Divine Skintervention

Dupe Culture

• Ramón and Angelo • Episode 8

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0:00 | 38:08
SPEAKER_00

Hi Ramon. Hi Angelo.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, I have an ethical question for you. Uh, this has come up because I've seen various different people do this. So, um, if you are in a group picture and you want to Yassify yourself, you're gonna face tune yourself. Okay. Is it more correct to just face tune yourself and leave everybody else alone because consent? Or is it wrong to just facetune yourself because you're yassifying yourself to make yourself look better, and then everybody else is just gonna look like their regular selves?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I think everyone's beautiful in their own right. So I'm gonna start right there. Um I'm gonna be real. I'm gonna face tune myself. I'll send it to the group chat, and if anyone clocks it, then I'll be like, oh, do you wanna do you wanna fix something on you? But I love like a hyper yesified like moment. I don't know if you know who Shasha Susu is on Instagram. No. Oh my god, icon legend. But in that same vein, you have um Callista, Callista Gingrich.

SPEAKER_01

She's part of the reason I asked you this.

SPEAKER_00

Icon legend, Coco Montrice. Oh, she yasifies herself a lot. Girl, that's like to the tenth degree. It's to the point where it's it's a joke. I think it's a joke. She's in on it, I think. So no, I would I would yesify myself, just myself. I wouldn't do anyone else because of consent. But also at that point, it's like you're then pointing out all their flaws by choosing to yesify stuff about them.

SPEAKER_01

I think most of the time the reason people do it is because of their own insecurities.

SPEAKER_00

Yes ifying themselves or everyone?

SPEAKER_01

Yes if it's like they're probably looking at everybody else and being like, okay, yeah, everybody looks great, but oh, you know, I have a dark circle or my hair looks like this or whatever. I mean, my take on this is if it were me, I'd only yasify myself because consent, and it would be it it would basically be saying to the people that you're with, I had to yasify you because you're ugly.

SPEAKER_00

You weren't serving enough, you weren't to the same bar.

SPEAKER_01

Exactly. So I think my take would be only yassifying myself. Though I would never do that, I've never face tuned myself in my life. Um, usually my take on it is that if I look ugly, that's just how I look in that photo. And I also think, oh, here's another question for you. Okay. If you um take a group photo with people, or you take a bunch of them and they're on your phone, will you send out only the ones where you look good? Or do you just send everything?

SPEAKER_00

Third option, composite yourself looking the best into the group photo where everyone else looks the best. No, um, send everything, send everything. And I think there is, I this at this point, we're in such a curated, like uh skate uh landscape on social media where a few people are afraid to not have a flaw. Or no, they're they're afraid to have a flaw. They're afraid to be caught slipping and to like not be perfect all the time. There is something very, very endearing about being like, you know what? This was a really bad picture of me, but it's so funny, I can't not send it. You know who's really funny about this? Alison Turquoise.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

She always posts her like selfie fails, and I think it's really funny.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, I think that there is a shift coming. So maybe I was about to be like in our generation, in my generation.

SPEAKER_00

Angela's older, by the way.

SPEAKER_01

I don't know if you knew. Um, but yeah, there was this, I think, sense with Instagram and all that at a certain point that everybody had to look perfect all the time. And that's where the whole face tuning and yassifying thing came from. But I think that now there's been more of a movement towards just showing everything, and that's where like photo dumps come from and things like that. So for me in this situation, it's like if they're taking on my phone, I send people everything. I may not post everything. I'll probably pick the one where I feel like everybody looks the best, not just me. Um, instead of, you know, making a composite of me going in every single book.

SPEAKER_00

That's a screenshot for this episode. Um, no me, to your point, going back to the first first question is you'll always be a lot more self-conscious about yourself. And ironically, you'll see that in other people and be like, no, it's like great on you. Like, I love that on you. Um, or it's not something I notice on other people, but for me, it's something that specifically bothers me, and that's where it comes to I'll face tune myself. I haven't, I don't. But um transparency is important.

SPEAKER_01

This is this is all natural and the plastic surgeon.

