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Evening Standard
Evening Standard
Lifestyle

Affordable skincare: the best budget products with luxury ingredients

Once upon a time, ‘active’ skincare ingredients, the retinals, peptides, growth factors and acids came wrapped in big promises, premium packaging, and a hefty price tag. But now we’re in the midst of a cost of living crisis, and the beauty industry is witnessing a transformative shift.

Where “reassuringly expensive” - suggesting a higher price being synonymous with higher quality - was once a compelling motivator to buy, we’re now entering the era of Reassuringly Affordable: whereby more and more brands are harnessing high-performance active formulas and breakthrough ingredients at a fraction of the traditional cost. In so doing they are democratising access to transformative skincare for all of us, and acknowledging that affordability is no longer a compromise. In fact, it’s fast becoming the most compelling sign of value.

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