The closest Kiehl’s dupe is CeraVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Serum for the Powerful-Strength Vitamin C Serum: both are built on pure vitamin C at about 10% with hyaluronic acid, and CeraVe’s costs about half as much per ounce. Next is e.l.f. Holy Hydration! Face Cream for Ultra Facial Cream, two fragrance-free daily creams made with squalane. Third, Vaseline Cocoa Radiant stands in for Creme de Corps, since both lotions pair cocoa butter with shea butter. For Lip Balm #1, the dupe is Aquaphor Lip Repair, and for the Rare Earth mask it’s innisfree’s Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask. A dupe gets you the product type, some of the key ingredients and the job. It doesn’t get you Kiehl’s exact formula or its textures, and two of the seven matches below are loose ones.
The seven at a glance
| Splurge | Price | Dupe | Price | How the dupe compares |
| Kiehl’s Powerful-Strength Vitamin C Serum | About $79 | CeraVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Serum | About $24 | Same pure vitamin C, plus alcohol |
| Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream | About $39 | e.l.f. Holy Hydration! Face Cream Fragrance Free | About $13 | Squalane too, fragrance-free |
| Kiehl’s Creme de Corps | About $39 | Vaseline Cocoa Radiant Body Lotion | About $10 | Same two butters, scented |
| Kiehl’s Lip Balm #1 | About $14 | Aquaphor Lip Repair | About $5 | Shea butter, fragrance-free |
| Kiehl’s Rare Earth Clay Mask | About $47 | innisfree Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask | About $14 | Bentonite clay, adds an acid |
| Kiehl’s Avocado Eye Cream | About $40 | The INKEY List Caffeine Eye Cream | About $14 | Loose: caffeine, lighter cream |
| Kiehl’s Clearly Corrective Dark Spot Serum | About $95 | Good Molecules Discoloration Correcting Serum | About $25 | Loose: same job, other actives |
Prices are approximate, and they change often.
1. Kiehl’s vitamin C serum dupe: CeraVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Serum
Powerful-Strength Vitamin C Serum, also sold as Powerful-Strength Line-Reducing Concentrate, has 10.5% L-ascorbic acid, which is pure vitamin C, plus 2% ascorbyl glucoside, a vitamin C derivative, and hyaluronic acid. The formula is water-free and alcohol-free. Kiehl’s notes that it can feel warm as you smooth it in.
CeraVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Serum has 10% L-ascorbic acid with hyaluronic acid, so the main active and its strength are similar. From there the two go different ways. CeraVe’s serum is water-based, adds three ceramides and vitamin B5, has no added fragrance, and does contain denatured alcohol, which some dry or reactive skin would sooner skip. There’s no second form of vitamin C in it. The bottle is 1 ounce to Kiehl’s 1.7, at about $24 against about $79, though the price changes often. Per ounce, that’s roughly half.
2. Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream dupe: e.l.f. Holy Hydration! Face Cream
Ultra Facial Cream is Kiehl’s #1 face cream: a lightweight, non-greasy daily cream with 4.5% squalane, glacial glycoprotein and pro-ceramides. It’s fragrance-free and non-comedogenic, and Kiehl’s says it hydrates for 72 hours.
e.l.f. Holy Hydration! Face Cream Fragrance Free is a lightweight, non-greasy daily cream too, and squalane is one of its five key ingredients, along with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, peptides and vitamin B5. e.l.f. doesn’t give a percentage for the squalane, and there’s no glacial glycoprotein or ceramide among the ingredients it highlights. The link here goes to the fragrance-free version. It’s about $13 to Kiehl’s $39 for the 1.7 ounce jar. Our Ultra Facial Cream review names CeraVe Daily Moisturizing Lotion as its budget swap. That one is a ceramide lotion in a much bigger bottle, and it’s the better buy if you want a lotion. If you want a cream in a jar with squalane in it, e.l.f. is the nearer match.
3. Kiehl’s Creme de Corps dupe: Vaseline Cocoa Radiant Body Lotion
Creme de Corps has been around since the 1980s. It’s a rich body lotion with cocoa butter, shea butter and squalane that Kiehl’s describes as non-greasy, and it’s made without synthetic fragrance. The 8.4 ounce bottle is about $39.
Vaseline Cocoa Radiant Body Lotion is built on the same two butters, cocoa and shea, with 1% vitamin B3 and what Vaseline calls ultra-hydrating lipids. Squalane isn’t among its key ingredients, and it’s scented: Vaseline describes the smell as creamy, warm and gourmand. If you bought Creme de Corps because it doesn’t smell like dessert, that matters. The price gap is the widest on this page. The 32 ounce bottle is about $10, nearly four times the lotion for a quarter of the money.
4. Kiehl’s Lip Balm #1 dupe: Aquaphor Lip Repair
Lip Balm #1 is a squeeze-tube balm Kiehl’s has sold since the 1960s. Its key ingredients are squalane, shea butter and vitamin E, and it’s fragrance-free. You apply it liberally, day or night, and reapply as needed.
Aquaphor Lip Repair is a squeeze-tube balm for dry, chapped lips with shea butter, vitamins and chamomile essence, and it’s free of both fragrance and preservatives. No squalane in the key ingredients. The tube is smaller, about a third of an ounce to Kiehl’s half ounce, so at about $5 against $14 the saving per ounce is about half.
