Love Island 's Kady McDermott has been accused of ripping off a rival beauty company's false eyelash designs.
Kady McDermott , who found fame on the show in 2016, has been blasted on social media after launching new packaging for her By Kady pproucts.
Lucie Spencer, who owns rival company By.Luciella, claims the reality star copied her packaging and the names of her products.
Lucie, whose business is registered in Crawshaw Booth, Lancashire, claims the copying happened after she contacted Kady on Instagram to ask her to try out her products.
Kady, from Stevenage, Hertfordshire, rejects the claims and insists she did not even open Lucie's message.
Lucie, 21, launched her range of false eyelashes in May 2018. Kady, 24, who came third on Love Island, launched her eyelashes the previous year but announced new packaging earlier this week.
An outraged Lucie took to Twitter yesterday to claim there were striking similarities between the packaging designs and names of products.
She posted comparisons of her and Kady's respective products with the caption: "Last night it came to my attention that my designs and branding have been blatantly copied and passed off as her own by @kadymcdermottx.
"Her ByKady instagram is deleting comments from and blocking all my supporters. Please raise awareness of this and support local."
The photos show a set of Lucie's Luciella Lashes in glittery round packaging next to a set Kady's ByKady products in a similar round sparkly box.
Another image draws attention to the similarity in both products names. Lucie's £7.70-£10.70 products are called "Felicia" "Hun" and "Fleek" while Kady's £7.99 range bear names such as "Bye Felicia" "Hun" and "Fleeky".
The final set of images shows the resemblance between Lucie's pink, ribbon-tied packaging with Kady's own pink and grey range.
Kady has been quick to deny any copy cat behaviour however.
In her reply she said: "Woahhhhhh where'd this come from? No offence but I've never even heard of you or your brand? We got our boxes idea from google/Pinterest. Thousands of Chinese manufacturers supply these boxes? I know several other brands that also have them?"
Responding to Lucie's claim she had stolen the designs after she reached out to the star on Instagram, Kady said: "I get thousands and thousands of messages I never see them unless I directly follow the person back and I've never followed you. Your message never even got accepted? I had to type your name in after I saw all this to even find it."
An accompanying photo appears to show Lucie's message as unread in Kady's inbox.
The exchange has divided social media users, with many quick to point out the similarities between the brands.
@Sian_Baker said: "How could she literally copy everything down to the last detail man, so lazy."
@nutall_kiera added: "Funny how she's copied not 1 but 3 lash names which coincidentally look quite similar to Luciella's. Also the name is similar and the design is pretty much the same bar the colour. If she wasn't guilty she wouldn't have deleted all our comments and turned them off."
But Harriet Wright pointed out: "False lashes is a very saturated market and to assume that you were the sole founder of packaging designs and names that are used by plenty of other companies and have been for a long time is a very bold statement to make. There is no argument here and Kady could in fact sue."
Lucie however was keen to make sure the spat was not escalated.
A post on her Instagram story said: "Hey gals! While I massively appreciate the level of support I am receiving around this issue I would kindly like to remind people that although what Kady's brand appear to have done in regards to copying my branding and designs, people need to be aware that nasty name calling is going to get us nowhere and remember we are all human."
"The appropriate actions are being taken and again thank you so much for raising awareness of this and £supportinglocal".
Kady also seems to have put the issue to bed, posting a message on Twitter that reads: "Not going to comment anymore as I've already been part of a publicity stunt and it's my birthday. ByKady launched in 2017, The brand, that has been tweeted about, launched in 2018.
"The packaging is similar however you'll see below it's an extremely common packaging format used by made other eyelash brands.
"There are 3 names that are similar out of 22 lashes between us - names like fleeky, hun, felicia which are all big trends associated with makeup.. also again a huge amount of brands with similar names.
"If you want to send hate to someone feel free, I'm used to it by now. But not towards my brand I've invested years into and working very hard for nearly three years!"