SPEAKER_00

But um, I'll face tune myself before I ever do anything on anyone else because again, I'm not trying to make anyone feel bad about themselves, and vanity is just so subjective. It's overrated.

SPEAKER_01

It really is. Be ugly. Be ugly. As I've said before, everybody has the right to be ugly, and that includes you.

SPEAKER_00

Wait, which camera? This one.

SPEAKER_01

You. Okay, Ramon, I have a confession to make.

SPEAKER_00

What is it?

SPEAKER_01

It's that for years I saw the word dupe on the internet and I didn't know that it was short for duplicate. It took me a while to figure that out. Just like it took me a while to figure out that when people in the comments are like, Can we get a tube? Like a T-U-T. I thought that was, can we get a tut? It means tutorial, but they don't want to write out tutorial, so they're just can can I get a tube?

SPEAKER_00

Child left behind.

SPEAKER_01

Um, wait, what do you think? Okay, I spent all those years in medical school. They weren't covering this. Gen Zling. Yeah, exactly. But I think it's a good time to talk about dupes in the beauty industry and beyond. We've seen a new influx into the market of different brands that basically just make dupes, or some brands have been made off of the backs of dupes.

SPEAKER_00

And on top of that, there's creators whose entire platforms are built on here's dupes of these things, here's product dupes that are more affordable. Like it's its own thing.

SPEAKER_01

So I guess first off, we should go into why do we think that people want dupes? Obviously, there's a cost uh element to it, but there has to be something more.

SPEAKER_00

Shit's expensive. There's also just, I mean, I think it really comes down to I think shit's expensive, the affordability and the want to be a part of the beauty industry, the trends and all that, it definitely incentivizes people to want to try these different products and use all these things, but it's also a cost element. And like speaking from like experience, like when you're broke, but you need something or want something, you're like, Whoa, I really like this foundation. Uh, really good examples is I love the Fenty Soft, no, Fenty Profilter Soft Matte Foundation. Been a holy grow complexion product since it launched. A really good dupe, fraction of the price, Maybelline Fit Me.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, really similar finish and like skin feel.

SPEAKER_01

See, but in that case, I feel like Fit Me as uh an iteration of Maybelline or L'Oreal or whatever. Wait, Maybelline? Maybelline. Maybelline has been around for longer than Fenty. Like I was using FitMe Concealer back in the day.

SPEAKER_00

Actually, touch. And I'm not saying in the context of like FitMe duped Fenty. I'm just saying in terms of products that existed on the market. If you really love the uh Fenty foundation, this is an alternative. And it actually wasn't a launch that came after Fenty to try to mimic it. It existed in its own right, and it was just, oh, those live in the same sphere of experience.

SPEAKER_01

See, so to me, and I mean, not that my interpretation necessarily matters, but to me, that's not a dupe to say, hey, there's a less expensive alternative to this product that's maybe going to do the same thing for you. That's not necessarily a dupe to me because it's not duplicating another product. However, oh, she's got something to say. Finish. I would say, however, there are brands out there that are not only knocking off the product, the formula, the format, the packaging, the naming. I don't know why the first thing that comes to mind is do you remember like the milk makeup jelly tint?

SPEAKER_00

The little like cream, jelly, jello, cream.

SPEAKER_01

Jell-yeah. So I specifically remember another brand coming out after that, duping that, making the exact same format, formula, whatever, to jump on that trend. And the packaging looked the same, the colors were the same, all of that. To me, that's a dupe. It's not just, hey, uh, you like this really expensive milky toner, go for this other milky toner.

SPEAKER_00

And skincare is a whole separate thing. We're gonna get to that in a minute. Going back to color, because I feel like the first of all, sorry. Oh my god. So many thoughts. Um, to me, a dupe doesn't have to be a product created after to mimic. It can just be, hey, there's these two products on the market, similar, they've existed in different times, but they're very similar. That is a dupe for that. Where was I with this? Makeup. Oh my god, I lost my thought. I lost it. So much passion out the window. Damn.

