ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Beauty’s Gray Area: What’s The Line Between Dupes, Benchmarking And Reverse Engineering?
While dupes have dominated beauty industry conversation recently, two common behind-the-scenes practices—benchmarking and reverse engineering—often raise similar questions around imitation and originality. To understand the distinctions between these practices, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 14 consultants, product developers, cosmetic chemists and founders the
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Rachel Brown·May 12, 2026·1 min read
The 30-second read
While dupes have dominated beauty industry conversation recently, two common behind-the-scenes practices—benchmarking and reverse engineering—often raise similar questions around imitation and originality. To understand the distinctions between these practices, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 14 consultants, product developers, cosmetic chemists and founders the following:
Where do you draw the line between benchmarking, reverse engineering and outright copying? Are there any requests you won’t take on? How often are you asked to recreate existing products? Are there or should there be industry best practices around these processes? What should consumers understand about how these activities differ from dupe culture?
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