What the Evolution of Dupe Culture Means for Beauty Brands and Retailers

James Manso
·8 min read

Try to copy Charlotte Tilbury and you’ll be met with an error message — and a humorous social media rebuttal.

In a TikTok the brand posted last month showing a bottle of the brand’s Hollywood Flawless Filter wedged into a photocopier, the machine then spat out papers with messages like “Error! Copy impossible,” and “Legends cannot be copied.”

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The comments from TikTok users, however, tell a different story. “I have [E.l.f. Cosmetics] because Charlotte Tilbury is over my budget,” one comment read.

“[MCoBeauty Flawless Glow] is better,” read another that had 319 likes. The reel itself had more than 57,000 likes and 200 comments.

Indeed, Charlotte Tilbury is one of a handful of brands contending with dupe culture — the TikTok-fueled phenomenon where consumers look to find inexpensive mimicries of industry hero products. Last year, Olaplex inaugurated a campaign refuting that its many patents could be legally replicated in cheaper formulas. Regardless, the trend now spans categories, with both brands and retailers taking note.

“It’s always been around, but it’s picked up momentum in the last couple of years, since TikTok became popular during the pandemic,” said Emilie Hood, an analyst at Euromonitor, who attributes the rise of dupes to two key factors.

“Irrespective of where you are in the world, everyone’s budgets have been impacted by COVID, inflation and geopolitical issues. There’s also a gamification where consumers enjoy trying to find dupes,” she said. “It’s tough for the brands that are being duped because they are investing in innovation and new ideas, there’s so much funding. But dupes are good for the democratization of beauty.”

At the same time, the stigma around dupes has dissipated, which has helped their rise.

“About eight years ago, dupe culture was taking off from YouTube creators who were publicizing cheaper alternatives to more high-end beauty products,” said Alex Rawitz, director of research and insights, CreatorIQ. “It’s now a viable concept. The key switch has been that it’s not just creators who are propagating the concept — brands themselves have now leaned in. It’s a legitimate concept by which a brand can make itself known in the market.”

Per CreatorIQ data, the top beauty brands being duped by earned media value include Charlotte Tilbury, Rare Beauty and Sol de Janeiro; others mentioned with the word “dupe” include E.l.f. Cosmetics, L’Oréal Paris, MCoBeauty, Maybelline New York, Bath & Body Works and Milani.

“For a brand that is being duped, or you’re having other brands put out dupe versions of your own products, it’s wise to lean into it,” Rawitz said. “As we’re seeing from our market research, dupe phenomenon is a rising tide, and as a brand, you don’t want to lean away from any popular conversation on social media. It’s not a controversy your brand is being duped. It shows a sense of desirability that people want this product and can’t necessarily afford it.”

MCoBeauty, which hails from Australia, came Stateside less than a year ago. “We are still a baby in the U.S., but we’re very ahead of our growth curve. We’re growing extraordinarily fast,” said Meridith Rojas, chief marketing officer of MCoBeauty. “We’re starting to break onto the scene through the same recipe that worked in Australia, and that’s leaning into dupe culture. That’s not all we are, but it’s a big part of who we are.”

Nodding to a TikTok post wherein Bethenny Frankel called the brand the “Steve Madden of beauty,” Rojas said the brand is more informed by consumer habits than anything else. “We’re the first to take [duping] to a place and really say what it is that people want. They want the formula, they want the 360-degree luxury experience in addition to a luxury product. That’s where we’re gaining cult-like status.”

A quick scroll through MCoBeauty’s bestsellers page on its website shows its Flawless Glow Luminous Skin Filter, with a beveled cap akin to Charlotte Tilbury’s; its Miracle Anti-Aging Repair Serum, in a square, brown apothecary bottle that resembles Estée Lauder’s Advanced Night Repair Synchronized Multi-Recovery Complex, and rectangular bottles of Super Glow Bronzing Drops and Blush Drops that share similar shapes to the format introduced by Drunk Elephant.

“First of all, we’re very careful and making sure that we can do everything that we do,” Rojas said. “The speed at which we’re able to turn an idea into reality or a comment into a product is extremely fast when it comes to industry standards. I often say accessibility is the new innovation.”

