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Rachael Parnell

When Rachael Parnell found out Aldi was offering a fresh product collection that looked comparable to offerings from premium company Augustinus Bader, she was "incredibly excited".

Rachael rushed to her closest outlet to pick up the supermarket face cream for a low price for 50ml - a tiny percentage of the £240 price tag of the luxury brand 50ml cream.

The streamlined blue container and gold lid of each creams look remarkably comparable. While she has never tried the luxury cream, she says she's satisfied by the dupe so far.

Rachael has been using lookalike products from high street stores and supermarkets for years, and she's part of a trend.

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

Lookalikes are skincare products that mimic established brands and provide cost-effective substitutes to luxury products. These products frequently have similar names and packaging, but occasionally the ingredients can vary significantly.

Victoria Woollaston

'High-Priced Is Not Necessarily Better'

Beauty specialists say many substitutes to luxury labels are reasonable quality and help make beauty routines cheaper.

"I don't think more expensive is always better," states consultant dermatologist a doctor. "Not all budget beauty label is inferior - and not every luxury beauty item is the top."

"A number of [dupes] are really impressive," adds a podcast host, who hosts a podcast about famous people.

A lot of of the products inspired by luxury labels "sell out so fast, it's just crazy," he observes.

Scott McGlynn

Medical expert a doctor argues dupes are acceptable to use for "fundamental products" like moisturisers and cleansers.

"Alternatives will do the job," he explains. "They will perform the basics to a satisfactory level."

Another skin doctor, suggests you can spend less when searching for simple-formula products like hyaluronic acid, Vitamin B3 and squalane.

"When you're buying a single-ingredient item then you're probably going to be okay in opting for a budget alternative or a product which is quite low cost because there's very little that can be problematic," she says.

'Don't Be Swayed by the Box'

But the professionals also suggest consumers do their research and state that more expensive items are at times worthy of the additional cost.

With premium beauty products, you're not only paying for the name and promotion - often the higher price also comes from the ingredients and their quality, the concentration of the active ingredient, the technology employed to develop the product, and studies into the products' effectiveness, the expert says.

Facialist Rhian Truman says it's valuable considering how certain dupes can be offered so cheaply.

In some cases, she states they may include filler ingredients that don't have as numerous advantages for the complexion, or the ingredients might not be as well sourced.

"The key doubt is 'Why is it so cheap?'" she says.

Commentator McGlynn says sometimes he's bought skincare items that appear similar to a established brand but the product itself has "little similarity to the luxury product".

"Do not be sold by the outer appearance," he added.

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For more complicated items or those with components that can irritate the skin if they're not formulated correctly, such as retinols or vitamin C serums, Dr Bhate advises selecting research-backed labels.

She says these typically have been through expensive trials to determine how successful they are.

Skincare products are required to be assessed before they can be marketed in the UK, explains expert another professional.

If the brand advertises about the effectiveness of the item, it must have data to verify it, "but the manufacturer does not necessarily have to do the trials" and can instead reference studies done by different companies, she adds.

Read the Label of the Bottle

Is there any components that could indicate a product is poor?

Ingredients on the label of the container are ordered by amount. "Ingredients to avoid that you should avoid… is your mineral oil, your SLS, fragrance, benzoyl peroxide" being {high up