Ever find an online deal on your favorite Benefit, Nars, or MAC products and think it might be too good to be true?
Like your favorite Orgasm blush for a fraction of the price?
Then it's probably, most definitely, a fake.
Most luxury cosmetic and skin care brands rarely — if ever — offer their products at deep discounts. So if you're seeing products available for major sale from a store you've never heard of, or have found a lot of supercheap stuff on eBay, chances are they're not actually the real deal.
Fakes are BIG BUSINESS: In the UK alone, people spent more than $141 million last year on counterfeit cosmetics, most of which were purchased online.
Ognen Teofilovski / Reuters
This is a picture of counterfeit cosmetics being destroyed at a city dump near Skopje, Macedonia, after customs officials confiscated them in 2007.
So why should you care? Well...it turns out that counterfeit cosmetics are often jam-packed with really nasty stuff.
A report from the City of London Police found that counterfeit cosmetics contained everything from arsenic and mercury to lead, poison, and rat droppings.
This isn't the first report of its kind: The FBI released similar findings in 2014.
What's more, lab tests found that "counterfeit perfume often contains poisonous chemicals including cyanide and even human urine."
BTW, there's no such thing as a NAKED 4 palette.
And BONUS! Because these products are made in unregulated, unclean factories, they're often laced with rat droppings.
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Yes, RAT POOP.
Remember, you're putting this stuff on your face.
Now go forth and buy poop-free makeup!
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