Can You Launch a Beauty Product Without Controversy?

It all started with Molly Sims in tears.

In case you aren’t as personally invested in beauty’s drama du jour, I’ll explain: Just over a week ago, the supermodel and founder of YISE Beauty shared a video to Instagram, venting to her one million followers about how an unnamed female-founded brand launched a product with the same name as YISE’s Wide Awake Brightening Eye Cream. The likes of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson offered words of support. Commenters quickly determined that the brand in question was Jones Road, founded by Bobbi Brown, which recently launched Wide Awake Brightening Concealer and Wide Awake Brightening Neutralizer. 

But before it could even be resolved, another so-called scandal was brewing: Just after Fenty Skin announced their Dew N Plump Fresh-Sliced Hydrogel Eye Patches in “first of its kind” packaging, influencers posted identical samples from Glow Recipe. And then Huda Beauty. Finally, Vitamasques revealed that they too had the same packaging slated for an upcoming launch. The situation quickly got the meme treatment, with brands from Burger King to BaubleBar joining in with AI-generated eye patches.

Still, there was more: Actor Kim Sensor accused MAC Cosmetics of not giving her proper due for popularizing the “anti-blush” trend, which they’ve promoted over the last month. And Eadem shared a (rather classy) statement after a white male creator suggested the Black- and Asian-women-founded brand didn’t include enough men in their marketing. 

Got all that? 

Those who follow the industry closely are used to ragebait, controversy, and discourse. But over the last week or so, something shifted: The sheer volume of controversies became so hard to follow, I started to disengage altogether.

Take “Eyepatchgate,” as it became known. As each brand announced their nearly identical products, it started to feel like we were being pranked by Big Skincare. Worse: Packaging that felt innovative and exciting mere hours ago was already feeling stale before it was even released. 

Huda Beauty, for their part, is already changing course. Founder Huda Kattan wrote in an Instagram comment that the brands were “screwed over by the same packaging supplier” and that “we are not launching it anymore.” For what it’s worth, Glow Recipe co-founder and co-CEO Christine Chang pushed back on that idea, telling BeautyMatter, “I don’t think it’s a screwed-over situation; it’s more like we saw an innovation we were very excited about it, and it looks like other brands got excited about it as well, right?” 

It’s only natural for founders to be protective of their brands. But when they’re hot to post, it can sometimes be counterproductive. In the case of Sims and YISE, the tearful (and now deleted) selfie video was successful in the short term—Jones Road agreed to change their product names and it certainly got people talking—but may have backfired in the end. The comments in a post poking fun of the whole kerfuffle are filled with people pointing out that YISE’s branding is similar to both Nécessaire’s and YSL’s. (The brand—pronounced wise—was originally spelled YSE, but was renamed when YSL Beauty opposed the trademark for YSE Beauty.) Nocturnal Skincare co-founder Daniel Kiyoi also shared a video alleging YISE copied their knot bag, without acknowledging the design’s Japanese heritage.

Sims’s decision to post on Instagram instead of reaching out to Brown directly also had many scratching their heads. “I think that she was probably emotional and posted in the heat of the moment, not really thinking of the backlash that she would receive from it,” says Kirbie Johnson, co-host of the Gloss Angeles podcast and writer of Ahead of the Kirb on Substack. “If she does feel like something was infringed upon, I think you owe it to the person to go to them first before taking things public, regardless of what the situation is,” she adds, noting that Brown previously appeared on Sims’s podcast Lipstick on the Rim. 

Ultimately, the naming debacle could have been the best thing to happen for Jones Road. “We wanted to take a moment to share how grateful we are,” they shared on Instagram last week. “Not just for our community but also for those who didn’t necessarily know of our brand before this week.”

 It begs the question: If brands are using controversy to break through in an increasingly crowded space, perhaps the old adage that “all press is good press” holds up.

That being said, Jones Road was an involuntary participant in the drama, and cleared things up quickly. It can be risky for brands to get too messy. “I think that brands have too much to lose if public sentiment turns against them, so I really don’t think people are going into it trying to create a splash,” says Johnson. 

Case in point: Back in May, celebrity makeup artist and founder Patrick Ta was accused of profiting off of a smaller Black creator when he launched his Transition Blush, a look popularized by makeup artist Ngozi “Esther” Edeme a.k.a. @paintedbyesther. Although Edeme has a substantial following in her own right, Ta is an industry force; he eventually apologized, and the ordeal seems to be in the past—but Ta still received negative comments on TikTok even months later.

On the other hand, one brand that has built a Teflon-like reputation for controversy is Tarte—and it seems to be working in their favor. Their brand trips are routinely a social media lightning rod, and in 2024, they were called out for sending some influencers Hermès bracelets, while others received boxes of Cheez-Its and candy. Most recently, Tarte received backlash around the campaign for their Snatch Stick Cream Contour, inspired by cosmetic surgery. The PR boxes featured recipients’ photos marked up with lines for different imagined “procedures.” 

Crisis communications and PR professional Andy Barr described the campaign to Modern Retail as “less like a beauty launch and more like a masterclass in rage-bait marketing,” adding that “It is very much the latest in faux-troversial marketing, and the internet is quickly seeing through it.” 

But Johnson views the Snatch Stick campaign less as ragebait and more as an oversight. “I do understand the vision [they were going for],” she says, adding that “It’s really hard to think of every possible thing that could happen, and also makes it like less exciting when all you’re thinking about is how someone could misinterpret something or how something could be taken in bad faith.”

It’s true that brands can’t always have eyes on everything everywhere all at once. And from the looks of it the near-constant launches aren’t going anywhere. So, perhaps we could all stand to bring the temperature down a notch or two. 

Take the eye patch debacle, which became an unexpected “Kumbaya” moment. “I think the way Fenty and the rest of those brands are handling this is the best you can do,” says Johnson. “You just have to laugh at some point.”

I’ll never argue that we should stop dissecting or discussing the topics that truly matter. Credit should go where it’s due, and there is always room for the industry to move forward—especially in a time when DEI initiatives are ending by the day. There are genuine issues plaguing the beauty industry, and ones we need to work on fixing. 

It begs the question: When everything becomes a discourse, how do we know what’s really worth talking about?