SPEAKER_01

So, okay, then I think we have different definitions of what a dupe is to us. Do you know what I'm talking about though? With those brands. I'll name it. I'm not name brands.

SPEAKER_00

Makeup revolution, e.f., M Co. And I said, I will say, mmm, this is where it's some brands do it so egregiously, tackily, like it's white refrigerator behavior, in my opinion. And then there's other brands where it's like they're built so much on we want to bring affordability to our consumers. And that's where I'm like Revolution MCO or MC or whatever it's called. ELF. I feel like ELF is a little bit less because for me, ELF started as they were just really, really, really cheap products. You remember when you can get elf pods for a dollar?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, that's how they started. It was a dollar. And while I do feel that they make some dupes, that's not all that they're doing versus MCO, that's all that they do. They actually got sued by Charlotte Tilbury. And they should. Because their packaging and everything was too similar on a certain product.

SPEAKER_00

That's tacky. And the reason I say this, and I've seen videos talking about this, is the fact that, for example, Charlotte Tilbury will invest the money and the time and the effort into product development, innovation, creating custom packaging, all the marketing, all the branding, then they get all the hype for this. And then some brand comes in, steals the idea, they don't have to invest any of that money, and they can then sell an inferior version of the product for a fraction of the price. So it's like copying someone's homework or just writing your name on the group project without contributing anything to that. And yeah, ELF, ELF's business model was not built on dupes. They've had things that have launched, for example, actually going back to Charlotte Tilbury, they launched kind of a dupe of flawless filter.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

But to me, it was a very different experience. Packaging was similar for sure, but the ELF one to me was a little bit more emollient, oily, better for dry skin.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I mean, there is something to be said for following a trend versus making a dupe because I think I know what elf product you're talking about. And it is a foundation with a doe foot applicator, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's the same formula that they're trying to recreate, or even talking about my mind is going to lip oils, and one of the first really popular ones was the Dior one, and now all these other brands have lip oils, but that's a trend that's not necessarily a dupe. Though there are brands that tried to dupe the Dior lip oil for sure, and tried to put it in similar packaging, but there is a difference between trying to go to market with something that you know is going to be popular and trying to cater to people who feel like they're getting the same thing for less.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

I do think there's something psychological too about dupe culture where it's not just people don't have a lot of money anymore, which is true. There's an affordability crisis and everything's getting more expensive. But I also do feel that some people feel like they're getting over on brands by buying the dupe product. Do you see that?

SPEAKER_00

We're we're we're anti-big brand now. I mean, I see it. And part of it comes down to like uh people like to boycott conglomerates, and so it's like you go like the indie route. But I'm like, ethically, I don't even that's a dilemma because I'm like, I don't know which one's better or worse, in my opinion. I also just remembered what the thought I had that I lost was was in the context of the reason I don't believe in dupes for skincare, but I do for makeup is makeup, it's a very like literal cosmetic thing. You're looking at, oh, these are very similar colors and they're very similar finishes. They give you the same effect topically. Uh, like for example, two cream blushes. That's a dupe in itself. When it comes to skincare dupes, though, it's like, how do you categorize what a skincare dupe is? Because I'm like, is it the glowy finish? I'm like, what's causing that? What's the skin feel? What's the results, and like what's the associated benefit? It's like it's a very complex thing, and that's why I don't believe skincare dupes are necessarily a thing unless going back to like the revolution and MCO of it all, they're literally just trying to make a carbon copy of the original products.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's there's this brand. I have it up on my shelf there. I think it's called Skincare Generics. That they're they are very openly trying to knock off CE Farulic, La Maire, Skin Medica, and like they put it on there, I think compare to. Like that's so tacky to me. Well, that's so tacky. I tried out several of their products, they're much cheaper, so their their dupe of LaMaire is like 40 bucks, where that size of LaMaire would be $250 or something.

SPEAKER_00

As LaMaire lovers, sensorially and benefit-wise, does it match the same experience?

