Wonder Bath had beaten all three to market. The Korean beauty brand released its "Slice Serum" eye patch line back in July. It currently offers three varieties of the freshly cut formula: pore tightening, volume lifting, and dark spot toning, each containing 60 slivers.

Glow Recipe founders Sarah Lee and Christine Chang addressed the overlap in a statement to ELLE. "We're actually not sure who the packaging vendors for the other companies are, but for us, the packaging is just one part of this equation," they said. "We worked tirelessly to make sure the the formula would deliver results and the actives we used were infused into the hydrogel itself." Both founders confirmed that each brand's eye patch formula will be different. No exact release dates or ingredient lists are available yet for comparison.

Rather than trading accusations, the brands leaned into the joke on social media. Fenty Skin posted its own version of the Spider-Man pointing meme, showing the four dispensers pointing at one another. "Touché 😘💖," Glow Recipe commented. "This is too good 😂😂😂," Kattan wrote. Wonder Bath joined in: "HAHAHAH! There is room for everyone in the market❤️ We love you @fentyskin."

Consumers reacted more harshly, with many declaring that beauty innovation is dead. The reality is more complicated. The industry's biggest breakthroughs often begin with behind-the-scenes processes consumers rarely see. New packaging technology, ingredients and formulas move through the same suppliers, labs and manufacturers before separate brands interpret and individualize them. Five K-beauty brands launched jelly serum mists in the U.S. within the same month—an example of the same pattern.

"The beauty space is incredibly fast-moving, and when an innovation is great, we see multiple brands doing their best to deliver their version to the customer," Lee and Chang said. "We ultimately think the customer having more options is a great thing and love being in great company with other brands helmed by amazing female founders we admire."

The episode also reframes what counts as innovation. These four products share a delivery system, but each removes a familiar pain point: hydrogel eye patches have long lived in a messy, slippery tub. Creating a cleaner, fresher way to dispense them is its own form of ingenuity, even when four companies arrive at it simultaneously—and with distinct formulas, branding and target audiences, the market will now decide which slice wins.