Are you new to the world of skincare? If so, you’ve definitely noticed the unbelievable rise of Korean skin care products. Have you ever considered buying those award-winning skin care products for a cheaper price? Well, don’t expect to have skin that is incredibly smooth and clear — also known as “glass skin” — if you purchase them from Amazon, as the products you’re getting are more likely than not inauthentic and actually scams.
If you’ve been on social media like TikTok or Instagram, you probably aren’t a stranger to beauty trends. Skincare routines originating from Korea are trending right now and are currently at the center of this trend. This past year, the winner of the Olive Young Awards 2022 in the skin/toner category, Anua, has gained recognition online. To get these products, you can use apps such as Yesstyle or Olive Young, which are verified places to sell Korean skin care products. There is one significant consequence of the attention these products have gained recently. A higher demand means that they are constantly sold out. If you try going to Anua’s official online store, all of their products are sold out. Although Amazon is in direct association with the manufacturers of some companies, they still sell — and get away with selling — fake versions of their products without stating if it’s a different version.
To be clear, not every company takes part in these kinds of sketchy practices. For instance, if you look up Anua’s official Instagram, they list Amazon as a website where one can buy their products, but the official website of Round Lab, for instance, directly mentions that counterfeit items are being sold on Amazon. Make-up users should be aware of what is being sold because Amazon vendors have ways to trick consumers into thinking that what they sell is legitimate.
“Many people who are influenced by these trendy [TikTok] videos may have little to no knowledge of or experience in depicting the difference between an authentic Korean skincare brand and a knockoff product,” Danchau Le (10) said.
While Amazon’s more problematic vendors may try to deceive consumers who don’t know any better, here are some ways to figure out if your latest Amazon purchase is genuinely from the brand it says it is.
A quick and easy way to verify whether what you’ve purchased is authentic or not is to check out the location of the product’s manufacturer and distributor. For instance, you can look at who it is sold by and check their location. If you click on the company and it lists a place that is not in South Korea, your item is likely not “the real deal.” Another way to check is to see the packaging or labeling of the product. You could have intended on ordering the Cosrx snail mucin moisturizer but got tricked and instead got an item that looks almost identical to the real product. Unfortunately, this can be a tactic that Amazon sellers use to scam people who don’t know any better about the products they buy.
The Daily Dot exposed this phenomenon with the help of TikTok content creator and beauty guru @kbeautymom, who shows one of these products in a video, explaining, “You can see it says a different company, not Cosrx, but they made the packaging look exactly the same.”
Now why would Amazon sell knockoffs of products they are verified retailers for? Unfortunately, because Amazon sells products from vendors located all around the world, many of them do not need to adhere to U.S. counterfeit laws and can lie to customers simply because it is profitable. There are so many other websites that are also authorized and are popular amongst Gen Z, but the fact of the matter is that genuine products cost more, so these Amazon vendors are preying especially on make-up users looking for affordable products that are “in stock” and will ship quickly.
In an article made by Seiler Skin talking about Amazon scams, SkinCeutical mentioned that “99% of their products bought from Amazon retailers were either completely fake or contained impure, untested or counterfeit ingredients.”
When these counterfeit products go around and start hurting people’s skin, the upset customer then goes on to leave a bad review. Both positive and negative reviews are another huge factor that helps determine if someone decides to purchase an item. Comments like these can impact companies in negative ways, especially when you take into consideration that these reviews were made over fake products that are neither the same quality as their brand-name counterpart nor meant for your skin.
To prevent these situations where the company’s name gets a bad reputation, those who have been scammed should try contacting the companies that have counterfeit items in their name or companies that are having their design of products stolen and used. Attention could help them because it increases the chances of them coming across these fakes and taking action against Amazon to get rid of those unsafe products.
“Some skin care products from Amazon are sold by sellers that don’t have much experience and the ingredients in them can cause chemical burns,” Aileen Sinchi (10) said.
The ingredients that some of these knockoffs are filled with are unhealthy to put on your skin, which will make people’s skin have a bad reaction which leads to them getting a bunch of pimples. Having acne can worsen people’s confidence, especially if they are trying to eliminate any marks. The reason why skin care is trending is to promote self-care by making yourself feel more content with nicer skin. As someone who tries to have clean skin, it can take a toll on somebody’s confidence. It proves to be an upsetting concept that new consumers are trying to have more glamorous skin, but instead, they get tricked since they don’t know right from wrong and therefore get affected by this.
With the rise of skincare products, Amazon has been turning a blind eye to many fraudulent sellers. This business practice harms the companies that do ensure ingredients work wonders on the skin. Amazon’s outside vendor scamming needs to be put to an end once and for all, but in the meantime, be careful what you purchase when scrolling online!