SPEAKER_01

You're gonna get us canceled. No. I after testing those products, and I made a video on this a while ago. I basically said it was not exactly the same as any of those products. It did not feel like a dupe to me, even though the products were good. They were not bad, but I almost felt like whoever's running this company is doing themselves a disservice because they're they're making products that are that are pretty nice.

SPEAKER_00

Two points to that is we've seen brands kind of unintentionally do this, and they don't even they're not even like dupe quality brands, but going back to CE Ferrulick, remember Drunk Elephant got sued for basically getting close enough to the CE Ferrulick formulation that L'Oreal was like, cease and desist.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah. If a formula is on patent, if you if you dupe too close to the sun, you will get burnt.

SPEAKER_00

But second point is the funniest thing to me is seeing people dupe the ordinary.

SPEAKER_01

That's crazy to me.

SPEAKER_00

That shit's already six to ten dollars. What do you mean, dupe it?

SPEAKER_01

How are you gonna make it cheaper?

SPEAKER_00

But there's a lot of brands who want to ride on that success of that notoriety and that association. And I mean, as a formulator, formulas are formulas, there's really not much you can do in terms of like if you launch two foundations, you're gonna have probably very similar ingredients lists, but the ordinary's formulas are so simple and to the point. And the marketing is so like the branding and marketing is so specific to the brand that I mean, honest Inky list was very close to that. And that was that is still the association people make to Inky List is like, oh, it's basically like the ordinary.

SPEAKER_01

I don't even think they were trying to dupe the ordinary. It was just a similar idea, and they got lumped in.

SPEAKER_00

Which is good and bad for them. But I know well, I when I will sorry, what I will say and I will concede is that ordinary is an American brand. When it comes to manufacturing and distribution, that's going to affect price points for global distribution. So I know market-wise, that's where like the local regional dupes come into play. Like there was one brand from India, I forgot what it's called, literally the ordinary, but because they're manufactured and made in India, it's so affordable for the local market there.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, there's less costs associated with buying that product because it doesn't need to be imported and there's no, you know, freight cost, tariff cost, all that. Exactly. Do you think it's possible to dupe formulas though? I know the ingredients list only tells you so much. So do you think it's possible as a formulator to get your hands on a product, see the ingredient list, feel it, and try to like work backwards to the formula?

SPEAKER_00

Kind of. A lot of us try to reverse engineer products, and a lot of it comes down to when you're doing product development and you have a formulation background or basis, you're getting the product, you're looking at the ingredients list, and based off general things, like you know, oh, usually there's X amount of glycerin in a formula. Oh, I know this emulsifier system, they usually recommend this percentage of that. You can kind of start to piece things together, but the big things is you never know A, if there's specific complexes. So when you're looking at an ingredients list, you see the individual things, but a lot of times if we're buying them, they're coming as three plus ingredients together into one complex because that's one whole emulsifying system. Or that's an extract that has water and this other thing, but also preservatives in it. So that's where you have to start to know a lot of things. Alex from Educated Mess, that's like her weird gift, is that she'll look at an ingredients list and be able to just like brain man it, be like, oh, like that's this complex from the supplier, that's this ingredient. So it's possible, but an exact duplicate in that point, it's not easy to do. And then another version of that is, for example, you go to a drugstore, a Walmart, a Target, and they have the like store brand version of a product. Um, I see it a lot with sunscreens, for example. Like you'll have the sun bum and then you'll have the equates branded sunbum. Um, a lot of times that's not reverse engineering it. That is going to the manufacturer to basically say, can we buy like the base or the chassis of the formula? Or sometimes it might be you go to a manufacturer and be like, we want to make this, you want to launch this, duplicate it, replicate it, reverse engineer it. And when you're not factoring the marketing behind the products, you can sell it for a lot cheaper.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I think also, isn't it, that a lot of these contract manufacturers own the formulas. Yeah. So they could do what they want with it.

SPEAKER_00

That's a big thing for these brands. It's some of them don't own their actual formulations, and you'll see versions of that pop up everywhere. An early example from when I first started doing content was you have the super dupe, un no, supergoop.

