How counterfeiting is changing for beauty and skincare brands

Lookalikes, bad reviews, and real reactions

Beauty and skincare brands are among the hardest hit by knockoff and lookalike products bought through unauthorized sales channels. Customers who buy these products often see poor results, and some experience negative reactions to dubious ingredients used by bad actors. Much of that frustration lands on the real brand, in the form of poor reviews and lost trust.

Enforcement takes more than one tool

Cutting down on beauty copycats has required a combination of approaches:

• Product knowledge, including patents on ingredients or formulations where they exist
• Platform policies against exaggerated or unsupported claims about a product's effectiveness
• Traditional IP enforcement through trademark and copyright

When copycats stay just inside the lines

On many platforms, Amazon being the largest, we see lookalike products from sellers who know how to make their goods look like yours without technically infringing. That can be deeply frustrating for brands, and it takes some education to build an enforcement program that accounts for it:

• Enforce where you can, using every right and policy available
• Pivot where success is less likely, instead of spending effort on claims that won't hold
• Distinguish your brand further through copyright and trademark, so future copies are easier to act on

Helping customers recognize fakes

Shoppers looking for deep discounts sometimes buy from less legitimate channels without realizing it. When the product doesn't perform the way the real one does, that experience becomes an opportunity: a customer who knows what authentic looks like is more likely to recognize the mistake and come back to the real brand.

We work with brands to add report links to their own websites, so customers who suspect they've bought a fake can flag it. Those reports can feed directly into our shared Slack channel, turning customer experiences into enforcement leads.

What this means for beauty and skincare brands

• Treat safety as part of brand protection. Fake beauty products can be more dangerous than typical knockoffs, and in the worst cases, life-threatening.
• Combine your tools. Ingredient knowledge, platform policies, and IP enforcement work best together.
• Plan for lookalikes. Know where enforcement will work, and strengthen your IP where it won't yet.
• Give customers a way to report fakes. Their reports can reveal sellers and channels you'd never find otherwise.