No7

No7 is the flagship beauty brand of British high-street pharmacy Boots, first launched in 1935 as a small line of skincare and quickly expanding into colour cosmetics. For decades it has been the UK's best-selling mass beauty brand, built on a reputation for clinically tested, science-backed formulas at an accessible price — most famously the Protect & Perfect serum that sold out nationwide in 2007 after a BBC documentary showed it had measurable anti-ageing results.

On the makeup side, No7 sits a notch above pure drugstore: its Match Made shade-matching service, the long-running Stay Perfect and Lift & Luminate franchises, and the more recent Pro Artist line (cream bronzer, luxe liquid blush, matte muse lipsticks) have repositioned the brand as a credible 'affordable luxury' option. Pro Artist in particular launched as a deliberate premium-dupe range — high-end finishes and textures at Boots prices — which is exactly why No7 turns up so often in dupe comparisons against Charlotte Tilbury and Hourglass.