Are you buying fake skincare products online? The problem is more common than you think

SINGAPORE: Buying skincare products on e-commerce platforms instead of buying them in-store could mean paying a lot less sometimes, possibly by up to 30 per cent for the same product. But the price difference may not be the only difference. CNA’s Talking Point bought different types of skincare products to compare the e-commerce versions with the ones bought from official retailers and the brands’ online stores. And laboratory tests showed that most of them were not quite a match. One of the moisturisers only had 8 per cent of ingredients that matched the original. “It’s potentially a counterfeit,” said product authentication expert Ng Guankai, who has worked with brand owners to combat counterfeits for 18 years. With thousands of skincare products available on e-commerce platforms, the odds are that consumers have bought such counterfeits. Ng has cited industry reports suggesting that more than 65 per cent of cosmetic items bought online are fake. One of the reports — from a consumer group in the United Kingdom. K-beauty products have become a major target, owing to their popularity. Intellectual property violations incurred about 1.1 trillion won (US$746 million) in damages to K-beauty brands last year, according to estimates from South Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. To see whether online products accessible in Singapore were mostly authentic or not, Talking Point had 18 skincare items tested, three each in six categories: facial cleansers, face serums, moisturisers, face masks, sterile gels and sunscreens. All the face serums had a low matching score, ranging from 14 to 29 per cent, according to SGS Testing and Control Services Singapore, a private company specialising in product testing. These results indicate differences in ingredients or formulations from the authentic products, said SGS laboratory supervisor Chia Shi Yi. Two of the face masks had less than one-third similarity to the originals. All the cleansers, meanwhile, had matching percentages that were slightly more than half. WATCH: We test skincare products bought online — How likely are they to be counterfeit? (22:44) Only four of the products — one sunscreen and the three sterile gels — were almost an exact match to the originals. How harmful are counterfeit skincare products, then? What is being done to curb their sales online? Talking Point uncovers the red flags consumers can spot so they can tell a counterfeit from the real deal. A MEDICAL PERSPECTIVE One person who has treated patients who have suffered after using questionable products is dermatologist Derek Lim. Their skin complaints include redness, dryness and flaking, he cited. “At best (counterfeits) may just be ... ineffective,” he said. “In worse scenarios, they may contain things that may irritate the skin. Or they may contain potential allergens, which people can develop skin allergy to.” In the case of cleansers marketed for sensitive skin, he highlighted, companies will “try to use as little preservatives (and) fragrances as possible”. Counterfeiters, however, “might not be so (conscientious) about excluding these ingredients from their manufacturing process”. Dermatologist Derek Lim speaking to Munah. “If patients with sensitive skin unknowingly use these products,” he said, “then they might get more breakouts.” Once individuals are allergic to something, “they shouldn’t expose themselves to it in future”, he advised. When it comes to sunscreen, there is a risk that counterfeits do not contain the appropriate chemicals to reduce the skin damage from ultraviolet light. “You think that you’re getting sun protection, so you get a lot of sun. So it does make matters worse,” said Lim. “In many cases, when you buy a counterfeit product, you’ll be aware very quickly that it’s a counterfeit — especially if you’ve used the genuine product before — because it’s quite different. So you’ll stop using it very fast. “But a lot of the side effects of using these counterfeit products may only be evident in the long term.” Lim is a consultant at the National Skin Centre. HOW THE PRODUCTS COME ONTO THE MARKET Not all products that have different ingredients or a different chemical composition, however, are counterfeits. Some are parallel imports, commonly known as “grey market products”, said Ng. They are authentic and produced by or for the brand owners but are “meant for a different market”. These products might pass quality controls in developing countries, for instance, but may not necessarily meet a developed country’s standards, he cited. Two of the moisturisers Talking Point purchased online might be parallel imports, he reckoned. They had a 52 to 63 per cent similarity to the reference product. Parallel imports aside, skincare products are undoubtedly susceptible to counterfeiting because of their “high perceived value” and profit margin, said Ng, who identified several tiers of counterfeiters. There are those who “just want to make a quick buck”. Then there may be predatory competitors, original equipment manufacturers or distributors — with knowledge of the distribution channels — that “try to copy the products from the brand owners”. Ng Guankai is co-founder and director of business development at brand protection company Nabcore. The professional outfits, and their production of counterfeits, are often backed by syndicates, which can be found in Southeast Asia, North Asia and South Asia, he said. “The counterfeiters are making a huge profit out of it, primarily because they’re using (fewer) ingredients or even fake ingredients. And ... they copy the product packaging; they don’t need to spend money on marketing (or) distribution channels.” As all the product features are copied, it is also “very hard” for consumers to identify counterfeits, he added. TIPS ON SPOTTING