SPEAKER_01

Super dupe. You had a super goop, super dupe.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly, of the unseen sunscreen. And then that was hot. Supergoop got everyone into sunscreen, and it was honestly very positive. And then I remember actually making content, and then Kylie Skin launched a very similar concept, but the ingredients list was like 98-99% the exact same. An example of going to the manufacturer, probably seeing the formula. And we see this with Korean skincare a lot because Korean skincare is you go to a manufacturer, and basically, for lack of better word, you're attaching your name to a product, you're able to modify a specific percentage of the formula to make it your own, and it still maintains a lot of its characteristics. Um but there was a point where a lot of Korean skins where a lot of Korean sunscreens were basically the same chassis, the same base formula, but the ingredient story was changed a little bit to match the specific brands.

SPEAKER_01

And you know what? I picked up on that. I test so many sunscreens. I do a series every May called the SPF 30, where I give you 30 sunscreen reviews. And May is right around the corner.

SPEAKER_00

Notifications on.

SPEAKER_01

Skin Cancer Awareness Month. So uh there was one year that I tested out like a bunch of Korean sunscreens, and I got that feeling. I was like, these are all the same. They all felt the same.

SPEAKER_00

And I will say people will be like, oh well, these ingredients are below the 1% line. They can't be doing that much. You don't actually need a lot of certain ingredients to get benefits. So therefore, having these in there for an ingredient story and below the 1% line, you're still probably getting benefits of those ingredients and actually still getting the claims that the brands are making. Um, and you can do a lot in modifying hydration claims, skin soothing claims with that exact situation. Um, some of them to the finely tuned user, there is a little bit of a sensory difference. And I will say that's where like spending some more money and more time and investing in um like proper development for product is you're really fine-tuning the sensory experience and the user experience of a product. That's why the name brand of a sunscreen and the like equate dupe can feel very different at times.

SPEAKER_01

One thing that I must add is that when I tried all those Korean sunscreens that felt the same, I liked all of them. So it's not like they were releasing bad products. When it works, it works.

SPEAKER_00

And for me, there's it comes down to smell. There's actually one brand in this like Korean duplication of sunscreens called Mary and May that had a sunscreen that I don't know, they had a specific basil extract in there. Their sunscreen smelled like a margarita pizza. Ooh. I didn't like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, maybe not something you want to smell like all day. Just back to the store brand idea. I do know Cera V did some sort of like uh test of a store brand. Brand dupe of their original cream and found that it had like three times less ceramides in it.

SPEAKER_00

So and that's where it comes down to again, you're most likely making an inferior version of a product. Like again, if you look at the ingredients list and the 1% line, you don't need a lot of ceramides to get the specific benefits. So therefore, if it has to be at 1% or lower, and CeraV's is at, for example, say like 0.99%, you could have 0.03% of those ceramides in the store brand version, still in a similar spot on the ingredients list. And to Angelo's point, it's not going to perform the same or give the same extent of the benefits that the Cera V is going to give you because it's an inferior product meant to be just a lot more cost-effective.

SPEAKER_01

Would we say that they're dusting? Have you heard this term?

SPEAKER_00

A whisper.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Basically, you could make claims about ingredients in a product, and it's not like you need to have a specific active percentage. You could still say it's a ceramide cream, even if it's below a therapeutic level.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. And that's where clinicals really come into play. How is the brand justifying and verifying the claims that they're making to support the ingredient story? And that's why sometimes the better products do cost more because clinicals are not cheap.

SPEAKER_01

Segwaying a little bit, we covered makeup, we covered uh skincare. What about fragrance? How do you feel about that?

SPEAKER_00

Fragrance is a world that I come to more as a consumer as opposed to a developer. I don't do, I haven't done a lot around fragrance, um, in terms of like fine fragrance. Formulating with fragrance is a very different story. But I don't know. For me, when it comes to fragrance, I still prefer to invest money in that because that's where it's coming down to the performance, the longevity, uh, the quality of the fragrance overall. Eau de parfum versus uh eau de toilette. How is it lasting on the skin? And as the smell kind of sets in, how is that story still being presented? Some of the cheaper brands, they're just like it's a whisper, even on initial application, then it's gone after like what, five, ten?

