Hey, there.
Being an avid bargain seeker, I purchased a brush head for my Clarisonic Mia 2 on eBay hoping to save a couple bucks. Now, eBay is pretty notorious for selling fake, counterfeit products. iPhones, Ray Bans, you name it. I did a pretty extensive search on eBay before committing to purchasing a brush head. I rely mostly on the seller feedback and the images & description of the product.
OEM, which stands for Original Equipment Manufacturer, is basically a way for sellers to be ambiguous about the authenticity of the product. They claim these to be shipped directly from the factory without original packaging, but most of them are just fakes.
For pictures, I usually look for "homemade" ones, where you actually see the item in their home and not the photoshopped inventory photo.
However, I was way too psyched to finally own my Clarisonic Mia 2 that I wanted to get the deep pore brush head here stat. So I found a listing, with a 100% positive feedback seller and also looked at their reviews for the same product from previous customers. They all claimed the product to be of good quality, but none of them mentioned anything about its authenticity. I was skeptical so I messaged the seller asking directly if the brush head was authentic Clarisonic brand or a "generic" brand, which is the alias for counterfeit. The seller shot me an email 5 minutes later stating they were original. So I took a chance and bought it for about 10$. I should've known with the price that it was bound to be sketchy.
Well now you can learn from my mistake! Here's how to identify the fake deep pore brush head juxtaposed with the real authentic one I just bought today at Sephora for 25$.
Everything to the left is authentic, and everything to the right is counterfeit.
Oh, and you can be sure they got negative feedback from me, tsk.
To begin, the real brush head's bristles are far more abrasive. Here you can see how soft the fake one looks beside the authentic brush.
The blue ring is also a darker shade of blue than the fake one.
Now for the packaging, the ink is much more vivid than the copy.
The back of the brush is one of the most distinctive differences.
The real one has hard plastic that has a matte finish and minimal numbering in the center.
The fake one has cheap plastic that has a glossy finish and multiple numbers in little circles that don't mean anything at all.
So I've used the fake one for about a little more than a week before I actually went out and bought the real one from an official retailer. I can tell you that it really did nothing at all. When turned on, both brushes oscillate in the same manner because of the Clarisonic's engine, but the difference is all in the bristles. The authentic deep pore brush head's bristles are much firmer and of a noticeable higher quality. The fake one is really useless, so don't be fooled :)
In this case, I think it might be worth it to cave in to a trusted retailer for this one (Sephora, Ulta, etc.) But if you're lucky you can find real ones sold by regular people (& not mass sellers) on eBay for cheaper. I just didn't have the patience.
If I helped you out, please leave a comment! :)
best,
❀ ᶨᵤ ✿
**Update: I don't actually use the Clarisonic anymore as I was highly advised not to by my dermatologist. It's more abrasive and damaging overtime than you'd think!!
