GHD ARE THEY REAL OR FAKE?

The GHD has received fame as the "must have" hair straightener of the 20th century, with its lucrative advertising, celebrity following, and its revolutionary design with ceramic heating technology it soon became a multi-million dollar company.

However.......like most super brands this fame does come with its downfalls, and that is the counterfeit market.

In its infancy, some 15 years ago, the GHD was widely copied, the 3.1B pink which was produced by GHD to bring public attention to breast cancer, with a donation made on each purchase to the charity, was the first to suffer at the hands of the counterfeiters.

The GHD 3.1B pink was so widely faked that to find an original pair for sale now, is like finding a needle in a haystack, however there are thousands of pink fake dangerous GHD still being sold on the used market with not a single penny having gone to the breast cancer charity, all the profits going into the pockets of criminals.

The counterfeiters then moved to re-producing the black and pink 4.2B models, not only the Hair Straighteners, but the packaging, heat bags, styling DVD and safety / instruction manuals, the fake that was mass produced was the 4.2B Pink and like its earlier model the 3.1B Pink, of those found on the secondhand market, only 1 in 100 is an original GHD product.

But why be concerned I hear you say... the GHD brand is huge and the corporation Jemella Ltd is a multi million pound company producing millions of high end, expensive hair straighteners / hair dryers and hair products every day for sale world wide, so why not buy a cheap fake clone of a GHD after all what harm can it do?

Here at Siriushair® we will try to explain why it is important not to buy counterfeit / fake GHD and in fact any counterfeit goods.


  • Is it illegal to sell none genuine fake GHD?

 It is illegal to sell either knowingly or not a counterfeit item and if found in possession of them you will be fined.

  • Are counterfeit fake GHD dangerous? 

A counterfeit item cuts corners when it comes to safety, safety certification is expensive, and so the components used in fakes are none certified, not having passed any safety tests and often deadly.

This link is to an article where a hair straightener caused a house fire. If you look at the picture of the hair straightener you will see at the hinge a metal oval grommet......if you look at my images of fake hinge screws further in this post you will see this type of screw widely used on fake GHD.


This link is to an article where a hair straightener caused a house fire. If you look at the picture of the hair straightener, you will see at the hinge a metal oval grommet. For further reference, check my images of fake hinge screws later in this post, where you will see this type of screw widely used on fake GHD.

Another house fire caused by hair straighteners. While we cannot confirm if it was a GHD hair straightener or not, the devastation is very clear.

More information in the news about the fake market and a response from Amazon about counterfeit electrical products found on their marketing platform. Read more.


  • But they are cheaper......so why not buy fake GHD?

Profits from the counterfeits fund criminal activities including sales of drugs, sex trafficking as well as prostitution, your money does not go to a good cause.

Recently with the ending of lockdown and people finally being able to venture outside there has been a huge increase in GHD Hair Straightener sales, and this has been noticed by the criminal fraternity, they in turn want a slice of these sales, and have started introducing a new range of fake GHD on the market.

Siriushair® has recently seen a large increase in sales on E-bay of "New GHD" that are advertised as being old stock and so can not be registered on the GHD website, however they state they are genuine and boxed with prices starting at £38.00.

Unfortunately these old stock are the new counterfeit fake GHD

ALL NEW GHD come with a hologram label on the cable and on the body of the GHD, this can be registered on the GHD website and in doing so activates the 2 year warranty, the counterfeit GHD have a universal code which when logged into the website will indicate it is fake.

This is not what the counterfeiters want you to do hence the wording " can not be registered on GHD website".

So what is this code.......unfortunately you have to buy 5000 counterfeit GHD at a time and quite often each batch of 5000 has a different code, however the recent batches coming into the UK have the same code, and in large amounts, so the criminal fraternity must have brought a container of maybe 500000.

Siriushair® has contacted GHD and advised them of the new versions of fake counterfeit GHD and received the following e-mail:

Thank you for your email.

Counterfeiting is an issue faced by all luxury brands and counterfeit electrical products can be dangerous, therefore we strongly advise that you refrain from using any of these products. 


ghd has a dedicated Brand Protection team which work hard to tackle the sale of counterfeit goods. We would be grateful if you could provide us with as much information as you can about where you purchased this product, including the name and address of the retailer and copies of any correspondence and receipts. Please forward any information that you have to fake@ghdhair.com. 


We must also advise that eBay is not an authorised website to stock ghd products and we would never advise to purchase ghd goods from this website due to the counterfeit items that are listed there. 


Kind regards,


Rachel


We have contacted E-bay who have stated they would remove all offending listings, they still remain.


Trading Standards are investigating but listings remain.


We have contacted the sellers directly and yes we received abuse and statements such as:

  • " I assume you are just going through the listings and clearing up the fake stuff which is a positive thing as I'm sure there are a lot of questionable items for sale although I'm not sure why you would think my items are not genuine. Saying that, I understand that it could just be a case of clearing out the competitors, which is to be expected I suppose."