SPEAKER_01

I just feel like they never smell quite exactly the same, whether it's something like Scentbird or Designer Imposters if you're an older person. Which I'm not. What they they would sell it in the drugstore and their name was Designer Imposter. Yeah, and it would be like inspired by. I don't know why my my mind is going to Demeter fragrances. They're not they're not a dupe brand. They just Who are these people? Demeter. Oh, Demeter is crazy. They make all of these scents that range from pretty normal, but just like one extract, so it'll be like patchouli, to things that are weird. So they make one fragrance that I think is funeral home. Like, but the they're not making dupes. I don't know why my mind went there, but yeah, you could get like gardenia.

SPEAKER_00

What does funeral home smell like?

SPEAKER_01

I smelldeh. I think it smelled like incense, if I'm remembering correctly. This was years ago.

SPEAKER_00

This takes me back to like the missing person from Fleur Controversy. I'm like, this is 20 times worse to me. What?

SPEAKER_01

Funeral home. Okay, so maybe another area, fashion, and dupes.

SPEAKER_00

Wait, real quick before we move on from fragrance. I will say I don't dabble in fragrance as like an actual like I've developed fine fragrance. I do rely on influencers and other creators who that's their tea. Zara apparently turns out the dupes. Really? A lot of the people that I really trust and rely on, Zara is the girl for the dupes.

SPEAKER_01

I think um their main perfumer now is one of the ones that does a lot of flur stuff.

SPEAKER_00

And Zara's crazy because they do pull in like creative directors and whatnot, because they it's like HM back in like its heyday 2012 era, 2010, where it's like HM really straddled the fast fashion and uh luxury fashion line. Zara kind of took that title.

SPEAKER_01

And speaking of dupes and fashion, they do the same thing and beat a lot of the luxury fashion houses to market. I think rather than getting into the whole fast fashion thing, I do want to talk about uh counterfeit designer goods specifically. Canal Street, Canal Street, baby. There is, well, the new version of it is DH Gate. Have you heard about this?

SPEAKER_00

I'm thinking DH DSW. What's DH Gate?

SPEAKER_01

DH Gate is a website. I believe they're based in China, and you could sell all kinds of stuff on there, but there are a lot of counterfeit bag sellers. So those counterfeits can range anywhere from being like super cheap to super fakes. Um, and there was a story somewhere, I think, within the last few years talking about even ultra-wealthy people buying superfakes of Hermes bags that still cost like several thousand dollars, but they're supposed to be mirror quality. So uh even somebody from the brand can't tell the difference. I don't know if all that's true. I think most people aren't buying the superfakes, they're buying like cheaper knockoffs. My issue with it is that a lot of these counterfeits are made using unethical means, and those supply chains have been linked to things like child labor and terrorism. I know people in the comments will be like, the big conglomerates are doing that too. Child labor, probably very unlikely when you have regulators up your ass.

SPEAKER_00

With the conglomerates, that magnifying glass is on, and the liability of that kind of story breaking is major. It's it'll it'll ruin a brand. Like, and I'm not gonna say it's not definitely happening, but the likelihood of it happening or to the extent, not the same.

SPEAKER_01

I mean, this was a bigger issue in fashion, I would say like 10 years ago, especially when it came out that uh certain uh manufacturers for different fashion brands were subcontracting out to manufacturers that didn't have really like ethical work plaque practices or like safe working conditions for their employees. But when you're somebody who's running an illegal business, do you think they care?

SPEAKER_00

Nor.

SPEAKER_01

Nor. So to you know, get a fake chanel bag for 200 bucks, you could have gone to a smaller brand and got something that's probably made out of better materials with better craftsmanship, but just doesn't have the name. Or you could have bought something secondhand.

SPEAKER_00

Secondhand, reduce, reuse, recycle.

SPEAKER_01

That's what I do. So uh going back into the beauty realm, do you feel like that there are any uh creators out there that have made a platform off of duping?

