How Do Four Beauty Brands Launch the Same Product at the Same Time?

Each launch, every innovation, and every new product is for beauty brands a clear push to increase sales. A long-distance race in which they compete with an increasing number of rivals and which, every day, becomes harder to win. And the act of innovating has become an impossible mission in an industry that, much like fashion, is immersed in unbridled consumerism in which the consumer buys more for the type of packaging or format, than for the benefits themselves.

And the best example of the current state of the beauty world is the curious coincidence in the latest launches from four brands. How is it possible that names like Fenty Beauty, Rihanna’s well-known brand, and Huda Beauty released to market and almost simultaneously an original dispenser for eye patches? A strange coincidence that has more of reality than of coincidence.

All this was happening a few days ago when Fenty announced the arrival of its Dew N Plump Fresh-Sliced Hydrogel Eye Patches. The novelty lay in an airtight dispenser that stores the hydrogel and, with a twist, cuts a sheet ready to place under the eye. A format with which the singer’s company promised to reinvent the way patches are used, a product so viral in recent times.

The idea was good and promised to be that kind of guaranteed success story. Very showy, easy to use, and highly Instagrammable, the brand was already gearing up for that highly anticipated sold-out moment. However, Glow Recipe revealed that they had also been developing their own version for some time, with a cylindrical dispenser that looked very similar (or identical).

Hours later, Huda Beauty rushed to reveal that they would launch their first skincare product. After conquering makeup and being, without a doubt, one of the brands with the best track record, they ventured into skincare and the product chosen for it (yes, you guessed it) was also a dispenser for eye patches with the same mechanism: Undereye Jelly Patches.

And although it seemed like a novel formula, it turns out that in July the Korean brand had already launched its Slice Serum line also with a similar product. Once again, Korean cosmetics took the lead over the United States and were once again pioneers in the beauty industry.

But what happened? Although it has seemed like a controversial case that could have been the result of plagiarism, the truth is that it is merely a supplier coincidence. Packaging advances, ingredients, and formulas can pass through the same suppliers, laboratories, and manufacturers before each brand develops its own proposal.

From the controversy to the meme with humor

This was confirmed by Huda Kattan, founder of Huda Beauty: “I think it’s pretty obvious that the same packaging supplier pulled a fast one on all of us. The formulas are different, but they lied to us about the exclusivity of the packaging. It’s crazy.” In fact, this isn’t an isolated phenomenon; it has happened on other, less publicized occasions.

What’s interesting about this case is that the four brands have turned the situation into a playful social media game, embracing the “problem” with humor. Imitating the famous Spider-Man meme, they posted the coincidence and explained to consumers that, despite using the same format, each brand has a formulation that differentiates them from one another.