  • "You see it doesn't fall on you to contact everyone with a listing, that's the job of ebay and trading standards. I'm sure you can appreciate my slight annoyance. "

  • "To who may concernI don't understand it. You repair GHD, we sell GHD, it is irrelevant.
    We got our products from GHD's foreign factories, so we know our products are authentic. We also have regular invoice.It's old version machine so it can not registered in the system and can't be sold through official channels.
    If you are free to report others' listings, others can also do the same thing, because your listings are also not allowed on ebay,you do not have the authority to repair GHD products.
    We don't want to do this, so we hope you can stop it. Our buyers are not fools. If they bought fake products, they will naturally complain to ebay. You can see that we got 100% buyer satisfaction. There is no problem with our products.
    Above is our explanation. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us.For malicious competition, we will also protect our rights reasonably and legally."


  • "Irrespective of your intentions, I won't be bullied off ebay by threats of authorities or enforcement.

         Do not contact me again."

So we have decided that we will highlight all the features of a fake counterfeit GHD so our readers can check there Hair Straighteners and if you have brought a fake counterfeit GHD from a seller the action you can take to report them.

We will also add links to sellers selling non genuine GHD in the hope that persons who have bought them can report the fact to ebay and get their money back.

Here on this page you will find all the information necessary to protect yourself from purchasing counterfeit GHD, also the rogue traders who are selling them as well as details of incidents and prosecutions.

IF THE PRICE SEEMS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT PROBABLY IS!!

COUNTERFEIT GHD 4.1B PINK


GHD introduced the model 4 GHD and it was a huge success with the Pink version being the most popular and as such the most counterfeited. Nearly every Pink GHD sold on the secondhand market is counterfeit.


How do you tell if you have a counterfeit GHD?

  • Firstly check the power cable if it is made from a round cable as you find on an extension lead it is counterfeit...all GHD are fitted with a more flat oval style cable is visibly round and not easy to bend.


Difficult to show in images but if the cable is round as you find attached to fridges and large appliances it is counterfeit

Second image is a genuine cable and in this image you can see the flatter oval shaped power cable as fitted to radios.

  • Second check is the code under the hologram on the arm of the GHD

If my GHD code will not register on the GHD website does this mean it is fake?

Unfortunately the codes are not always visible as they are screen printed so easily rub off, the date code however is more hardwearing, so if you do not have a complete code you can not register, this does not mean it is fake.

However the counterfeit GHD are produced in huge batches of 5000 - 100,000 and each label in each batch is the same, the most common fake hologram code is 56U1 cebzu 5g0ab and this can be found on millions of counterfeit GHD and in all colours.

The latest counterfeit GHD are being sold with the comment they are old stock and so the codes can not be registered, please check my list and if your code is on our list it is counterfeit.

  • Heater Plates

My heater plate on my GHD is losing its paint?

Unfortunately the quality of the counterfeit GHD does not match its original and the finish on the heater plates becomes easily discoloured or the paint flakes off. 

If your GHD has started to lose its colour on the heater plates it is not a GHD

This Fake GHD has lost nearly all its paint finish just showing bare metal.

Not a very pretty counterfeit and also not very good for your hair !

The easiest, quickest and with 100% confirmation if genuine or not is to remove the hinge caps fitted to the GHD.

  • Hinge Caps

The counterfeit fake GHD were designed around one model and its components have been used on all variants of GHD, although they changed the look one item remained and that was the fact the fake GHD do not have the two Phillips Cross-headed Screws under the hinge caps.

With a flat edged knife insert under the hinge cap and gently push upwards until the cap flips off.



If underneath the hinge cap you find any of these types of screws or grommets you have a fake!






However.....if underneath the hinge caps you see the following then rest assured you have an authentic, genuine pair of GHD hair straightener


IMAGES OF THE LATEST FAKE GHD RECEIVED BY SIRIUSHAIR®


This fake GHD was received for repair and from first glance it is a GHD Gold V however when you hear what the fault was you may be concerned.

The GHD was purchased as genuine:

"Hi there , me and my wife just got back off holiday in scotland and whilst we were at campsite the wifes ghd's blew up , they went bang and they started smoking so she quickly pulled them out of the socket ,???
Do you think that they'll be fixable or not , thanks......... Steve"


This was not a common fault found with a GHD and when they arrived at Siriushair® the alarm bells started ringing.

From what we have shown in this blog the first thing wrong is the cable is round.....a sure sign of a fake GHD


But look at what has happened the PVC insulation has split on the round cable and the live wire has been exposed, this could have been lethal if it was being used, causing electric shock or the user to drop the hot iron on their body causing third degree burns.....it does not bear thinking about.

We notified the customer of our findings and they replied:

"Hi ya., thanks very much , my wife said to throw them and thank our lucky stars we were there when them went up , thanks again ,Steve"




"Here at Siriushair® we break GHD so you can repair yours!"