SPEAKER_00

There's so many. Not kidding. Um no, there are, and I think I love what they do because they do it with an express purpose, and it's definitely with the best intent. Uh, I don't remember her name. What's funny is I'm from Washington State. She's from the east side of the state. So A, I'm like Gaggy, the a big creator's from there. But her whole thing is she goes to like Ross, TJ Maxx. If I remember her name, I'll put her Patreon screen. But that's her whole deal. She'll find really cost-effective dupes. And the whole point, again, is people want to be involved. They want to be included and part of the community, and it's it's very inclusive, and I love inclusivity. Um, and I love what that is. She sticks mainly to makeup, which I really appreciate because, again, for me, that's what a dupe is fundamentally. These two eyeshadow palettes, it's a matte pink, very similar undertone. This is $3, this is $45. Great dupe. But there's skincare creators who delve into this because people are gonna probably name it in the comments. Nina Pool's a really good example of this. And I think she's super sweet. I love what she does, and I really like to see the success that she's had. But I remember when it first came to my attention, it was a matter of she goes to ingredients lists, she will tell you, hey, so you like the skincare product that has this ingredients list. This is whole separate product that has really similar ingredients, they basically do all the same things. I'm Googling them screenshot here on screen to show you what they do. This is a primer, this is a vagisil cream, or uh what was the one about the eyes? Or if you want this for your under-eye area, just use hemorrhoid patches. And it became a point of A, that's a massive liability. If you are telling someone to use a product for something besides its intended usage where it's not been safety assessed and tested, and there's any adverse effect, that's going back to the brand, but also it could go back to you for even recommending that. That is hugely dangerous, unfortunately. Uh, but the other thing is, and like a lot of chemists will tell you this you what you see on an ingredients list isn't what we see when we're buying the ingredients and formulating with them. And that can be even just like dimethicone and ingredients list. Uh for us when we buy it, it's based off of its viscosity. So you have Demethicone three centostokes, you have Demeticone 3,000 centestokes, and that's going from like super, super, super thin to like gelatinous, but it's still Demethicone and ingredients list. So it's one of those, like until you formulate and know all these things, it's hard to say like same ingredients on an ingredients list, buy this product instead. And plus, I'm like really anti-skincare dupe. Yeah, okay. Because, for example, this is a Ratina serum, and it's going to help with fine lines and wrinkles and pigmentation. What else does that? Vitamin C. Worlds apart, ingredients-wise and benefits-wise.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Well, yeah, and sometimes I have seen creators do this thing where they're like, oh, dupes, and it's like they're they're showing you two totally different products. And I think that sometimes it should be reframed, not like this is a dupe for that, but like if you're trying to get the benefits of this, but you don't like the price, maybe think about this. It could potentially give you the same benefits, but yeah, world's different. And I think a lot of people don't realize that the inky list is just there for you to see if any allergens that you're allergic to are there. It doesn't tell you anything else, really.

SPEAKER_00

Correct. My favorite thing is when people say, like, oh, well, this is water-based and this is silicone-based based off the first ingredient. And I'm like, a silicone-based product, for example, a foundation, that is a water in silicone product because a silicone is the external phase. That's still probably going to have water as a first ingredient. And people see that and like, oh, that's water-based. It's not, technically. So there's like a lot of things where unless you get the nitty-gritty and the formulation know-how and a lot of the intricacies of that, it's hard to like jump to conclusions. So for skincare, I don't believe in dupes. I believe more in like alternatives. Is that fair to say?

SPEAKER_01

Maybe, maybe that's a better framing of it. Maybe they're not skincare dupes, they're skincare alts. Correct. Alts. Alts.

SPEAKER_00

For your toots and your dupes. But it's like, it goes back to A, there's a lot of biological factors involved with skincare. So I can say a product works great for me and Angela won't have that same result. B, skincare is so dependent on specific sensory attributes that I might like and Angelo might not like. A really good example is I personally love that like unseen sunscreen silicone texture.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, I hate it. Great example. Not that it's a bad sunscreen or anything, but like a lot of them, like I have issues with the texture of it.

