One great thing about living in Siem Reap is all the stuff catering to Western expats; it’s one of the reasons I chose to establish my home base here. But where there’s money, there’s fraud, and defrauding Western expats is an acceptable business practice. One aspect of that is the prevalence of counterfeit Western products.
Sometimes, I don’t care much. For example, I don’t care much if market sellers move fake YSL and Goyard bags. I would never buy them, but I don’t mind terribly if other people do. That’s not to say I tacitly approve– these bags are destined for the landfill, usually plastic crap, and possibly produced by workers toiling in terrible conditions. I don’t give a shit about the billionaire owners of these brands and I still don’t support knocking them off. But at least the end user isn’t directly harmed by it.
Fake alcohol and cosmetics, on the other hand, are dangerous. And they are extremely common throughout Asia. Any luxury brand, Western or Eastern, gets knocked off and sold as authentic in reputable stores where they mix with other genuine products– it’s maddening.
I wasted $23 on fake Marvis toothpaste this month, and that’s not nothing, it’s an hour and a half of labor tutoring online. but at least I realized it was fake before I used it, and I’m thankful for that.
I’ve been buying Marvis toothpaste for 20 years, certainly not exclusively, but whenever I see it– yes it’s relatively expensive, but the flavors are lovely, the packaging is beautiful, and it cheers me up. A couple months ago I saw they had quite a range at Damnak Supermarket, and bought Dreamy Osmanthus flavor, and loved it. Great flavor, pretty limited edition packaging, what’s not to love?
When I saw Dreamy Osmanthus, among others, at Bayon Market, I thought how wonderful that the brand has become popular in town, and decided to round out my Garden Collection with Sinuous Lily and Kissing Rose. I had no idea that Gen Z has latched onto this brand, it’s gone viral on Tiktok, and there are now fakes on Shopee, Lazada, Aliexpress etc., that in turn have made their way onto Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and, I’m sure, Asian minimart shelves. I didn’t realize until two weeks later when I opened the Sinuous Lily box that it was a fake! To be clear, Damnak Market sells (what I think, at least, is) real Marvis, Bayon City Market sells the fakes.
That freaks me out. Is their Gordon’s gin fake too? Their Bonne Maman jam? Their Skin Aqua sunscreen? What have I been eating and drinking and putting on my face? I’ve always liked that store, the staff are lovely and the prices are fair (and to be clear, fair, NOT low, especially for imports), but now I’ll probably avoid it.
Anyway, I headed back to Damnak Market today, and stood for about twenty minutes in the toothpaste aisle tampering with boxes and checking the Marvis tubes I wanted were authentic, while suspicious staff repeatedly walked past and hovered next to me. It’s Cambodia, so they obviously didn’t say anything; I see people blatantly shoplift here and nothing happens, it seems to be part of their non-confrontational norms. I don’t blame the staff by the way– they’re not paid enough to chase after thieves– it’s just much more laissez-faire than the norm in New York, where a) the products aren’t fake and b)the staff would walk right up and ask what you thought you were doing if you were tampering with products, and file a police report on anyone the security guard couldn’t (or wouldn’t) physically restrain if you stole them.
I was horrified when a quick online search brought up real v. fake Marvis tiktok videos– ICK, that’s how you know a niche brand has gone mainstream. Apparently it’s gone viral, and fakes h and also some aspects they covered were not even correct. And frankly, I’m still not fully convinced the Damnak Market Marvis is authentic, it might just be a higher quality fake than the Bayon City Market Marvis. I’d say I’m 80% sure it’s authentic, but would honestly have to go home, buy an inarguably authentic tube from Anthropologie or Bigelow, and compare them to reassure myself I’m not going mad. That’s not going to happen though, so I thought I’d offer the side-by-side photos and explanations I wish were available to me earlier this afternoon!
This Marvis holographic sticker has me questioning my sanity. I don’t remember ever seeing a tamper label on a Marvis box before– but that’s not to say they’re fake, just that I don’t remember! I can’t find a single photo of a Marvis box with a sticker seal online, but there are two on either end of this box. This is the #1 thing making me question the authenticity of what I’ve called the ‘real’ toothpaste in this post.
Google translate can’t figure out what language this mystery pink sticker is. I’m guessing stylized Khmer but could be anything. It’s really audacious of a manufacturer/distributor of fakes to brand themselves like this!
Batch or order number on the fake box that’s not on the real one.
The real box has some sort of batch code that looks quite different from the fake box
The fake box looks like a low quality photocopy of the real box
I don’t know enough about printing to have the vocabulary to describe this, but whatever makes the shiny silver parts of these boxes is different. On the real Marvis box, the silver really shines if the light hits it at the correct angle, but darkens in shadow. The silver on the fake box is light and bright regardless.
Lots of ‘how to spot fake Marvis’ reviews noted that the serial numbers on fakes wouldn’t be there, or wouldn’t match the serial number on the box. They matched them on this fake.
I should say, it’s not metal coated with plastic, it’s ‘aluminum look’ plastic
Apparently Marvis tubes are unsealed in the EU, and used to be unsealed in the US too. Now, they do seal tubes for certain markets depending on local law, but in SEA (where it’s safe to say there are almost no laws) a sealed tube more likely indicates a fake.
This is the the #2 thing making me question the authenticity of what I’m calling the ‘real’ tube of toothpaste in this post. It has plastic threads. I remember Marvis having metal threads. But that was years ago– at least a decade. Maybe they’ve gotten cheaper, or EU laws have changed? Maybe that’s only for the classic tubes, not the limited editions? Not sure, but this really bothers me.
I’d say the #1 giveaway that a Marvis tube is fake is not what you can see, it’s what you (can’t) smell– the fake tube of Sinuous Lily just smelled like generic mint toothpaste, not even a hint of floral. The real toothpaste smells strong and lovely.
Big giveaway #2 is that gray plastic tube. #3 is the overfilling. It’s clearly hand stuffed and pinched in a way you’ll never see in a new factory filled tube from any brand. #4 the printing fuckups, the type not being centered inside its own outlines. #5 the threads not screwing smoothly. This is another thing you wouldn’t notice in isolation, but when comparing the authentic tube to the inauthentic tube, the cap screws on easily the first time on the authentic tube. On the fake tube, I found myself trying three or four times to not screw the cap on at an angle.
My best piece of advice is open the box and look at the tube, even if shop employees stare you down. Worst comes to worst, just tell them you accidentally bought a fake before and want to make sure it’s real. Side by side with the real one, the fake box is clearly inferior; but at a glance, trusting in my local shop, grabbing and going, it passed. The colors are pretty, the design is right, and it’s embossed like the real one, so it passes the touch test. It was only when I opened the box and saw the tube that I knew something was wrong.