Providing brands and consumers with an easy and seamless way to identify counterfeit products is a real challenge for the beauty industry. "Luxury industries and cosmetics are particularly affected by counterfeiting and the problem is growing steadily due to increased online shopping. Counterfeit cosmetic products do not just harm the reputation of health and beauty brands, they are also dangerous to end-consumers,” explains Nicola Balena, Global Vice President Cosmetics at Gerresheimer.

In order to help cosmetic brands and consumers to protect themselves from counterfeiters, the glass packaging producer has partnered with TruTag Technologies, a brand protection specialist, to offer a digitization solution providing an easy and invisible way to authenticate beauty product packed in Gerresheimer glass with a smartphone.

Smartphone-ready authentication solution

The solution offered by Gerresheimer and TruTag involves the integration of invisible microparticles that can be detected and decoded by a smartphone directly from the product’s packaging. Consumers or brand protection experts just need an app to scan and authenticate the beauty product packed in the glass marked with the technology.

Smartphone compatibility enables the mass verification of cosmetics by consumers before they use their products. We believe this is a game-changer from a consumer safety perspective,” says Michael Bartholomeusz, CEO of TruTag Technologies. “Today, almost all solutions that enable authentication of a single product require special detectors or sophisticated equipment. The new solution developed by Gerresheimer and TruTag Technologies requires only a commercially available smartphone.