Real Techniques: “Duped” by Beauty Bar

We started looking into Real Techniques makeup brushes and Beauty Blender prices lately on different forums because we needed to upgrade our tools. One day we came across Beauty Bar’s website with their too-good-to-be-true prices on various products such as Real Techniques and Beauty Blender that matched brands’ retail prices. Sadaf and I both were tempted to buy but being extremely careful as we didn’t want any dupes, we had to go around and ask fellow bloggers (I won’t take any names here) if they had already bought from them or not, and came across a few who had bought Beauty Blenders from them and claimed those to be real.

Still unsatisfied, Fizzah wrote to Beauty Bar’s customer care asking if they really sold original Real Techniques Brushes, because dupes would be the last thing she would want in her stash – the kind of maniac she is in this case. The reply came after a few days, which itself looked phony, telling they were sorry for the delayed response and that yes they sold 100% original stuff. We shared the email among our own bloggers friends’ group and were shocked to learn that the same email, exactly same email was received by one of our blogger friends when she had emailed them the same query a few months prior to us. Unfortunately, we do not have the email anymore to share a screenshot here but to ensure we did while writing this post, Sadaf wrote to them again last night and we have not received any reply yet. However, we add a few screenshots here of them claiming on their social media accounts that they sell original Real Techniques brushes.

Would you care disclosing those “authorized” dealers please?

We weren’t really satisfied yet were tempted to buy Real Techniques from them. Fizzah had already bought Real Techniques Expert Face Brush and Stippling Brush from La Viva Glam, a Facebook Store known for their reliability among bloggers and selling original stuff and Sadaf already owned an Expert Face Brush and a Real Techniques Blush Brush from last year bought from another reliable source Beautified.pk. We finally decided to give Beauty Bar a try and purchased Expert Face Brush which we already had in our stash so we may compare the two and decide for ourselves if they really sold original stuff at those amazing prices. We also added some L.A. Girl Pro Concealers to our order as well and this is what happened…

What Really Happened?

There are no words to express how we felt when Fizzah compared the Expert Face Brush from Beauty Bar with the real one she owns. This new one was meant to be a gift to Sadaf’s sister so you can imagine our disappointment at this fraud. There are plenty of companies like Ali Express, ebay, Amazon that sell dupes and it isn’t very difficult to purchase from them and label them as real, however those companies do not claim their products to be original but first copies and that is how they sell them unlike Beauty Bar.

We did not really intend to write this post but we owe our fellow bloggers and friends a favour. It saddens us to see that girls who would buy their very first Real Techniques brushes from Beauty Bar would think they got the original stuff but actually they got scammed.

Here we list a few pointers with pictures that separate a real Real Techniques Expert Face Brush from its dupe.

Disclaimer: All the pictures are taken with a Samsung Galaxy S4 and are the sole property of The Pout Painters.

This comparison is presented purely with the intention to spread awareness and for those of you who wish to purchase dupes; we shall be posting a thorough review and comparison of the dupe and original Expert Face Brush soon.

Real or Fake – How To Tell?

Obviously unless you have a real brush to compare the dupe to, you cannot tell if it’s real or not. And for someone who has seen and used a real one, Fizzah didn’t even have to take the two out of their packaging to pass the final verdict that Beauty Bar’s Real Techniques’ Expert Face Brush was a 100% fake.

The Packaging: The orange colour on the fake’s packaging on the front as well as the back is a lot dull. If you see both side by side, the real packaging has a brighter orange colour on it. That goes for the font as well which is dull on the fake. Sam and Nic’s faces in the picture on the fake packaging are white-washed while you can actually see their real skin in the picture on the actual one.

Overall, the fake packaging looks flimsy and dirty in terms of printing.

The Brush: The fake brush head is a lot bigger in size. The colour of the bristles on the fake one is dark brown while it is actually black on the real one. You can easily spot this difference by tilting the brush under light. Because the bristles on the fake one are longer, they bend a lot if you press the brush’s head with your palm, this does not happen with the original one.

The fake brush has a dent from pressing the ferrule near the head which you do not find on the real one. Besides that, I spotted one or two more dents on the ferrule of the fake brush. The orange colour of the ferrule on the real one has a slight pink tone to it which is missing from the fake one. The finish of the ferrule on the real RT brush is a lot smoother than the fake one.

The colour of the printing on the brush, again like the packaging is a dull, dirty orange unlike the bright orange on the real one. The printing if you look closely on the fake one isn’t really a job well-done such as the font ‘TECH’ written in bold on the ferrule of the brush isn’t thorough and has tiny spots which means the printing was done by saving on the ink.

For those of you who are familiar with printing on a regular printer know you have to set the print resolution of the image on a minimum of 600 before you take out the print to prevent pixilation. That pixilation is what you see on a fake RT brush.

If you run your finger on the edges of the rubber part, you will feel the real brush to have a smoother finish while the fake one’s rubber has pointy circumference.

We hope these points will help you spot a real Real Techniques brush from a fake one.

What To Do Now?

We have already heard from bloggers who have tried known dupes of Real Techniques brushes that they perform fine but obviously the purpose of the brush changes as the shape and bristles change.

If you have had enough of such scammers robbing good honest people of their hard earned money, please speak up. We urge you to boycott such companies and share your story or thoughts on this matter using the #dupedbybeautybar on your social media. Let such fake companies know that women may be crazy about beauty but they are not stupid.

One might argue that they may be selling fakes mixed with the real ones and it was just our bad luck that we got a fake one. Even then, it’s dishonesty and unethical for them to do so. We had planned to purchase more Real Techniques brushes from them after ensuring they sold real stuff but now we are not sure we will even buy any other brand’s products from them. Our advice to you too? Shop from Beauty Bar at your own risk.

As for us, we will always give you our honest opinion on any store or product and you are most welcome to join in the discussions.

Our Rating

0/5

Pros

Quick delivery

Free delivery on shopping over PKR 2000

Offer COD

Cons

Lying about dupes being originals

Selling dupes at the retail prices of originals

What have you guys purchased from Beauty Bar? Let us know in the comments below.

Love,

Fizzah and Sadaf

Disclaimer: This is a personal blog edited by its owners and the opinions expressed here belong solely to its owner's. For questions and queries please email at thepoutpainter@gmail.com