Crème de la Mer is the moisturiser people mean when they say skincare has gone too far. A 30ml jar lists at £165 on La Mer's own UK site, and even at the best current UK price it sits around £118 according to PriceSpy's La Mer listings. The 60ml is closer to £185. That is a lot of money for something you will finish in a couple of months.
So the search for a cheaper version is entirely reasonable. What follows is an honest answer rather than a flattering one, because most "La Mer dupe" articles quietly imply you can buy the same cream for £30, and you cannot.
What a dupe can and cannot be
There is no product on the market that replicates Crème de la Mer. Its signature is the fermented sea kelp blend the brand calls Miracle Broth, which is proprietary, and no one else has it. Anyone telling you otherwise is guessing.
What is worth knowing is how the cream actually works on your face. Crème de la Mer is a rich, occlusive moisturiser, and the bulk of the formula is a mineral oil base rather than the broth itself. Occlusives are not exotic. They sit on the surface and slow the water leaving your skin, which is the same mechanism behind the emollients the NHS describes for dry skin. That is genuinely effective, and it is also the least expensive part of any moisturiser to formulate.
This matters for your decision. If you love La Mer for the texture, the scent and the ritual of it, no alternative will scratch that itch, and you should buy La Mer. If your aim is a well-made moisturiser that keeps dry skin comfortable, you have far better options at the price than the shelf suggests.
Our pick
Nourish London Argan Skin Renew Moisturiser: £35 (50ml)
This is not a copy of La Mer, and we are not going to pretend it is. It is a different product built on a different idea: peptides and hyaluronic acid rather than a heavy occlusive base, and certified organic rather than built on silicones and mineral oil.
What is in it: Palmitoyl Tripeptide-5, a well-studied peptide, alongside hyaluronic acid for water-binding and argan oil for the richer, nourishing side of the formula. Soil Association certified organic and vegan.
Size: 50ml, where Crème de la Mer's entry size is 30ml. You are getting more product for a fraction of the outlay, which changes how freely you use it. People ration La Mer. That is not a small thing when a moisturiser only works if you actually apply it.
On the claims: Nourish London says it is clinically tested to a 25% increase in skin hydration over 24 hours, and it won Best Anti-Ageing Product at the Beauty Bible Awards. Those are the brand's own figures and an industry award, not an independent lab result, and we would rather label them that way than dress them up.
Pros:
- Certified organic, vegan and alcohol-free
- Peptides and hyaluronic acid rather than a mostly-occlusive base
- 50ml, so you can use it properly instead of sparingly
Cons:
- Lighter than Crème de la Mer, so very dry or mature skin used to that density will notice
- No Miracle Broth, no heavyweight brand, no beautiful jar
- Not a like-for-like swap, and anyone selling it as one is overreaching
Verdict: The honest recommendation for someone who wants a genuinely good moisturiser rather than a luxury object.
Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream Skin Protectant: £5.31 (30ml, was £20.74)
If the thing you actually want from La Mer is that dense, protective, balm-like feel, this is the closer match of the two, and it is a genuine cult product rather than a lookalike. It has been sold since 1930, and people keep buying it for chapped lips, dry patches, cuticles and windburn as much as for the face.
It earns its place here for the same reason the section above explains: it works by sealing moisture in. That is the actual mechanism behind the expensive jar, and it is not a costly thing to formulate.
On the price, and the catch: £5.31 is 74% off its £20.74 RRP, and with delivery it lands around £9. But the shop selling it at that price, Plusshop, requires a £9.95 per month membership to buy anything at all. That is not a hidden fee we discovered. It is clause one of their terms: "To make a purchase with Plusshop, the customer must subscribe to a membership."
The first 14 days are free and you can cancel, so it is possible to pay just the £9. The details matter though: you cannot cancel in the first 24 hours, cancelling ends the free trial immediately, and there are no refunds. Miss the window by a single month and the cream has cost you about £19, which is more than simply buying it elsewhere.
So the honest maths:
| How you buy it | What you actually pay |
|---|---|
| Plusshop, cancelling in time | around £9 |
| Plusshop, forgetting for one month | around £19 |
| Cheapest other UK shop, delivered | around £12 |
| Full RRP | £20.74 |
We are telling you this rather than quietly banking the click. It is a good deal if you were going to shop there anyway. It is also a good deal on a large single order, because delivery is charged per order rather than per item. For one jar of cream and nothing else, it is not worth the diary reminder, and the Nourish London moisturiser has no such strings attached.
