The Dangers of Counterfeit
Photography by Xinyi Gao
Have you ever been on a website like Amazon or Wish and spotted that eyeshadow palette you’ve been dying to get? For an avid makeup lover like myself, this is very common. Many popular brands such as Charlotte Tilbury and Natasha Denona with prices over $100 are often out of consumers' budgets.
After scrolling through the makeup and beauty section on Wish, an e-commerce website, I found high-end brands such as Huda Beauty and Tarte. But something seemed off when looking at the packaging and the products themselves.
One of the products on Wish seemed to be a direct knock off of Huda’s Beauty Obsession eyeshadow palettes that were already in my makeup collection. The palettes are based on gemstones such as rubies and sapphires, with nine eyeshadows in each. On Wish, it had similar packaging with a small mirror and an image of a gemstone on the front. The colors, however, looked hard-pressed and dull compared to the original. Each palette on Wish is $6 compared to Huda Beauty’s palettes which are sold for $27.
Wish isn’t the only website that sells counterfeit makeup. Rebecca Ensom, a Community College of Rhode Island student, bought a fake Kylie Cosmetics Lip Kit from Amazon. After Ensom used the product once, it broke. Soon after, Ensom noticed the product didn’t look or feel the same as an authentic Kylie Lip Kit she used before. The visible contrast could be attributed to the different ingredients in the products.
In an experiment conducted by the U.S Government Accountability Office, 47 products were purchased from websites such as Amazon and eBay. The study focused on four common counterfeited consumer products, one of which was makeup. Of the 13 makeup products purchased, all of them came back counterfeited.
There are a lot of unknowns when discussing counterfeit beauty says makeup artist Yalett Alejandro from Fall River, Mass.
Although Alejandro has bought counterfeit items for review in the past she says, “It can be extremely dangerous considering you don’t know the extent they went into creating that product. Are they safe? Are they from a safe factory? There are just too many risk factors even in the ingredients.”
According to the FBI, some of the ingredients in counterfeit beauty products from third-party sellers could be damaging to your health. The FBI found known carcinogens such as arsenic and high levels of bacteria in these beauty products.
The ingredients found in counterfeit makeup products have reportedly caused drowsiness, acne, and headaches. If large amounts of arsenic are absorbed, the person can suffer severe arsenic poisoning. If not treated this could lead to cancer, liver disease, coma, and death, the CDC warns.
These products are made in extremely unsanitary factories, according to Gregg Marrazzo, the senior vice president and deputy general counsel of Estee Lauder Companies.
“If you took the most disgusting frat house bathroom, it looks like a surgical suite compared to these conditions,” Marrazzo says in an interview with Refinery29. “It’s filthy, there’s bacteria everywhere... it’s disgusting."
Counterfeit beauty has increased in popularity over the last few years. A simple Google search shows your favorite makeup brand for cheap prices. It is getting harder to tell the real products from the fake ones when it comes to buying makeup online. So, how can you tell the difference between the two?
“Always have a picture on your phone of the original product and you can compare. You can watch Youtube videos that compare differences,” says Ashly Ibarra ‘22. “Usually on the product or on the box it will tell you the ingredients, so if it doesn’t give you details of what’s in it, you probably shouldn’t buy it because you don’t know what it is made out of.” Ibarra says younger generations should share the information with older generations who might not know companies make counterfeit makeup products.
These counterfeit beauty products are knockoff versions of popularized items, produced in unsafe factories. Not only are these companies stealing a brand’s original idea and claiming it as their own, but their knockoff products may contain literal rat poison.
Although some may see counterfeit makeup as, in Alejandro’s words, “a simple, endless sale on higher end makeup products,” consumers must be aware of the countless health risks and stop purchasing these products in order to see a real change.
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This article appears in the October 2019 print issue of Your Magazine.