About this episode
This episode explores the rapid rise of MCo Beauty and its controversial business practices in the beauty industry.
Luxury brands spend years developing products—MCo Beauty swoops in and replicates them in weeks. And the results speak for themselves. Originally known as ModelCo, an Aussie drugstore brand focused on tanning, MCo Beauty reinvented itself by recreating viral beauty products with eerily similar packaging—at a fraction of the price. By strategically navigating trademark laws, the brand has grown from AU$10M in revenue in FY20 to a staggering $330M in FY25. In February, founder and CEO Shelley Sullivan cashed out, selling her stake in a deal that valued MCo Beauty at over a billion dollars. But how did they pull it off? How is any of this legal? And what’s next for the ultimate dupe brand? In this episode of The Barefaced Podcast , we break down the rise of MCo Beauty. A series of graphs, visual aids, and references have been created to help narrate this story. You can access them at barefaced.substack.com You can find Barefaced everywhere else - https://beacons.ai/barefaced This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit barefaced.substack.com
People in this episode
Host: Barefaced
Topics covered
- beauty industry
- business strategy
- trademark laws
- product replication
- luxury brands
- entrepreneurship
Keywords
- MCo Beauty
- Shelley Sullivan
- ModelCo
- trademark laws
- beauty products
- business growth
- replication
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: MCo Beauty, ModelCo
Places: Australia
More episodes of The Barefaced Podcast
- Elf Beauty: How $1 Cosmetics Became a $5B Empire · April 18, 2026 · 1h 0m
- Death of the Magazine: What Happened to Print Beauty Media? · April 4, 2026 · 1h 19m
- Sephora Part 2: The Tech Obsessed Beauty Retailer · March 17, 2026 · 48 min
- Sephora Part 1: The Death of The Beauty Counter · September 30, 2025 · 1h 1m
- The Middle Eastern Beauty Opportunity · September 10, 2025 · 54 min
- The Untold Story of L'Occitane · August 27, 2025 · 40 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Barefaced Podcast podcast page.