In some cases, Hood reasoned, dupe culture could move the needle for the industry in ways beyond sales. “L’Oréal does a lot of partnerships with ingredient companies to develop more sustainable ingredients. If that technology becomes more broad and filters down to the wider industry, that’s brilliant,” she said. “But there is a danger of the industry getting a bit stale.”

“We haven’t had a huge breakthrough chemical in a long time,” agreed Susan Scafidi, founder of the Fashion Law Institute. “It’s about reformulations and innovation at the margins rather than a huge paradigm shift, and the extent to which those things can be copied and diluted.”

In the U.S. specifically, dupe culture doesn’t necessarily have adverse effects on the brands being mimicked, according to industry experts.

“The item that’s being duped doesn’t necessarily lose sales,” said Larissa Jensen, senior vice president of beauty and industry adviser at Circana. “The consumer who can afford the original is going to continue to buy the original. The consumer who can’t will buy the less expensive item. It’s two different consumers.”

But globally, the picture is murkier.

“Where the original brands miss out is where that price is high enough that it becomes inaccessible,” said Hood. “It needs to be significantly better to warrant a high price, and it needs to speak to that premium level. And there needs to be an extra benefit of consumers sticking with it.”

Legally speaking, in the U.S. “we’re dealing in the trademark realm,” Scafidi said. “It comes down to if the dupes are imitating the original product in such a way that consumers will be confused. Dupes that are one step further away, the beauty equivalent to a look-for-less, is annoying to brands because it does induce consumers to trade down. But if the consumer isn’t confused about what they’re getting, it’s not actually illegal.”

Scafidi acknowledged that dupe culture exists on a spectrum with “absolute counterfeits” on one end to brands drawing comparisons and reinterpreting packaging in more subtle ways. “In dupe culture, we have evolved past the illegalities to free-ride on the brand in a way that is technically legal.”

That even includes naming duped products in packaging and marketing, which is legal if used only to draw a comparison, Scafidi said. “It’s nominative fair use,” she said. “If you’re just using the name and you’re using it for comparison purposes, technically, that is legal.”

Such examples include fragrance brand Dossier, which mentions the juices that inspired its product assortment on its website. “Inspired by [Maison Francis Kurkdjian]’s Baccarat Rouge 540,” says a description of the brand’s Ambery Saffron. The brand’s website says its Woody Sandalwood scent is “inspired by Le Labo’s Santal 33.”

Skincare Generics’ products, for example, have “Compare to: La Mer Crème de La Mer” on one moisturizer; and “Compare to: Augustinus Bader The Rich Cream” on another. For Walgreens’ new Premium Skin Care range which debuted in September, its Moisturizing Facial Cream says “Compare to: Kiehl’s Ultra Facial Cream.”

“We know there’s a demand for top-tier skin care solutions that don’t break the bank,” said Heather Hughes, group vice president and general merchandise manager of health and beauty, Walgreens, of the brand’s genesis. “Compared to the current price of similar premium skin care products, Walgreens Premium Skin Care products are at least 50 percent less expensive.”

Wendy Liebmann, founder and chief executive of WSL Strategic Retail, noted that the phenomenon isn’t new, and also doesn’t see it as taboo. “In the beauty industry, it just brings more eyes and more sales,” she said. “The more people who have the opportunity to engage in beauty at whatever price point, the better for the industry at large.”

The challenges for retailers ultimately come down to speed. “It’s a bit of a nightmare,” Hood said. “Rather than dupes specifically, the trend cycle speeding up so much is the difficulty. The planning and deciding throughout is difficult.”

Liebmann concurred that the issue was bigger than dupe products for retailers. “It’s not a dupe discussion — it’s the Instagram and TikTok discussion. We now have a media that’s controlled by the consumer, and the challenge that retailers have in general is the ability to see what’s hot. You need to have a supply chain and marketing operation that says ‘this is hot.’ And you have to have space designated and ready to go, as opposed to waiting for 12 months to see what can fit on a shelf.”

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