Another Makeup Brand Caught in the Plagiarism

The Chinese makeup brand QYAN is under the spotlight for allegedly copying Estee Lauder's brand.

---

According to CHAILEEDO, on July 22 this year, QYAN released a post on Xiaohongshu about the product improvement. QYAN said: the previous QYAN 24-color eyeshadow palette triggered hot controversy about its design. Now the brand was now urgently discussing the product re-shelf upgrade program. In response, some netizens commented, "The package is copied from Too Faced, exactly the same".

In response to the plagiarism, the brand QYAN recently issued a clarification statement emphasizing that the product design is completely original. In the statement, QYAN gave evidence of the filing and release dates of the two products. QYAN 24-color eyeshadow palette was filed in November 2019 while the release date of Too Faced Born This Way 16-shade Eyeshadow Palette is likely to be February 9, 2020.

From the available information, the two eyeshadow products are relatively similar in design and layout and are being questioned by netizens for this reason.

Under this statement, some netizens expressed their support for QYAN but many also questioned the evidence presented in the statement as not too rigorous.

One is the time of filing and the other is the time of product launch. The two points should not be compared with equal. At the same time, the release date of Too Faced products provided by QYAN is from a third party, neither the official time disclosed by the brand, nor does it specify whether it is the release date in the Chinese market or the global release date.

"Comparing the filing date of your own brand with the release date of the other party does not prove that there is no plagiarism. It normally takes several months from filing to release, and there also exists Too Faced's filing earlier than QYAN." Some netizens pointed out.

For the sequential issue of time, CHAILEEDO conducted some investigation. On February 9, 2020, Too Faced on its official Instagram did announce the debut of Too Faced Born This Way 16-shade eyeshadow palette.

However, this only proves that the Too Faced eyeshadow palette was launched later than the filing time of the QYAN 24-shade eyeshadow palette. In practice, the time of filing and the time of listing are often not equal, so it is difficult to convince the public based on this alone.

Public information shows that Too Faced is a well-known makeup brand in the U.S. The brand is favored by a host of Hollywood stars in the U.S. for its rich colors and personalized designs, and now has more than 12.8 million fans on social media Instagram.

In 2016, Estee Lauder acquired Too Faced for $1.45 billion and was once the seventh most famous cosmetics brand in the U.S. On July 20, 2020, Too Faced opened an overseas flagship store on Tmall in China, which has now been cleared out.

While QYAN is a makeup brand of Nanjing Shierchai Company. The company was established in September 2018. CHAILEEDO noted that QYAN has been stationed in major Chinese mainstream e-commerce platforms at present. In QYAN flagship store on Chinese e-commerce platform Taobao, the products currently have 23 SKUs with product unit prices ranging from $2.8 to $33.2, of which, the highest sales are QYAN 6-shade Yueguang Huaying Highlighting Palette with monthly sales volume of about 1,000 pieces.

However, CHAILEEDO noticed that there was no QYAN 24-shade eyeshadow palette in the flagship store. Investigation in the National Medical Products Administration's general cosmetics record information platform, it revealed that QYAN 24-shade eyeshadow had been written off on March 31 this year. The store's customer service said, "About six months ago, this product was taken off among all e-commerce platforms. Because the product was liked by many consumers, it was optimized and will probably be new at the end of September this year."

The reason why Chinese brands are always on the downside and become the object of questioning. It is also true that too many Chinese products have previously occurred to copy the big brands, factory brands copy the emerging brands.

"At present, many cosmetic packaging containers and cartons. Many brands only have appearance patents. In Chinese laws and regulations, if the brands make some changes in size, or make some microscopic adjustments, it is equivalent to a different patent. Many have no recourse." The brand director of a cosmetic company in Shanghai told CHAILEEDO.

The person in charge of a well-known Chinese cosmetic packaging materials company said "in terms of the cosmetics industry, our development is relatively slow compared to some foreign countries. Like food, drugs, cell phones, TV and other industries, they all has long entered the normative area and now are taking the road of independent innovation. The cosmetics industry, on the other hand, has a relatively low threshold for starting a business and it is more difficult to make a different product in a sea of brands."

However, for the moment, cosmetic companies are also increasing their awareness of their rights. For example, Perfect Diary has set up a special intellectual property team responsible for intellectual property registration, layout as well as counterfeiting and rights protection. Florasis has set up a chief counterfeiting officer, etc.

Overall, it seems obvious that by imitating the design of famous brands is not a good move. Not only is it easy for consumers to spot these tricks at a glance, but with a series of supporting regulations in place, the cosmetic market is becoming more strictly regulated. Copycats will pay a greater price. So it's time to stop this bad trend.