Will dupe culture destroy the beauty industry? Part 1
Is anyone really in the wrong, or are we all equal under consumerism?
There’s been astronomical growth in the mass cosmetics market over the last five years, which can be directly attributed to the rise of dupe culture. Manufacturing accessibly priced products isn’t new, but TikTok has ushered in a brazen new era, where brands flirt overtly with intellectual property laws in the relentless pursuit of new customers.
Discussions about dupe culture remain incredibly convoluted, as the topic unearths some uncomfortable truths about equality, fairness and aspiration. Brands on both ends of the spectrum have been quick to claim the moral high ground: aspirational beauty companies condemn the loss of their product innovation and intellectual property as ethically deplorable, while the most notorious dupers insist they’re democratising beauty by simply offering better value to the customer.
It’s clear that luxury brands mount their merit on exclusivity, while ‘dupe brands’ profit from making that exclusivity accessible – so is anyone to blame, or is it all just business?
The great dupe debate
As the beauty category has exploded on TikTok, a parade of prestige cosmetics have gone viral, from Charlotte Tilbury's Hollywood Flawless Filter to Dior's Rosy Glow Blush, Laneige's Lip Sleeping Mask and Drunk Elephant's D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Sunshine Drops. When these coveted products prove inaccessible – whether via price point, proximity, or stock availability – consumer desire for alternatives naturally follows.
A decade ago, a handful of mass conglomerates would fill this gap, reproducing similar products at cheaper prices for wider distribution. The references to originals were baked in – 'flawless filter' would become 'radiance veil' – but the art of inspiration lay in plausible deniability. Fast forward to 2024, and the likes of e.l.f. Cosmetics and MCoBeauty have abandoned all subtlety and made imitation their entire brand identity.
The visual nature of TikTok lends itself to familiarity, so it makes sense that products which appear suspiciously similar to their luxury counterparts can gain instant traction. The platform has effectively gamified duping by rewarding product affinity and amplifying the 'save vs splurge' narrative – when scrolling at speed, a Tilbury-esque gold compact can generate instant recognition, which allows a company to bypass the traditional (and expensive) process of building brand awareness.
It’s an effective strategy, at least in the short term. As Lily from Barefaced shared a few weeks back, search traffic for ‘beauty dupes’ has spiked in recent years as the cost of living crisis continues to crunch spending. While duping might be a winning formula for fast sales and social media engagement, questions often arise about such business conduct and what the implications are for the industry at large.
It’s (usually) legal and in truth, it feels almost inevitable once a beauty brand gains a certain amount of recognition. We’re aware that it happens in most industries, but when it comes to beauty, dupe culture is a polarising subject. So what does this tell us about our relationship to brands, and how beauty consumerism has come to shape our own perceptions of social class?
If you can’t beat ‘em…
No brand embodies this tension better than Australia’s own MCoBeauty. Founded by Shelley Sullivan in 2019 as the mass-market diffusion of Sullivan’s established company ModelCo, the brand proudly positions itself as a purveyor of 'luxe for less' products. While diffusion lines in beauty have historically sounded the death knell for a brand that’s willing to mortgage its prestige for a few bucks (*cough* Napoleon Perdis *cough*), ModelCo’s affordable offering actually did the opposite.
By the time its “little sister” brand launched, ModelCo had been around for almost two decades, with a strong reputation as an innovator of beauty products. The heated eyelash curler? Fake tan in a can? Brush-on false lashes in a mascara tube? They were each the brainchild of Sullivan, and I personally purchased and tried them all as a teenager from the upscale beauty floors of David Jones, which was then ModelCo’s primary retailer.
In their infancy, the products weren’t always good (I still have PTSD from that mascara, which coated my lashes in a weird white fluff that migrated and irritated the fuck out of my eyeballs) but they were exciting, category-defining and first-to-market. Vogue dubbed Sullivan an Australian beauty “trailblazer”, with ModelCo also known for its collaborations with massive celebrity names on capsule collections.