5. Kiehl’s Rare Earth mask dupe: innisfree Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask
Rare Earth is Kiehl’s pore-minimizing clay mask. Kiehl’s says 90% of the formula is a clay blend of Amazonian white clay and bentonite, with allantoin and aloe to keep it comfortable. It goes on damp skin in a thin layer for about ten minutes, up to two or three times a week.
innisfree Super Volcanic Pore Clay Mask is a wash-off clay mask for oil and pores as well, and bentonite and kaolin are both in it, along with volcanic ash. It isn’t only a clay mask, though. innisfree adds lactic acid and walnut shell powder, so it exfoliates as you rinse it off, and the brand suggests once or twice a week. If your skin is oily but touchy, Rare Earth’s plainer clay-and-soothers recipe is the gentler bet. The innisfree tube is 2.82 ounces for about $14, against about $47 for Kiehl’s.
6. Kiehl’s Avocado Eye Cream dupe: The INKEY List Caffeine Eye Cream
Avocado Eye Cream, long sold as Creamy Eye Treatment with Avocado, is a concentrated water-in-oil cream. Its named ingredients are avocado oil, caffeine, beta-carotene, and sodium and copper PCA, and it’s fragrance-free. You rub a rice-grain amount between your fingers before tapping it on.
The INKEY List Caffeine Eye Cream is a loose match. Caffeine is the overlap: INKEY’s cream has 0.3% of it, plus the peptide blend Matrixyl 3000, and Kiehl’s includes caffeine for the look of puffiness. The textures aren’t alike. INKEY describes its cream as lightweight and fast-absorbing, where the Kiehl’s is rich and built around an oil. Both hold about half an ounce, at about $14 and about $40. Buy the INKEY for puffiness on a budget. Don’t buy it expecting that dense avocado texture.
7. Kiehl’s Clearly Corrective dupe: Good Molecules Discoloration Correcting Serum
Clearly Corrective Dark Spot Serum is the one Kiehl’s calls its #1 serum. It uses a vitamin C derivative the brand calls Activated C, along with buffered salicylic acid, and it goes on morning and night before moisturizer.
Good Molecules Discoloration Correcting Serum does the same job with different ingredients, which makes it the loosest match here: 3% cetyl tranexamate mesylate, a form of tranexamic acid, and 4% niacinamide, in a lightweight serum with no added fragrance. It’s also used morning and night. There’s no vitamin C or salicylic acid in it. The 2.5 ounce bottle is about $25, and Kiehl’s 1.7 ounce bottle is about $95. It’s the dupe our Clearly Corrective review picked too. Whichever you use, daily sunscreen decides how much fading you keep.
How we picked
We started with Kiehl’s best-known products, then matched each to one cheaper product of the same type. A match had to share a main ingredient or, failing that, do the same job the same way, and cost clearly less. No brand supplies more than one dupe. Pairs are ranked by how much of the formula they share, closest first.
When the expensive one is still worth it
When the thing you like is the thing the dupe leaves out. Creme de Corps has no synthetic fragrance and its dupe is scented. The Avocado Eye Cream is dense and its dupe is light. The vitamin C serum is alcohol-free and CeraVe’s isn’t.
The small stuff is the other case. Lip Balm #1 is about $14 and lasts for months. Saving $9 won’t change your budget, so keep it if you like it.
If I Were You
- If you only swap one thing, I’d swap Creme de Corps for Vaseline Cocoa Radiant, provided you’re fine with a scent. Body lotion is what you use the most of, and that’s where the gap is biggest.
- If your skin reacts to fragrance, I’d look at the e.l.f. fragrance-free cream, CeraVe, Aquaphor and Good Molecules, and I’d skip the Vaseline. For stinging or a rash that doesn’t settle, see a dermatologist.
- If Ultra Facial Cream is the one Kiehl’s product you love, I’d keep it and save on the things around it. At about $39 it isn’t where the big money goes.
- If dark spots are the whole reason you’re shopping, I’d start with Good Molecules. At about $25 for the large bottle, it’s a cheap way to find out whether a daily serum is enough before you spend $95.
- If your skin is oily and easily irritated, I’d keep Rare Earth, or use the innisfree mask once a week at most, because of the added acid and scrub.
FAQ
Is there an exact dupe for Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream?
No. e.l.f. Holy Hydration! Face Cream is the same type of product and has squalane, but it doesn’t have Kiehl’s glacial glycoprotein or its stated 4.5% squalane. Our review covers who should buy the original.
What’s the best dupe for Kiehl’s vitamin C serum?
CeraVe Skin Renewing Vitamin C Serum. It has 10% L-ascorbic acid and hyaluronic acid, close to Kiehl’s 10.5% L-ascorbic acid with hyaluronic acid. Kiehl’s adds a second form of vitamin C and leaves out water and alcohol.
Is Kiehl’s worth the money?
For some products, yes. The ones with a texture or finish that’s hard to find elsewhere, like the Avocado Eye Cream, hold their value better than the ones built on common ingredients, like a cocoa butter body lotion. Our Buy, Dupe, or Splurge reviews take other brands one product at a time.
Are Kiehl’s dupes OK for sensitive skin?
It depends on the product more than the price. Several Kiehl’s originals here are fragrance-free, and so are most of the dupes, but the Vaseline lotion is scented and the innisfree mask has an acid in it. Patch test anything new, and if you have eczema or rosacea, ask a dermatologist first. Our skin care archive has more on building a gentle routine.
Bottom line
Kiehl’s makes dependable basics, and basics are where a dupe has the easiest time. Swap the body lotion and the vitamin C serum first, since that’s where the dollars are. The cream and the lip balm are close calls you can settle by feel. Think harder about the eye cream and the dark spot serum, where the cheaper product takes a different road to get there.
