Let’s Unpack the Jones Road/Molly Sims Beauty Drama

I’ve been a beauty editor for more than a decade, which means I’ve seen a lot of new things come and go. I’ve watched everyone become obsessed with the same ingredient. I’ve received five versions of essentially the same product in one week. And I’ve sat through more presentations about glow than I could possibly count. So when I saw Molly Sims’s emotional Instagram video calling out another beauty brand for allegedly copying her, I understood why she was upset. But I also made me think, is anything in beauty actually original anymore?

Earlier this month, Jones Road Beauty, the makeup brand founded by Bobbi Brown, launched a new brightening concealer and neutralizer called Wide Awake. There was just one problem: Sims’s skincare brand, YISE Beauty, already sells a popular product called Wide Awake Brightening & Depuffing Eye Cream. It launched more than two years ago and has become one of the brand’s best sellers.

Sims posted an emotional video addressing the similarities. According to Sims, the issue wasn’t simply two brands landing on the same two words. She said the marketing copy and campaign also felt “too close to home.” YISE had previously used a hotline concept in a campaign; Jones Road’s Wide Awake rollout similarly included a hotline where shoppers could call for shade and undertone advice.

Brown responded quickly. She apologized, said Jones Road had not realized YISE had a product with the same name and announced that the company would rename its new launch. Brown also said Jones Road had conducted a trademark search before launching and found no ownership of Wide Awake. She later said the company plans to strengthen its vetting process with more competitive research and potentially longer launch timelines.

Case closed, right? Well, not exactly. YISE wasn’t actually the first beauty brand to put the words “Wide Awake” on an under-eye product and scores of other brands got in on the who copied who debate. Within days of the Sims/Brown debate, Fenty Skin, Glow Recipe and Huda Beauty all started teasing hydrogel eye patches packaged in nearly identical cylindrical dispensers. Twist the top and the mechanism slices off a fresh eye patch. It’s incredibly satisfying to watch—and apparently several brands thought so. Korean beauty brand Wonder Bath had already released its own version of the technology in July.

That doesn’t mean Sims didn’t have a reason to feel frustrated. Product development is expensive! And, building consumer recognition around a product takes years.

However, everyone is chasing the same trends, ingredients, aesthetics and language. Peptides are everywhere, and then exosomes are everywhere until the next buzzy ingredient comes along. One brand launches a lip oil and six months later I have 14 sitting on my desk. Someone makes brown mascara cool again and now every brand has one.

Consumers see identical packages and understandably think, Who copied whom? But that isn’t necessarily how beauty products get made. Brands can work with the same (or, really, competing) manufacturers, labs and packaging suppliers. They attend the same trade shows and see presentations about the same emerging technologies. They also see the same trend forecasts. And they’re all trying to predict what you and I will want to buy 12, 18 or 24 months from now.

But I also think we’re reaching a point where we need to separate copying from convergence. There are only so many ways to tell consumers an eye product will make them look less tired. There are only so many buzzy ingredients available at any given moment. And when every brand is simultaneously watching the same trends, working within the same manufacturing ecosystem and trying to appeal to the same Sephora shopper, overlap is inevitable.

I’ve covered this industry long enough to know that when one idea hits, 15 more versions are right behind it. The question, then, may no longer be who did it first? But, rather, who did it best?