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Rachael Parnell

When one shopper found out Aldi was selling a recent skincare range that seemed comparable to products from luxury brand Augustinus Bader, she was "incredibly excited".

The shopper dashed to her local shop to pick up the Lacura face cream for a low price for 50ml - a tiny percentage of the £240 price tag of the luxury brand 50ml product.

Its sleek blue packaging and gold cap of both products look noticeably similar. While Rachael has not used the high-end cream, she claims she's satisfied by the product so far.

She has been using lookalike products from mainstream retailers and grocery stores for a long time, and she's part of a trend.

Over a 25% of UK consumers state they've bought a skincare or makeup lookalike. This jumps to 44 percent among younger adults, as per a February poll.

Lookalikes are beauty items that copy established labels and offer budget-friendly alternatives to premium products. These products frequently have comparable labels and design, but sometimes the components can vary significantly.

Victoria Woollaston

'High-Priced Isn't Always Better'

Skincare professionals contend some dupes to high-end brands are good quality and help make skincare less expensive.

"It is not true that more expensive is necessarily better," comments dermatology expert Sharon Belmo. "Not all low-budget beauty label is bad - and not all luxury skincare product is the top."

"Certain [dupes] are truly impressive," notes a skincare commentator, who runs a show about famous people.

Numerous of the items modeled on luxury brands "run out so rapidly, it's just insane," he says.

Scott McGlynn

Skin specialist Ross Perry believes alternatives are suitable to use for "simple routines" like hydrators and cleansers.

"Alternatives will do the job," he explains. "These items will perform the essentials to a satisfactory standard."

Another skin doctor, advises you can cut costs when searching for simple-formula items like hyaluronic acid, niacinamide and a moisturizing ingredient.

"When you're buying a single-ingredient item then you're likely going to be okay in opting for a dupe or something which is fairly inexpensive because there's very little that can go wrong," she adds.

'Do Not Be Sold by the Packaging'

But the professionals also suggest shoppers check details and note that costlier items are occasionally worth the extra money.

With high-end skincare, you're not only paying for the name and promotion - at times the elevated cost also comes from the ingredients and their quality, the strength of the active ingredient, the science used to produce the product, and trials into the item's efficacy, Dr Belmo notes.

Facialist she suggests it's worth thinking about how certain dupes can be sold so at a low cost.

Sometimes, she says they may include filler ingredients that don't have as significant advantages for the complexion, or the ingredients might not be as well sourced.

"One major doubt is 'Why is it so inexpensive?'" she asks.

Podcast host Scott says on occasion he's purchased beauty products that appear comparable to a well-known label but the actual formula has "no connection to the original".

"Do not be convinced by the outer appearance," he cautioned.

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Regarding advanced items or ones with ingredients that can aggravate the complexion if they're not created correctly, such as retinoids or vitamin C, Dr Bhate advises using medical-grade labels.

She explains these will likely have been through expensive studies to evaluate how efficacious they are.

Beauty items are required to be evaluated before they can be marketed in the UK, says consultant dermatologist Emma Wedgeworth.

If the brand advertises about the effectiveness of the product, it must have data to back it up, "however the seller does not always have to do the testing" and can instead reference studies done by other brands, she says.

Check the Ingredients List of the Pack

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

Components on the back of the bottle are listed by concentration. "The baddies that you should avoid… is your mineral oil, your sodium lauryl sulfate, parfum, benzel peroxide" being {high up