Pros:
- The closest texture here to what La Mer actually feels like
- A real cult product sold since 1930, not a copycat
- Multi-use, so it will not sit unused if it does not suit your face
Cons:
- 30ml is small, and it is thick and slightly medicinal-smelling
- Petrolatum-based, so it sits on skin rather than absorbing, which some people dislike
- Only sold here through a shop that requires a £9.95 monthly membership
- Delivery makes it poor value as a single-item order
What reviewers say: This is one of the most reviewed products in the category, and the verdict is consistent rather than borderline. It averages around 4.4 to 4.6 out of 5 across Influenster, Google and Amazon, on tens of thousands of ratings between them. The recurring praise is versatility, its use on dry patches, lips and cuticles, rather than anything miraculous for the face. The recurring criticism is the smell, which people describe as more ointment than beauty product, and some long-term users prefer the old jar to the tube.
Verdict: The pick if you want the occlusive richness. The Nourish London cream is the pick if you want a modern everyday moisturiser.
The answer nobody makes money from
One more, and we do not earn a penny from it. A tub of ordinary Nivea Creme, the blue tin, costs a few pounds in any supermarket. It is also a rich mineral-oil occlusive. Dermatologists have made this comparison for years, and it is not a joke at your expense.
We looked at listing it and decided not to. The cheapest online price we found came to more than the supermarket price once delivery was added, so we would have been presenting a worse deal as a better one. If a basic occlusive is all you need, buy it on your next shop and keep the difference.
That is the honest floor of this comparison. Everything above it is buying a nicer experience, better cosmetic elegance, or ingredients doing something beyond sealing water in. Those are real reasons to spend more. They are just not the same as the cream not working without them.
If you want the fuller routine
A single cream is rarely the whole answer for dry, dehydrated skin. The Protect Skincare Essentials Starter Kit bundles a cleanser, toning mist, peptide serum and moisturiser for £32, down from £38, a saving of £6. It is the cheaper way in if you are rebuilding a routine rather than replacing one product.
If it is specifically the peptide side you are after, the Argan Anti-Ageing Peptide Serum at £35 layers under whichever moisturiser you settle on.
Quick comparison
| Product | Price | Size | Base approach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crème de la Mer | around £118 to £165 | 30ml | Mineral oil occlusive plus Miracle Broth |
| Nourish London Argan Skin Renew | £35 | 50ml | Peptides, hyaluronic acid, argan oil |
| Elizabeth Arden Eight Hour Cream | £5.31 plus a £9.95/month membership | 30ml | Petrolatum occlusive, the closest texture |
| Protect Starter Kit | £32 | 4-piece routine | Vitamin C and hyaluronic acid |
| Nivea Creme (supermarket) | a few pounds | 150ml | Mineral oil occlusive, no affiliate link |
The gap is not marginal. You could buy the Nourish London moisturiser several times over before approaching a single jar of the 30ml La Mer, and you would still have change.
Frequently asked
Is there a real Crème de la Mer dupe? No, not in the strict sense. The Miracle Broth is proprietary, so nothing replicates the formula. What exists are moisturisers that do the same everyday job of keeping skin hydrated and comfortable, at an ordinary price.
Why is La Mer so expensive if it is mostly mineral oil? You are paying for the fermentation process, the brand, the packaging and the marketing, in roughly that order of contested importance. Whether that is worth it is a personal call, not a factual one, and plenty of people genuinely love the product.
Will a cheaper moisturiser work as well for dry skin? For everyday dryness, very often yes. Moisturising is not the hard part of skincare. If your skin is persistently dry, cracked or irritated, that is worth raising with a pharmacist or GP rather than solving by spending more.
Is the Nourish London cream rich enough to replace it? It is lighter. If you specifically want that dense, balm-like feel, this will read as thinner to you. If you found La Mer heavier than you wanted, you may prefer this.
How we priced this
Our own prices are read from the retailer rather than typed in. We show what a thing sells for, not the RRP on its box. The figures above are current, not historic.
The La Mer figures are its current UK street price at the time of writing, taken from its own site and from price comparison listings, not the RRP. We quote a range because it genuinely varies by retailer, and we would rather show you that than pick the highest number to make our comparison look better.
No controlled comparison between Crème de la Mer and this cream exists on our side, and implying otherwise would be inventing authority we do not have. What is verifiable is what each contains, what each costs, and where the limits of the comparison lie.
The bottom line
If you want Crème de la Mer, buy Crème de la Mer. Nothing here replicates it, and a cheaper cream will not deliver the ritual that is a real part of what you are paying for.
If you want that rich, protective feel, the Eight Hour Cream gets closest for a fraction of the outlay. Go in knowing about the membership, and set a reminder to cancel. If you want a modern everyday moisturiser instead, the Argan Skin Renew Moisturiser is the sensible answer, and the Protect Starter Kit is the sensible way to rebuild a whole routine. Both sit in our Beauty & Skincare category alongside the rest of what we have checked.
For oily and combination skin, where the problem is shine rather than dryness, our guide to the best niacinamide moisturiser for oily skin is the better starting point.