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Rachael Parnell

When a consumer found out a discounter was launching a fresh beauty line that looked comparable to items from high-end label Augustinus Bader, she was "super excited".

The shopper dashed to her nearest store to buy the Lacura face cream for £8.49 for 50ml - a fraction of the £240 cost of the high-end 50ml cream.

The smooth blue container and gold lid of the two products look remarkably similar. And though Rachael has never tried the luxury cream, she says she's impressed by the dupe so far.

Rachael has been buying beauty alternatives from high street stores and supermarkets for a long time, and she's in good company.

More than a 25% of UK consumers say they've bought a skincare or makeup dupe. This rises to 44% among younger adults, as per a recently published study.

Alternatives are skincare products that copy bigger name companies and offer cost-effective substitutes to premium products. They typically have alike names and packaging, but sometimes the formulas can vary significantly.

Victoria Woollaston

'Expensive Isn't Always Superior'

Skincare experts contend many substitutes to high-end brands are decent quality and help make beauty routines less expensive.

"It is not true that higher-priced is invariably better," states skin specialist a doctor. "Not all affordable skincare brand is inferior - and not all premium skincare product is the best."

"Some [dupes] are really excellent," says a podcast host, who runs a show about celebrities.

A lot of of the products modeled on luxury brands "run out so fast, it's just unbelievable," he remarks.

Scott McGlynn

Skin specialist another professional thinks dupes are fine to use for "simple routines" like hydrators and face washes.

"Dupes will serve a purpose," he comments. "They will handle the fundamentals to a reasonable level."

Ketaki Bhate, suggests you can spend less when searching for single-ingredient items like hyaluronic acid, Vitamin B3 and squalane.

"When you're buying a simple product then you're likely going to be alright in opting for a dupe or something which is quite inexpensive because there's not much that can go wrong," she adds.

'Don't Be Sold by the Packaging'

Yet the specialists also recommend buyers check details and say that costlier items are sometimes worthy of the additional cost.

Regarding luxury beauty products, you're not just covering the name and promotion - at times the elevated cost also stems from the ingredients and their quality, the strength of the active ingredient, the science employed to produce the item, and studies into the products' efficacy, she notes.

Beauty expert another professional suggests it's worth questioning how some alternatives can be sold so at a low cost.

Sometimes, she states they might contain less effective components that don't have as significant positive effects for the skin, or the components might not be as carefully selected.

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

Commentator McGlynn says sometimes he's bought skincare items that look comparable to a big-name label but the actual formula has "little similarity to the original".

"Don't be fooled by the outer appearance," he added.

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Regarding potent products or those with components that can irritate the skin if they're not created properly, such as retinols or vitamin C serums, the specialist recommends using research-backed labels.

She says these typically have been subjected to comprehensive tests to evaluate how successful they are.

Beauty products need to be tested before they can be sold in the UK, explains expert another professional.

If the brand makes claims about the efficacy of the product, it requires evidence to verify it, "but the manufacturer doesn't always have to perform the trials" and can instead use studies completed by other firms, she adds.

Read the Ingredients List of the Container

Are there any ingredients that could signal a item is low-quality?

Ingredients on the list of the bottle are listed by amount. "Potential irritants that you want to be wary of… is your mineral oil, your SLS, fragrance, benzoyl peroxide" being {high up