“Making something that already exists doesn’t feel right to me,” she says. “It takes so much time to create newness. It takes staff and resources, and so much work. The cost of creating an original to market is significant. Dupes are incredibly lazy. It’s stealing the marketing, testing, development and product strategy. It’s all been done for them, and they just steal it all.”
Like Smit, Holme declined to share the name of the companies that have allegedly copied her, and says legal action would be too costly. “We are a start-up, we have to be careful with cash flow,” she says. “These companies deliberately go up against the smaller brands without big financial backing because they know they can’t fight back.”
Intellectual property expert Maria Sun, a partner at Ashurst, says that when it comes to beauty products, patenting is difficult, leaving many small businesses without the necessary protection.
“Beauty products are often generic – it’s hard to prove that something is truly original. The first threshold question [of a patent] is, has it been disclosed anywhere else before?” she says. “If it has, it doesn’t meet the threshold. Even if something is new, it also needs to be inventive. That requires a significant degree of creativity. In beauty, we are often dealing with variations of products that are already out there.”
If a product is patented, businesses must be vigilant about protecting the patent, says Sun, acting quickly if there is infringement. If a company has not patented a product, it can still allege that another company has copied its trademark. “It is really contextual and dependent on what the product is, and how close it is to the original,” she says.
Creaming it
For Shelley Sullivan, dupe culture has been a bonanza. Her company, MCoBeauty, takes well-known products and produces less expensive versions of them, alongside new products. Stocked in Woolworths and Priceline, MCoBeauty entered the US market in April and is set to turn over $250 million in revenue in 2024. Sullivan says her company operates legally and offers customers an alternative to premium retailers like Mecca and Sephora.
“We don’t counterfeit,” she says. “We dupe and we are proud to say that.” MCoBeauty’s Flawless Glow is a dupe of Charlotte Tilbury’s Flawless Filter, which “was something our customers loved but couldn’t afford”, Sullivan says. MCoBeauty’s version sells for $35, Charlotte Tilbury’s is double that. “But we do not mislead the customer. Everything is clearly labelled MCoBeauty. We are not deceiving people.”
Dupes, says Sullivan, account for about 40 per cent of her business’ products. Every product is run past a trademark lawyer. She has been contacted, she says, by companies alleging MCoBeauty has copied them, but “it’s rare. They’ll come and have a crack but the reality is we haven’t done anything wrong.”
Like Sullivan, Stefan Muff, the co-founder of Aerre, says cost-of-living pressures have given his business a boost. Aerre’s perfumes are inspired by big-name fragrances from brands such as Chanel, Tom Ford and Dior – and clearly say so on the company’s website.
“Cost of living and inflation have pushed consumers to be savvy and budget conscious,” he says. “We make quality perfumes but without the price tag of those luxury companies. [Boss spokesperson] Chris Hemsworth doesn’t come cheap. You’re paying for more than what is in the bottle.”
Some say copycat products are simply part of doing business, like Shaunte Mears-Watkins, CEO of Advanced Cosmeceuticals Skin Group. “Every high-efficacy product, there’s someone out there trying to make a version of it,” she says. “But the brands and products that dupe will eventually have to find a real point of difference in order to survive. The premium companies will continue to innovate and actually, those at the bottom will push them to do that more efficiently, and better.”
For Sarah Forrai, the creator of Contour Cube, an ice-roller she says was copied by Kmart, the problem is dupe culture itself.
“Calling it dupe culture glorifies it,” she says. “We should be encouraging people to create newness. Copying something and selling it for less shouldn’t be the aim for anyone.”