Sullivan seemingly had a knack for working with future beauty moguls, including Hailey Bieber, Elle Macpherson and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. In an article announcing Bieber’s ModelCo collection in 2016, WWD wrote:
Launched by [Sullivan], a former model agent, in 2002, Sydney-based ModelCo is known for its colour cosmetics, skincare and best-selling tanning products, with one unit of the brand’s signature Tan Airbrush in a Can selling every 36 seconds according to [Sullivan]. The brand sells through 3000 doors in five markets and expects to turn over 25million Australian dollars or $19million in fiscal 2017.
Those are some seriously impressive numbers, right? Of its success, Sullivan told the publication at the time, “ModelCo is all about the no makeup makeup look, we’re all about natural glamour – I’m not a makeup artist, unlike a lot of my competitors.” She also noted that the “fashion-based” brand had tailored each product in the range to “a Millennial girl” who is “of the now… what she wears and what she uses.”
It begs the question – if ModelCo was doing so well, why would Sullivan then seek to enter the supermarket with MCoBeauty in 2018, and risk its elevated positioning? There were rumours at the time that ModelCo had lost ground to its contemporaries, with other brands bringing out superior formulas in categories that ModelCo once dominated. Prestige beauty was bigger than ever thanks to Instagram and international players were entering the Australian market en masse, which made competition all the more fierce.
So, what was a switched-on entrepreneur like Sullivan to do? In essence, she decided to dupe herself.
MCoBeauty traded on the consumer recognition of ModelCo with a similar visual identity, but at a far lower price point. Products that looked suspiciously similar to ModelCo originals began to pop up in Woolworths with MCoBeauty branding, including the XTendLash Tubular Mascara, Lip Lights lip products (which famously featured LED lights and a mirror) and Magic Brows brow gel.
No longer targeting the “Millennial girl”, who by then was buying Glossier and Summer Fridays, MCoBeauty went after the mass consumer that couldn’t afford them. They began taking liberties with products that closely resembled other beauty brands – some shockingly obvious, and others a little less so. As Sullivan told the Australian Financial Review, she wanted to offer luxury-quality products at a cheaper price point.
“My customers are beauty-obsessed, but they don’t have the money to go into Sephora or MECCA,” she said. “And that is a big section of Australian customers who are being ignored by other businesses.”
…dupe ‘em
Today, MCoBeauty has completely eclipsed ModelCo. Despite being sued for trademark infringement twice, MCoBeauty remains unapologetic about its duping practices, which Sullivan downplayed to the ABC as simply a pillar of the brand’s marketing strategy. In fact, she goes so far as to encourage other beauty companies to dupe MCoBeauty’s products themselves, noting, “We're in the business of being completely transparent with our customers.”
Interestingly, ModelCo is still around and selling a reduced edit of beauty products on its website. I noticed that a number of ModelCo products on its website do look suspiciously similar to those of MCoBeauty. I’m certainly no formulator, but the ingredients appear to be almost identical – and yet some of the ModelCo versions look to sit at a higher price point. Hmmm…
Anyway back to uh, transparency. It’s a compelling point for Sullivan to make, as it could be argued that at least brands like MCoBeauty and e.l.f. are disturbingly blatant about showing their work. When you’re buying one if its dupes, the company has applied every visual signature available to them to indicate that the product you’re purchasing is completely unoriginal.
Is there a world in which such shamelessness is actually preferable to the brands that reference the work of others more discretely – whether they’re giant makeup conglomerates or a small skincare start-up – by copying a few key elements and slyly presenting it to consumers as if it were their own? For a direct dupe, to generate any shred of doubt about its origins would be the exact opposite of the desired outcome. When you buy it, you know exactly what (and who) you’re supporting.
So, who is really in the wrong here? I wasn’t sure. Then I had my own work ripped off.
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KL x
I work at MECCA and the whole debate about dupes is so interesting to me! I love that beauty products are becoming more accessible but something about the shameless imitating makes me cringe.
I used to be the biggest ModelCo fan. The foundation with the concealer in the lid was genius!