Ooohhhh a favourite topic so here are mine-
Boots cucumber facial gel wash. Gorgeous scent, makes you feel fresh and alive when you use cool to cold water yet doesn't tighten your face. And it is very inexpensive at less than £1,50 a tube. The whole range is wonderful and my American and French friends clamor for me to ship it to them. I am a Cucumber scent hound so this is bliss for me when I blanch at the cost of Yes! To Cucumbers shower gel and face wash at nearer £9 a bottle.
Nivea cream in the dark blue tub- so cool in its design, rich, thick and perfect for really dry after gardening-skin. This meets my design needs too, fits little clutch and shoulder bags and doesn't get skanky in the tin- no crusty residues.
H Roberts Acqua Distilla Alle Rose Water is around £7,50 a bottle and lasts a long time. I first found this in Sardinia of all places and bought it because of the amazing packaging. However it turned out to be a wonderful product- gentle enough for reactive teenage skins and drier older skins whilst removing a good layer of London grime too. And the scent.....
Le Petit Marsellaise acacia or nut shower gel wash- costs just over a quid, sold in all French/Belgian supermarkets and is well worth stockpiling next time you cross the Channel. Same goes for Cottage caramel shower gel, Le Bourjois shower gels and Neutrogena Rain Bath which again smells divine with a slightly medicinal overlay which isn't as odd as it sounds. Helena Christansen turned me onto the Neutrogena and check her skin out. Michael Hutchence once described it as "like a sheet, pulled tight with no inperfections". That'll do for me.
Check out independent chemists for the Klorane range- I love the cornflower make up remover, the shampoos and gel washes. They look super cool on the shelf too and are so inexpensive for the quality. The dry shampoo with nettles is a game changer for those slob mornings when it is cold, you are tired and cannot be arsed to stand with your head upside down blow drying your mane. The cornflower comes in either a tube or a little bottle in navy. They work for small children too so if you don't want cartoon shaped and coloured bottles of kid shampoo in the bathroom with their hideously sickly synthetic smells stenches then Klorane is the brand for you.
Trader Joes organic coconut oil makes a great multi tasking moisturiser; add salt to it and it makes a scrub. Huge tub, not so huge price as it lasts. Any old coconut oil would do I think.
Another French pharmacy cheapo- Homeoplasmine ointment. Use as you would Elizabeth Arden's Eight hour cream at a fraction of the price. And it doesn't smell as rank. Avibon French vitamin A cream has that Retinol action without the price- another pharmacy inspired purchase and it has that stripped back design.
Another cult favourite is “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps”, made by a family company that has been making the stuff for over 150 years and it has that 'sold from the back of a 1860's travelling salesman look' about the design. Don’t be taken in by the idiosyncratic packaging printed with tiny, fanatical messages that read like the rambling tirades of an Old Testament Fundamentalist These are the Dr. Bronner’s “Moral ABC” that I don’t think anyone truly understands- quite entertaining when you’re stuck for something to do (or read) in the bathroom. I have the Peppermint Castille and the hand soap by the kitchen sink to get itchy washing up liquid residue off my hands.
I am a self appointed lip balm 'expert' and junkie. I rate Carmex lip balm in the little yellow tin and Blistex is a runner up in the slightly pharmaceutical design and scent category. They do last but I will concede that you may be left with a permanent gunky layer of balm stuck under your fingernails if they are long because getting it out of the tin without this happening is otherwise impossible if you have anything other than short nails. I won't buy the tubes design purist here 
It doesn't qualify as a cheapi e buy I guess but Lanolips lip balm in the bananan flavour is edibly gorgeous and it does last so maybe not quite as as the £8 price tag might initially suggest.