About the MAC imitation and fakes in Chinese market

It is known that there are so many MAC imitation or fakes in Chinese market, maybe the same situation in other countries. The reason is MAC does not manufacture makeup brushes by themselves; they design their makeup brushes and logo, and send all detailed requirements to the Chinese makeup brush manufacturer. Therefore, the makeup brush factory who once manufactures brushes for MAC will have the MAC logo and design, which makes it easy to produce fakes which look exactly the same as MAC authentic brushes.

However, the fakes also vary in quality. Here we would like to introduce the MAC fakes in Chinese market.

1)      Extra stocks of MAC authentic brushes. That means the makeup brush factory officially produces brushes for MAC, but they produce more brushes and sell to Chinese market without MAC’s authorization. In this situation, those brushes can not be called fakes but a kind of tort, as the brushes are 100% the same as MAC authentic, the same quality, same material, same appearance, same logo, same packing and same barcode.

2)      Exact copy of MAC authentic brushes. Some makeup brush manufacturers have been in the makeup brush industry for many years and are very familiar with MAC brushes. So they can exact copy the MAC brushes, same quality, same material, same appearance, same logo and same packing even if they never produce brushes for MAC. However, they can exact copy all others but not barcode. As MAC barcode varies frequently, so if they have no MAC authentic samples with barcode on hand, they will not be able to exact copy the brushes. In this situation, even if the quality is the same as the MAC brushes, the fakes may be recognized by the professional users.

3)      Just fakes. That means the brushes are just logoed with MAC logo, but the quality are far away from MAC quality. Those bad manufacturers use inferior materials to produce makeup brushes but logoed MAC to cheat consumers. After getting the brushes, the consumers will see the obvious differences: poor workmanship, poor quality, and ugly appearance….just with MAC logo. It is the worst fakes, as the consumers may pay a lot but get very poor brushes.

Any imitation is infringement act and should be punished by law. But, for consumers, if they do not care about brand too much, the first two situations are acceptable if with prior notice from the suppliers, as the quality is the same as MAC authentic but price is much lower. After all, for ordinary consumer, MAC brushes are not affordable. But the fakes are the worst cheating, and will not only ruin MAC brushes but also hurt consumers.