
Target Gives Dupes Its Stamp Of Approval With MCoBeauty Launch
The hype around the “Wirkin,” or the dupe of the Hermès’ Birkin bag sold on Walmart’s e-commerce marketplace at less than 1% of the price of an authentic Birkin, has pushed the discussion of consumer demand for luxury item lookalikes into the headlines, but MCoBeauty has long been aware of their power.
Launching today on Target’s website and in 1,200 Target stores in February with 100 of its most popular products after entering the United States in March, the Australian dupe brand creates “Wirkins” of beauty priced at least a third less than their originals. Priced at $14.99 at Target, its bestselling Flawless Glow Luminous Skin Filter is an unsubtle interpretation of Charlotte Tilbury’s $49 Hollywood Flawless Filter down to the ridged gold cap, for example, and there are many more, including $10.99 Super Glow Bronzing Drops, a version of Drunk Elephant’s $39 D-Bronzi Anti-Pollution Sunshine Drops, and $7.99 Lip Oil Hydrating Treatment, a take on Dior’s $40 Addict Lip Oil Glow.
Meridith Rojas, CMO of North America at MCoBeauty, argues that dupes play an important role in fashion and beauty as traditional status symbols lose their luster thanks to social media. Collectively, the hashtags #makeupdupes, #beauty-dupe and #highenddupes have garnered more than 1.2 billion views on TikTok.
“We believe accessibility is a form of innovation,” says Rojas. “The internet is making it so that we can innovate quickly. We can see what’s trending, we can see what people want, and we can give it to them at a price that they can afford. We’re democratizing luxury.”
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MCoBeauty’s anti-gatekeeping attitude to beauty is it’s key to crashing retailers’ gates—and it’s riding it all the way to the bank. In its native Australia, where it launched in 2020 as ModelCo’s diffusion line, the brand discloses it’s the top-performing cosmetics brand in mass-market stores. Last year, it forecast sales would jump 292% to $247 million Australian dollars or approximately $152 million, according to the publication Business News Australia. MCoBeauty is stocked at Woolworths, Big W and Chemist Warehouse in Australia and New Zealand, and Kroger in the U.S., where it’s quickly become among the leading three makeup brands. The brand is part of VidaCorp, a consumer brand vertical of DBG Health, a health, wellness and beauty company formed in 2023 by Australian billionaire Dennis Bastas.
Going big at Target is a huge milestone for MCoBeauty and a validation of its practice, not that mass-market retailers have previously been opposed to dupes. As evidence of their embrace of them, Walmart has been big on fragrance dupes from Dossier, the brand known for its renditions of Baccarat Rouge 540, Black Opium and Flowerbomb. For Target shoppers, MCoBeauty has sharpened its pricing with the help of reality television and social media star Bethanny Frankel of “The Real Housewives of New York” fame, a Wirkin critic who MCoBeauty has appointed its chief value officer and reports has lent a hand in shaping pricing strategy. All of the brand’s products at Target are under $15.
MCoBeauty is hardly the only mass-market makeup brand duping trendy prestige products. E.l.f. Cosmetics, Makeup Revolution, NYX and Essence have reputations for replication. They’ve received backlash from many in the beauty industry who detest dupes for capitalizing on the hard work and creativity of product originators and worry that they eat into sales, but data shows sales concerns are unfounded. A Dupeshop survey highlighted by market research firm NIQ in an analysis of dupes published in 2023 discovered 98% of shoppers expanded their beauty routines due to dupes.
“The item that’s being duped doesn’t necessarily lose sales,” Larissa Jensen, SVP of beauty and industry adviser at market research firm Circana, told the publication Women’s Wear Daily last year. “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.”
“We’re democratizing luxury.”
Rojas says, “It’s about this ‘have-it-all’ mentality and really reclaiming the narrative that dupes are good. They’re celebrated. They’re not illegal. We’re not on Canal Street with a blanket in the shadows with a bunch of things that you shouldn’t be selling.”
MCoBeauty’s products undergo a rigorous process to ensure they don’t infringe on copyrights or patents, but it’s no stranger to getting in legal hot water. Tarte sued the brand in 2021, alleging it attempted to confuse customers by copying a specific pattern on the gold lid of Tarte’s bestselling Shape Tape Concealer. The same year, Australian brand Chemcorp sued MCoBeauty over a lash and brow dye kit that it claimed infringed on its copyright. The cases were settled out of court on confidential terms and resulted in MCoBeauty either rebranding the product in question or changing the packaging.
Diana Palchik, trademark attorney and founder of Beauty Mark, says potential legal issues involving the Wirkin bag, such as trademark and trade dress infringement, apply to beauty dupes. However, the outcome of any trademark-focused case brought by a luxury brand depends heavily on the brand’s ability to prove a likelihood of consumer confusion. Palchik explains it’s tricky for courts to adjudicate dupe-related trademark cases in the U.S. because the line between taking inspiration from an existing product and infringement can often be blurry. The word “dupe” isn’t regulated by Federal Trade Commission, although Palchik says “regulation is anticipated.”
In the meantime, MCoBeauty and its fellow dupe brands are walking the blurry line. Rojas says, “We are probably the most bold dupe brand, and we fly close to the sun. When you’re doing something bold, some people will have reactions. I always come back to this mantra that we have internally, which is, ‘Indifference is death.’ If nobody cares, then you’re probably playing it too safe.”

While the law plays catch up on social media-driven dupe culture, Amazon and TikTok have made efforts to curb the promotion of dupes on their platforms. For example, Amazon sellers are prohibited from using the words “dupe,” “fake” or “faux” in their product descriptions. Instead, Amazon suggests using language like “inspired by” or “similar to.” The hashtag #designerdupe has been banned on TikTok.
In addition to retailers, though, investors are increasingly warming to dupe brands. Asked via email about the possibility of fragrance dupe brand acquisitions, Sandra Nait-Amer, managing director at financial services firm Rothshild & Co, mentions private equity investors are considering whether they’re viable targets.
“Some of these companies are already reaching an interesting scale with sales in excess of $100 [million] and creating a brand name for themselves based on the quality of their dupes and their agility in execution (supply chain, DTC sales and marketing playbook),” she writes. “The TAM is also attractive…Finally, there’s a number of case studies in fashion and color cosmetics which would suggest these dupe models can have some longevity, especially as they naturally evolve into being more than just dupes.”
This story was updated with new information on January 13.
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