Aldi are at it again. They do love a cut price dupe don’t they? This time it’s Lacura Booty Balm, a dupe for Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Bum Bum Cream. Yes, it’s a bum bum cream dupe. I’m not making this up. Every home should have one.
So far in the Aldi dupe line up we’ve had Diptyque candles, Jo Malone home fragrances, Urban Decay Naked palettes and many more.
To be honest, I’m surprised at this one because I assumed that Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Bum Bum Cream was a bit of a cult pick. Like a lot of people I discovered it via the Liberty Advent Calendar. Once you get past the insane name, it’s a fantastic body cream with a unique, totally delicious vanilla pistachio fragrance. It makes your butt feel like velvet and smell like sunshine, which is a useful superpower to have. Maybe that explains its popularity.
At £6.99 the Lacura Booty Balm was frankly more than I wanted to pay for an Aldi body cream. But at that point I’d visited two stores and driven to the sunny wilds of Shoreham to find it so I was kind of committed to the chase.
Compared to the original it’s definitely good value – £6.99 for 250ml versus £44 for 240ml. Explains why some optimistic punters are selling jars of this stuff for three times the RRP on eBay. Maybe I should do that and recoup my petrol costs.
Aldi Lacura Booty Balm vs Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Bum Bum Cream
Packaging-wise, the Aldi dupe is a fairly close copy of the rounded, coloured jar with the white screw top lid. Looking at the two lists of ingredients side by side, there are a lot of similarities. Both contain guarana extract, cupuacu butter and coconut oil, which promise to help smooth, tighten and firm the skin.
The moisturiser glycerin is the third ingredient in the Aldi product (indicating that it’s present in a higher proportion), whereas it’s much further down the list for Sol de Janeiro. This in itself I have no problem with. Glycerin is a good, widely used moisturising ingredient. And of course the two were never going to be absolutely identical.
So how does the actual product compare? Colour and texture of both are practically the same, like pale yellow clotted cream. Scent is very similar, but not identical. Aldi’s Booty Balm scent is more muted and slightly less sweet. It’s lacking the Bum Bum Cream’s signature caramel punch. Neither does it last all day, as the original does. But as dupes go, it’s a pretty good approximation. Once it’s settled on the skin I honestly can’t tell the difference.
Product details
Aldi Lacura Booty Balm (RRP £6.99 for 250ml) is currently on sale in selected Aldi stores and online here. It’s currently sold out online so check back for availability. Aldi often do re-releases of their most popular dupes.
Sol de Janeiro Brazilian Bum Bum Cream is widely available (RRP £44 for 240ml). The little pot here is part of a travel set I recently bought here at Feel Unique.
More reviews of cut price beauty dupes here