, she says she’s impressed by the product so far.

The BBC reached out to Aldi about the likeness of the product packaging – but they have not provided a comment.

Rachael has been buying skincare dupes from high street stores and supermarkets for years, and she’s not alone.

More than a quarter of UK shoppers say they’ve bought a skincare or makeup dupe. This rises to 44% among 18-34 year olds, according to a survey by Barclays in February.

Dupes are skincare products that mimic bigger name brands and provide budget-friendly alternatives to high-end products. They often have similar names and packaging, but in some cases the ingredients can vary significantly.

Rachael, 34, from Warwickshire, says she’s attracted by the low prices of budget alternatives and often finds the quality good.

When asked about two cleansing balms she has bought – one from a high-end brand and the other a low-priced equivalent – she says: “It’s the same to me, I can’t tell the difference.”

Skincare experts say some alternatives to high-end brands are good quality and help make skincare more affordable.

“I don’t think more expensive is necessarily better,” says consultant dermatologist Sharon Belmo. “Not every low-budget skincare brand is bad – and not every luxury skincare product is the best.”

“Some [dupes] are absolutely amazing,” says Scott McGlynn, who hosts a podcast in which he asks celebrities about their skin routines.

Many of the products inspired by luxury brands “sell out so fast, it’s just insane,” he says.

Aesthetic and dermatology doctor Ross Perry thinks dupes are fine to use for “basic skincare” like moisturisers and cleansers.

“Dupes will serve a purpose,” he says. “They will do the basics to a reasonable level.”

Ketaki Bhate, a consultant dermatologist, thinks you can save money when you’re looking for single-ingredient products like hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and squalane.

“If you’re buying a single-ingredient product then you’re probably going to be okay in using a dupe or something which is quite low cost because there’s very little that can go wrong,” she says.

But the professionals also suggest consumers do their research and say that more expensive products are sometimes worth the extra money.

With luxury skincare, you’re not just paying for the brand and marketing – sometimes the higher price tag also comes from the ingredients and their quality, the concentration of the active ingredient, the technology used to develop the product, and studies into the products’ effectiveness, Dr Belmo says.

Facialist Rhian Truman says it’s worth thinking about how some dupes can be sold so cheaply.

In some cases, she says they could contain filler ingredients that don’t have as many benefits for the skin, or the ingredients might not be as well sourced.

“The big question mark is ‘How is it so cheap?'” she says.

Podcast host Scott says in some cases he’s bought skincare items that look similar to a big-name brand but the product itself has “no resemblance to the original”.

“Don’t be sold by the packaging,” he added.

For more complicated products or ones with ingredients that can irritate the skin if they’re not formulated correctly, such as retinols or vitamin C, Dr Bhate recommends sticking to more specialised brands.

She says these will likely have been through expensive trials to evaluate how effective they are.

Skincare products need to be tested before they can be sold in the UK, says consultant dermatologist Emma Wedgeworth.

If the brand makes claims about the effectiveness of the product, it needs data to back it up, “but the seller doesn’t necessarily have to do the testing” and can instead reference testing done by other brands, she says.

Are there any ingredients that could indicate a product is low-quality?

Ingredients on the back of the bottle are ordered by quantity. “The baddies that you want to look out for… is your mineral oil, your sodium lauryl sulfate, parfum, benzel peroxide” being high up on the ingredients list, Miss Truman says.

The BBC sent ingredients lists of two BHA 2% salicylic acid toners with similar packaging to Dr Bhate. One is typically sold for six times the price of the other.

Dr Bhate says the the list of active ingredients in both products “looks pretty similar, no red flags,” but she notes the products have different formulations with solvents and humectants, which break down ingredients and hydrate the skin respectively.

“This will likely lead to varying performance between the two products,” she says.

Dr Bhate also looked at the ingredients lists for two serums with similar branding, one from a luxury skincare brand and one from a supermarket.

She says that though they have “lookalike packaging”, the budget product “doesn’t appear very similar in terms of ingredients” and the higher-end formula “seems more complex with barrier lipids and more marine extracts”.

But for many people, trying to analyse the ingredients list on a bottle of moisturiser, cleanser or serum can be overwhelming.

“Sometimes it feels like looking at the back of a skincare product ingredient list is like having a chemistry lesson,” says Riya Asher, a pharmacist and aesthetic practitioner.

She recommends focusing on how high up the active ingredient – the one that triggers the effect, like retinol or vitamin C – is in the ingredients list. And if you’re not sure which is the active ingredient, she recommends doing your research online.

And Dr Belmo says you should focus on your skincare concerns when scanning the back of bottles, such as avoiding oils for acne-prone skin or staying fragrance-free for sensitive skin.

Victoria Woollaston posts reviews of skincare products on her website, Mamabella.

She’s tried both an Augustinus Bader serum and the new product sold by Aldi, and tells the BBC the supermarket serum felt thinner, but that because Augustinus Bader’s is stronger it could cause irritation for some people.

Victoria feels like there’s a “perfect storm” for skincare dupes to become popular, as the cost of living crisis pushes shoppers to seek value for money and people have become more interested in the ingredients in their skincare products.

She says these companies aren’t stealing customers from luxury beauty brands – in her opinion, many of the people who buy budget alternatives would never have been able to afford the high-end products in the first place.

“What my years of tests show,” says Victoria, “is that value and efficacy can 100% coexist.”