Find dupes for your favorite products

Few things make me happier than trying a new product and finding that it’s a perfect stand-in for more-expensive favorite. In the past, I’ve discovered dupes for Colors by Benetton perfume, Benefit brow pomade, Escentric Molecule’s Molecule 01 fragrance,  two Tom Ford favorites (here and here) and so many more. Although these finds were purely accidental, I found a new online tool that lets you enter a specific product so it can give you a list of options with similar ingredients (and you even get a “grade” as to how close it is to the original).

Meet SkinSkoolBeauty, and you may never shop for beauty products the same way again. To test it out, I entered SkinCeuticals’ CE Ferulic—and I got a long list of less-expensive alternatives from brands I know as well as those I don’t. Then I tried Mario Badescu’s Drying Lotion, and I had success again. I also searched for Oribe’s Texturizing Spray and got a few options, as well as a message that the results were not complete since hair products are still being added to the database.

Honestly, I could sit here entering products all day, and you might just notice that you’ve tried several of the dupes for a certain product without even knowing it!