One huge misconception in the beauty space is that any affordable product with similar ingredients to a more expensive option (aka, a “dupe”) provides all the same benefits at half the price. 

However, it’s far more complex than simply glancing at the back of your bottle. “I really do think formulation matters, and sometimes ‘dupes’ may have similar ingredients but nowhere near the same quality,” Bhanusali says. 

He adds, “Ingredient quality can range from supplier to supplier, as do the percentages used in a formulation.” So even if a pricey serum contains many of the same ingredients as an affordable serum, that doesn’t automatically mean the quality is just as comparable. 

All of this to say: If a dupe provides the same benefits as a pricier option, then why not save money? But if you’re not loving the cheaper version, it might be due to the quality inside the bottle and how your skin reacts to the different formulations. 

So if you’ve tried the dupe alternative of your favorite moisturizer and find that it’s not nearly as effective, you may want to stick with the higher-quality formula.