FAKES The difficulty of detecting counterfeits is exactly why content creator Roy Tan has posted dozens of videos warning his 1,400 followers on Instagram — and thousands more on TikTok — of counterfeit skincare products. One of Roy Tan’s videos being played on Munah’s phone. “The (e-commerce) platforms want us to trust them, that the brands they’ve featured ... are all authentic,” he said. “But I realised that that wasn’t the case. And I felt a need to share because I thought a lot of consumers ... weren’t aware of the items they were buying being fake.” He used to work for a beauty distributor, so he has a little insight into the back-end distribution system. And he has some tips on how to detect counterfeits. “The biggest red flag would be the price. If the price is too good to be true,” he warned, “it’s probably not going to be authentic.” Roy Tan telling Munah about his experience with counterfeit skincare products. Another way is to see if there are repeated listings for the same product that are all the same, maybe save for a difference in the prices by a few dollars, he said. “When that happens, it means there’s a possibility that the product is fake. (The sellers) know that there might be a likelihood that (a) listing will be taken down, so that’s why they have repeated listings.” He also looks at the text on the product and the listings. “(Brands) tend to put in a little bit more effort, ... making sure that there are no spelling errors,” he said. “But these days, manufacturers (of counterfeits) are very smart about it, so I go (by) punctuation mistakes, like an extra space, ... extra comma.” He even looks at the font as there can be a “visible difference” on some products. And he will feel the texture of a delivered item to check the quality. One of the more obvious ways to differentiate between real and fake products is to look at the colour, including the packaging, especially if a consumer is familiar with a brand’s colours, he suggested. He showed programme host Munah Bagharib two serums that were supposed to be the same. But the real one was blueish, while the other was greenish. Tan had another pair of serums. These looked the same, however, with one “slight difference”: their scent. Instead of smelling fresh, the fake one had a sort of “plasticky” scent, he described. Even as he can draw on his experience in reviewing skincare products, some counterfeits “test (his) eyesight” and his “Spidey-sense”. “(With) some of them, you can’t tell the difference unless you have the actual product beside you,” he said. “It’s difficult, I feel, even when you have the products side by side.” His advice for consumers is to “have a discerning eye and be a little bit more careful”. The problem of counterfeit skincare products is more common than people think, Roy Tan reckoned. THE ENFORCEMENT ASPECT Talking Point’s online purchases were an indication of the problem. Munah picked sellers who seemed reputable; for example, they had received lots of reviews — with photos and videos of items delivered — and high ratings. So how did some of their products fall through the cracks? The question was put to Annie Tan, the director of the enforcement branch of the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), the main regulatory body involved in the testing of healthcare products. She replied that there was no way to test all the products on e-commerce platforms because of the volume of goods being sold. “We go by a risk basis,” she said. “It could be the fact that consumers complain about ... adverse effects from using the product. It could be that they’re saying that the product is counterfeit, and there are a lot of reviews.” Munah with the Health Sciences Authority’s director of enforcement, Annie Tan. Even then, she added, only a “very small percentage” of higher-risk products can be tested when these red flags appear. She agreed with Munah that the lab reports showing products that did not quite match the authentic versions were alarming. Still, the “primary responsibility” for discerning counterfeits lies with consumers, she said. “The regulators will play our part to proactively ... scan the environment for such products to protect the consumers,” she added, while pointing to product owners as “the only ones” who can tell the real products from the counterfeits. “(As) for the platform administrators, we work in collaboration with them to remove any such products from the market as soon as possible.” Annie Tan has seen her share of counterfeits in her 10 years in enforcement. The HSA seized more than 1.06 million illegal health products last year — about 9 per cent more than in 2024 — and removed 2,358 online listings of such products. The most common listings removed were for hair and skin products. The authority will get its information from consumers, industry players and enforcement agencies, both local and international, said Annie Tan. “At times, we even have our own platform administrators who’ll ... let us know that there are certain products that are dubious.” While the HSA’s enforcement reach does not extend to overseas sellers, major e-commerce platforms have terms and conditions that ban the sale of counterfeits and indicate a commitment to working with brand owners and enforcement agencies to remove such listings. The terms and conditions available on one e-commerce platform. When Munah messaged the sellers of the possible counterfeits she bought, some of them claimed in reply that they were selling genuine products. One seller questioned the authenticity of the original product the SGS lab had tested. Talking Point has passed the possible counterfeits to the HSA, along with the list of online sellers who sold them. “We’ll do the necessary investigation,” said Annie Tan. Watch this episode of Talking Point here . The programme airs on Channel 5 every Thursday at 9.30pm. Source: CNA/dp