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Rachael Parnell

Upon hearing a consumer learned Aldi was selling a recent skincare range that appeared comparable to products from premium company Augustinus Bader, she was "incredibly excited".

The shopper dashed to her local shop to buy the Lacura face cream for £8.49 for 50ml - a tiny percentage of the £240 cost of the high-end 50ml cream.

The sleek blue packaging and gold cap of each products look strikingly alike. Although Rachael has never tried the high-end cream, she states she's pleased by the dupe so far.

She has been buying beauty alternatives from high street stores and grocery stores for years, and she's not alone.

Over a fourth of UK buyers state they've tried a skincare or makeup lookalike. This rises to 44 percent among millennials and Gen Z, based on a February poll.

Alternatives are skincare products that copy established labels and offer cost-effective options to premium products. They typically have alike labels and design, but occasionally the components can vary substantially.

Victoria Woollaston

'Costly Isn't Always Better'

Beauty specialists argue some alternatives to luxury labels are good quality and aid make skincare cheaper.

"In my opinion more expensive is always more effective," says dermatology expert a doctor. "Not every low-budget beauty label is bad - and not all premium skincare product is the top."

"Certain [dupes] are really excellent," adds a skincare commentator, who hosts a podcast with celebrities.

Numerous of the items modeled on luxury brands "sell out so rapidly, it's just unbelievable," he remarks.

Scott McGlynn

Aesthetic and dermatology doctor Ross Perry believes dupes are suitable to use for "fundamental products" like moisturisers and cleansers.

"Alternatives will serve a purpose," he comments. "They will do the essentials to a reasonable degree."

Ketaki Bhate, advises you can cut costs when seeking single-ingredient items like HA, Vitamin B3 and a moisturizing ingredient.

"When you're purchasing a single-ingredient item then you're probably going to be fine in using a dupe or something which is fairly low cost because there's minimal that can go wrong," she adds.

'Do Not Be Sold by the Box'

Yet the experts also advise shoppers check details and state that costlier products are sometimes worth the additional cost.

With high-end beauty products, you're not just covering the name and advertising - often the higher price also stems from the formula and their quality, the strength of the active ingredient, the science employed to create the product, and tests into the item's effectiveness, she notes.

Skin therapist she argues it's valuable thinking about how certain dupes can be offered so at a low cost.

In some cases, she says they might contain filler ingredients that do not provide as numerous benefits for the skin, or the components might not be as carefully selected.

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

Podcast host McGlynn notes on occasion he's purchased beauty products that look similar to a well-known brand but the product itself has "little similarity to the original".

"Don't be sold by the packaging," he warned.

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Regarding potent products or ones with ingredients that can aggravate the skin if they're not created correctly, such as retinoids or vitamin C serums, the specialist recommends selecting research-backed brands.

She says these typically have been subjected to comprehensive studies to determine how successful they are.

Beauty products are required to be evaluated before they can be sold in the UK, explains skin doctor Emma Wedgeworth.

If the company advertises about the effectiveness of the product, it must have research to back it up, "but the seller doesn't always have to do the testing" and can instead use evidence conducted by different brands, she adds.

Read the Back of the Bottle

Is there any ingredients that could suggest a item is poor?

Ingredients on the back of the bottle are arranged by amount. "Ingredients to avoid that you need to be wary of… is your petroleum-derived oil, your sodium lauryl sulfate, parfum, benzel peroxide" being {high up