UPDATED September 7:
Target has been forced to pull all M.A.C product from its shelves following the revelation that the products are counterfeit. M.A.C's parent company Estée Lauder is preparing to take legal action against the retailer, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.
In a statement released on its website, M.A.C said it had used lab testing to detect the fake cosmetics.
"M.A.C Cosmetics has conducted extensive testing in our US laboratories and found that M.A.C marked products that were, until recently, being sold at Target Australia are counterfeit," the statement says. "We notified Target Australia and they have withdrawn the products from their shelves and website."
The statement, which has been made prevalent on the www.maccosmetics.com.au homepage, goes on to say: "Target Australia is not an authorized retailer of M.A.C Cosmetics and we did not supply any M·A·C products to Target Australia."
It is understood the ACCC and law enforcement agencies are investigating how the products came to be on Target's Australian shelves.
Article written August 21:
Australia’s beauty bloggers are rallying together in search of the truth about Target’s , which have been stocked in the department store for several months at discounted prices.
Target have been stocking a range of M.A.C products from as early as May this year at prices as low as 40 per cent less than other Australian retailers.
While Target continues to assure customers its product is genuine and sourced from a Melbourne-based supplier, M.A.C has released a statement of its own, stating that Target is not one of the company’s accounts.
We would like to explain that our products are only distributed for sale at our authorized retail store accounts, or at our free-standing stores,” the M.A.C statement reads. Target is not one of our accounts, and we therefore have no way of knowing how they obtained our products, how they have been stored or the age of the product. We trust you can understand that we are unable to assume responsibility for unauthorized representation of our product.”
Australia’s beauty bloggers haven’t missed a beat when it came to this mystery of exactly how Target came to be selling M.A.C products and from where they were sourced. Kimmi Nissen of The Plastic Diaries has summed up various bloggers’ research and both Target and M.A.C’s responses to the issue here.