SPEAKER_00

And so then you're looking at that product, if you're looking at it very surface level, that is a throwing things out there. SPF 50 plus broad spectrum sunscreen that mattifies. You can get it could like a regular gel sunscreen that gives you those two benefits. It's not the same texture or feel as the sunbump. Is that a dupe? No. And even staying in that dupe element, going back to supergoop, super dupes, there's a whole family of sunscreens that are that exact uh silicone elastomer base. Yeah. So really good example, the Trader Joe sunscreen.

SPEAKER_01

Oh, that's a dupe.

SPEAKER_00

But theoretically, yes, but sensorially, it is worlds apart to the supergoop one. And actually, I think Sumbum has a version that exceeds both of those user experiences. Ooh. So theoretically, also a dupe, but to me, they're very different sensorial experiences.

SPEAKER_01

So supra dupe, even better. There's levels to this shit.

SPEAKER_00

But it's like it's like things are so nuanced when it comes to skincare specifically, that I'm like, dupe is such a weird term, and then you gotta really be careful where you tread on that. But it's really interesting to see how people have grown, making their entire content basis off of that, and then brands have like really like taken advantage of that want and that desire.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. Everything, yeah, ends up turning into marketing in the end, I feel. Capitalism. Capitalism.

SPEAKER_00

Anything else with this?

SPEAKER_01

I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00

Last question, Angelo. What is your favorite dupe product?

SPEAKER_01

Oh my god. I'm not I'm not a big dupe person, but uh yeah, that that super dupe from Trader Joe's, I felt like really gagged me because I did review it and I did compare both products. And while I found that they weren't exactly the same, it felt really nice. And I feel like at that time it was something like $8, $6. It was so cheap. So they really gagged me with that.

SPEAKER_00

My and this that's where it comes down to. We're talking about the skin suiticals earlier, and it's not a dupe because finally trying, I just finally tried skin suiticals, CE farulic for the first time.

SPEAKER_01

Wow, what took you so long? Two months ago.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not paying $880.

SPEAKER_01

I'm not paying $180.

SPEAKER_00

It feels like $880 sometimes.

SPEAKER_01

Um that feels disgusting. They make different vitamin C serums basically for different skin textures. So CE farulic does well with like dry drier skin.

SPEAKER_00

And for but for me, that's like the Durham recommended one. It's been around for ages. That is like the pinnacle of what uh Skinceuticals was known for. And I do know the other ones. I haven't tried those because again, I'm not spending $880. But um, in the world of CE Ferrulic dupes, Geek and Gorgeous did a fantastic, fantastic version that maybe, you know what, probably mixed with some of the other skin suticle ones that are better for oily skin? That shit is water on the skin. It also doesn't have as uh severe of a smell as the CE Frulick does. And the Geek and Gorgeous one is like eight dollars.

SPEAKER_01

What does CE Frulic smell like to you? Despair. A lot of people say that it smells like hot dog water. Fun fact. I love hot dogs. Me too.

SPEAKER_00

So that's not a that's not a hindrance. Ode a hot dog. Code for hot dogs.

SPEAKER_01

Oh well, to me it smells like coffee beans, but I don't know why everybody it's ferrulic acid. Ferrulic acid has that smell, and everybody's like it smells like hot dog water.

SPEAKER_00

There's some and there's some versions of products with ferrulic acid where it smells like powdered candy to me. Ooh. Not to the extent of like a sweet tart, but very similar vibes.

SPEAKER_01

But yeah, such as smell can really throw something off.

SPEAKER_00

Well, hence why sensory matters.

SPEAKER_01

And on that note, thank you guys for listening. Thank you for listening. Drop some of your favorite dupes in the comments. Not egregious dupes, but dupes. Um, what are your thoughts on this? Do you need a uh super dupe, super toot from us? I don't know what that would be.

SPEAKER_00

Coming soon.

SPEAKER_01

Coming soon. Um please leave us a five star rating if you enjoy the or give it a like, or I don't know where the hell you are, but do the affirmative thing because it it's really helping us.

SPEAKER_00

Please and thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Bye.