In an oversaturated industry, where the word dupe has shifted from verboten to oft-celebrated, similarities are inevitable. Just like there are only 12 notes in an octave, there are only so many words, concepts, and tolerable puns that beauty brands can come up with to identify and market their products. That being said, while we’ve come to shrug off and even embrace lower-priced facsimiles for higher-end formulas, there’s still supposed to be some semblance of decorum when it comes to intellectual property.
The belief that this fuzzy line was crossed prompted Molly Sims, model and founder of YISE beauty, to post an emotional video this weekend in which she bemoans an unnamed brand’s launch of a product with the same name as and similar purpose to one of her own: Wide Awake Brightening Eye Cream, which comes in four color-correcting tints to help conceal under-eye darkness.
Though Sims did not name names, it became abundantly clear to viewers that she was referring to Jones Road’s Wide Awake Brightening Neutralizer and Concealer, which launched last Thursday. And what has unfolded since has included a public apology, an impending name change, and quite a bit of finger-pointing and side-taking.
What did Molly Sims say?
On Saturday, Sims shared an Instagram Reel and TikTok to vent about what she was clearly feeling as a personal affront.
“I don’t normally post stuff like this, but over the last few days, I’ve had friends, customers, brand partners, retail partners DM, text, and email me that a brand that I love, use, and support not only used the exact name of a product I launched two years ago, but also their marketing copy, and campaign feels a little too close to home,” she says into her front-facing camera. “You can delete the comments, but my YISE loyalists run deep and can tell when something is off.”
She explains that she launched Wide Awake over two years ago, and it has since become one of her brand’s best-sellers. “I can’t explain how disappointed, honestly sad, and hurt I am to see this from another female founder who I’ve known for years and have looked up to in this industry,” she continues. “I have the privilege of working with a primarily female team who busts their freaking asses every day to make this dream happen. My marketing team of five—we are small, but we are mighty. We have tiny budgets; we are incredibly scrappy. I mean, you wouldn’t believe the places we go.”
Sims, visibly tearing up, goes on to say, “There is room for all of us, all of us. There is room for more women to build great brands, create great products, and have great ideas of their own. We should be inspiring each other, not taking from each other. As a mom of three, like, I tell my kids all the time, I’m not mad at you, but, gosh, I’m incredibly disappointed.” Allure reached out to YISE for additional comment but has not yet received a response.
When did Bobbi Brown enter the chat?
Although Sims didn’t mention Jones Road or its founder, makeup artist Bobbi Brown, the name of the product and the simmering comment-section scuttlebutt leading up to her video—like the allegedly deleted comments Sims mentioned—made the subject of her video obvious. And Brown responded quickly—and in a big way.
“Last week, the Jones Road Beauty team and I launched Wide Awake neutralizer and concealer. We didn’t realize Molly Sims has a product with the same name in her YISE beauty collection. This was a mistake. Prior to our launch, a trademark search showed no other ownership of the name,” Brown said in a text-only Instagram post the next day. “However, we’re changing our product name moving forward, and will no longer call it Wide Awake. I would never knowingly copy another product’s name. To Molly Sims and her team at YISE, I’m sorry this happened, and we’re taking steps to correct it.”
When Allure reached out to Brown today for comment, she reiterated that the trademark search Jones Road does before every new product launch did not show that the name was trademarked and that the Jones Road team did not realize YISE already had a product called Wide Awake. “Regardless, I have great respect for Molly, YISE, and all my fellow beauty founders, and I would never want to copy another product’s name,” Brown tells Allure in an emailed statement. “So we’re doing the right thing and changing the product name moving forward.”
According to a rep for Brown, Jones Road is currently conducting due diligence and a comprehensive name search before renaming the product.
How did Nécessaire, Dominique Cosmetics, and YSL get dragged into this?
Many of the comments on Sims’s original video are very supportive of YISE. Fellow founders Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Rea Ann Silva are just two of the people who lent encouragement to Sims. “So sorry Molly! I see it all the time on my end. Way to protect the thing you’ve built. Keep protecting, keep building,” wrote Johnson, who founded personal-care brand Papatui. Beautyblender founder Silva said: “I feel u. My business and product beautyblender, the category creator, is probably the most knocked off product in the beauty industry. Many of my clients went on to enter the beauty industry and knocked me off, so I deeply understand your disappointment! But I’m here to tell you there is nobody like you and that’s what you go with. Wipe those tears and keep it moving!” Other comments were supportive of Jones Road, and still others were downright accusatory of YISE itself.
Following a raised-hand emoji, Nick Axelrod-Welk, cofounder of Nécessaire who went on to cofound Courteney Cox’s Homecourt and his own fragrance brand Contrapposto, wrote, “But you directly knocked off the @necessaire packaging?” Allure has reached out to Axelrod-Welk for further comment.
Underneath that comment came other observations about perceived hypocrisy on the part of YISE, especially around its Wide Awake eye cream. “If you look at the YSL Touche Éclat concealer there are also 4 variations of their shade names being used (ex. YSL Luminous Honey vs YISE Sheer Honey, YSL Luminous Mocha vs. YISE Sheer Mocha, YSL Luminous Peach vs YISE Sheer Peach etc.) so when she says ‘too close to home’ in this video it’s annoying to see she’s done the same with other brands,” writes a commenter. Others pointed to the marked similarity in the gold packaging of both YISE’s Wide Awake and YSL Beauty’s Touche Éclat. Earlier this year, Sims changed her brand’s original name YSE to YISE, a move some have speculated is the result of a trademark dispute between Yves Saint Laurent Parfums and Sims’s LLC over the former name.
Elsewhere in the comments, others pointed out another ever more applicable comparison: “Ok but what about the fact that Dominique Cosmetics launched a product called Wide Awake in 2022/3,” someone wrote, suggesting YISE is just as guilty of copying a female-founded beauty brand. (As of this morning, if you Google “Wide Awake Concealer” the Dominique Cosmetics concealer is the first product that comes up.)
At the end of the day, beauty brands have launched eye creams and concealers that played off the idea of wakefulness since the dawn of time (or at least of eye creams and concealers). And none of the “Wide Awake products” in question—from YISE, Jones Road, or Dominique Cosmetics—could be confused for another on sight. More than the issues of trademark or intellectual property, perhaps this dustup highlights the reality that the beauty industry is crowded—very crowded. It’s hard to be the first on anything, and truly undeniable originality is rare. So what constitutes copying? And what is an inevitable level of sameness? That conversation is continuing to evolve.
Allure has reached out to YISE for a comment on Brown’s response and will update this story as it develops.
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