Aldi

At MSE, we’ve challenged you to ‘downshift’ your grocery shop for years (check our Downshifting Guide), but you can also save on make-up and beauty products by downshifting from brands to much cheaper ‘dupes’ – lookalike products, where often even the packaging is similar to the expensive brand.

Shampoo is an essential purchase for many, but between price rises and shrink-flation, is it still possible to save money? Of course, you can look for deals – but often you can save a lot more by switching to 'dupes', which are cheap products deliberately designed to look the same, smell the same and work as well as a more expensive brand. Only if you're willing to try them...

Downshifting is practically in our DNA at MSE, so naturally we want to avoid damaging said DNA by blocking harmful UV rays with sun cream... but it can be expensive. So I set out to find whether downshifting sun cream is possible, and asked skin experts about safety.