Exclusivity, not novelty. The lesson behind a viral beauty product collision.

What Happened Within days of each other Fenty Skin, Glow Recipe and Huday Beauty released identical packaged eye patches. This packaging dispenses a freshly sliced hydro gel patch when the user twists it. The brand’s responses are what marketed a PR crisis into a story viewers enjoyed on social media. Fenty Skin for example, posted a version of the Spider Man pointed meme themed around the dispenser, and the other brands leaned into the joke too.

Stats and Figures

Fenty Skin announced its “first” sliced eye patches on 17 September 2028, followed by Glow Recipe the next day, and Huda Beauty 4 Days later Korean brand Wonder Bath had launched the same format in July 2028, undermining the “first” claim. Cosmetic chemist Jane Tsui noted that this kind of overlap is not uncommon or surprising to people inside the industry, but consumers rarely see it happen in real time.

Business, Operational and Management Takeaway Novelty, innovation and exclusivity are all three different things. These brands did not fail at innovation, however failed at securing exclusivity. This is a contracting and supplier management problem. A brand that depends on a manufacturer should have a written exclusivity agreement with clearly defined scope, duration and enforcement terms. However, this can be hard to enforce if the supplier deliberately breaches. This applies beyond the beauty market, if your product comes from a shared supplier, you can’t count on it being exclusive unless a contract says so.

Finance Takeaway Exclusivity on a supplier’s packaging is a cost to be priced into the launch budget, not a detail to settle after money is spent. Getting the supplier to keep the packaging exclusive would likely have meant ordering millions of units instead of hundreds of thousands, which means protection brings a bigger upfront cost and more unsold stock risk if sales fall short. Paying also doesn’t guarantee protection. According to its founder Ceremonia, a hair brand, paid hefty molding and exclusivity fees and still saw a rival launch the same packaging in the same month, meaning the contract has to be enforceable, not just signed. Before committing capital, a brand should ask who else has access to the component and whether exclusivity can be bought and enforced. If it can’t, the packaging should be treated as a shared asset, and the spend should go behind what the brand owns, such as the formula.

Marketing Takeaway Fenty Skin met the coincidence with humour, and made the packaging itself a joke. This turned an awkward overlap into a shared social moment which gave all 3 brands PR. Glow Recipe made a different but equally sensible marketing technique by making a meme pointing to the gap between the container and what’s inside, saying the formulas were different even if the packaging looked alike. While packaging can be duplicated, the tone and brand identity is what made an audience pay attention. What could have become a public feud over who copied whom turned into a lighthearted joke that increased engagement and visibility for all the brands involved.