Consumers Are Unknowingly Buying Makeup Dupes
By Macaela Mackenzie. Photo by: Getty Images.
There’s a reason there’s a cottage industry growing up around makeup dupes: the knockoffs of your favorite products can be really and actually good. When you snag a faux version of a high-end highlighter from the drugstore or online, you know (and are cool with the fact) that you’re not getting the real deal—but imagine you thought you were buying the OG product, only to discover something about your purchase was off. Not cool. According to a new consumer report, more people than you'd think are unknowingly buying counterfeit makeup and skincare.
MarkMonitor, a brand protection agency that keeps companies in the know about falsies floating around on the internet, just released survey data from 4,400 respondents across 10 countries that found some pretty disturbing things about our online buying habits. First off, over a quarter of people are unknowingly buying counterfeit goods — including makeup, skincare, supplements, and even (shudder) medication —when they buy online. Of the fakes, makeup was cited as the most commonly purchased knockoff item, and the majority of falsies came from online marketplaces like eBay or Amazon where individual sellers have access to the platform.
The scariest part is how consumers reported they finally found out about their counterfeit goods. Receiving a knockoff isn’t just annoying, it can be dangerous — 34 percent reported they figured out the products in question were fake after experiencing a bad reaction. Yikes.
To be clear, there’s a difference between makeup dupes — the more affordable versions of popular products we knowingly buy — and counterfeits — knockoffs you don’t realize aren’t the real deal until it’s too late. It’s the latter that are way more insidious. A report from Bloomberg Businessweek released earlier this year reported that fake makeup is on the rise and is becoming a major problem, a la fake news.
Considering the sheer amount of goods we get online ($394 billion worth each year, to be exact) it’s scary to think the bottle of shampoo or tube of lip balm you snagged online might actually be from a sketchy warehouse located who knows where. While shopping for your staples and splurges online can save you time and cash, you don’t get to check out the products IRL before you buy. With every online purchase, you’re trusting that you're getting the real deal unless explicitly being told it’s a dupe. It's kind of a gamble.
Respondents blame the brands they thought they were purchasing, according to the report — 34 percent stated it was the brand's responsibility to keep counterfeits off the market.
Surprisingly, despite the ubiquity of dupes, 83 percent of survey respondents said they wouldn’t knowingly hit purchase on non-genuine products. To be fair, that number lumped makeup, skincare and medications together, and picking up a knockoff lipstick is a lot different than a knockoff pain reliever.
If you don’t want to risk not getting the real deal, buy directly from the brand’s website or a trusted retailer like Sephora or Ulta. And if you do wind up with a dishonest dupe, be prepared to leave a truthful review.
This story originally appeared on Allure.
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