An Urban Decay Naked eyeshadow palette costs €57 but Rocio Soria tells me – and her 1.9 million followers on TikTok – that we can purchase an almost identical ‘dupe’ version for just €10 from Joha beauty. According to Soria, there is no discernible difference between the two.
If you search the hashtag #bougieonabudget on TikTok, more than 60,000 similar videos will show up, recommending low-cost fashion and beauty duplicates or ‘dupes’ that can be substituted for luxury branded products. The concept of seeking out lower-cost alternatives is nothing new. In their noughties heyday, women’s fashion magazines regularly featured segments such as ‘skinted or minted’ showcasing a designer original alongside the high-street version inspired by it.
Aldi appears to have built a business model on lower-cost versions of everything from biscuits to face creams. “Dupe culture” is booming as younger buyers embrace ways to save money and disseminate their findings across social-media platforms. This is partly explained by high rates of global inflation which have pushed the price of almost every category of beauty and fashion upwards.
A Chanel lipstick now sells for €55 in Brown Thomas. Shampoo is a staggering 30 per cent more expensive than it was in 2016. It’s not difficult to see why consumers are looking for ways to cut back on their spending.
Advocates of dupe culture argue that dupes are perfectly legal. Unlike counterfeits – which pass themselves off as.
