The Impact of Beauty and Hygiene Counterfeits
Launched at the end of February 2024, the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) announced its most recent targeted awareness campaign, ‘Choose Safe not Fake’. With a direct focus on both beauty and hygiene products, the campaign has been designed to ‘help tackle the consumer demand for counterfeit goods.’ In an age where counterfeit products in both online and real-life marketplaces are so evidently rife, it’s important to be aware of the tangible impacts of fake products on both the brand and consumer.
Discoveries from the IPO’s campaign revealed the extremely unsanitary conditions in which counterfeit hygiene and beauty products were being produced and distributed from, unbeknownst to the consumer purchasing the product (often under the guise of a reputable beauty or hygiene brand).
Testing of the seized products found them to contain carcinogenic ingredients, rodent and equine urine and faeces. Understandably, executives from the campaign noted that it therefore aims to ‘reduce the appetite for these goods’ by sharing insights into the dangerous realities of such products, and should not be chosen over safe and reputable products from trusted brands for the sake of an attractive deal.
Not only does ‘Choose Safe not Fake’ expose the threatening realities of counterfeit beauty, cosmetics and hygiene products to both brand and consumer, but opens up a wider conversation about the detrimental effects of counterfeit products to a wide range of sectors,
Why Do Consumers Purchase Counterfeit Beauty and Hygiene Products?
There are several factors which can contribute to the purchasing of counterfeit goods, and this applies not only to the cosmetic landscape, but also to a plethora of other industries, such as tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, tax stamps and electrical goods. In many cases, consumers may be price-conscious and are therefore knowingly purchasing fake goods for the sake of saving money. However, this is often at the expense of the quality of the item and many consumers may turn a blind eye as a result.
In other cases, consumers may be purchasing what they think is a genuine product from an online retailer, but are instead unknowingly purchasing counterfeit goods masquerading as an authentic item. In each scenario, consumers are likely to be unaware of the dangers associated with counterfeit beauty and hygiene products, including their worrying lack of safety checks (especially for topical skin products) and unsanitary production environments.
How Does This Affect Genuine Beauty and Hygiene Brands?
While the consumer’s health and safety is at the centre of interest for those working to tackle the rise of counterfeit beauty items, the damage to genuine brands in the process must not be underestimated.
Counterfeiters prey on brands, replicating their product packaging, branding and more to attract consumers and dupe them into purchasing their fake products. In doing so, they are diverting revenue from authentic brands, tarnishing their reputation and hampering the trust with your consumers.
With the help of our world-leading anti-counterfeiting solution, brands can regain their power over counterfeiters and help to create a world without fakes with Quantum Base.
Quantum Base’s Solution to Anti-Counterfeiting for the Beauty Industry
Current beauty and hygiene product manufacturers are reliant on existing anti-counterfeiting solutions, such as holograms, to prevent their products from being cloned, copied or faked. However, this is not a 100% effective method, as counterfeit items are still infiltrating supply chains every single day and damaging brand reputations in the process.
Brands need to adopt an absolutely impenetrable anti-counterfeiting solution, and at Quantum Base, we can provide just that.
Known as the Q-ID® Optical tags, our patented anti-counterfeiting solution can be flexibly designed to suit the requirements of your product packaging with or without a QR code, no matter the size or scale of your items. Offering unbreakable security at an atomic level, our solution can be easily integrated into your current manufacturing process and can be read simply by a smartphone camera via the Quantum Base app.
By providing real-time insights into the supply chain processes, both consumers and brands are empowered to authenticate their products, thus transforming the future of authentic beauty and hygiene products – alongside products for a multitude of other sectors too. To learn more about our unbreakable quantum solution, contact our team today.
