A salon owner has been left ‘exhausted’ after being locked in a months-long £30,000 legal battle with L’Oreal over claims her products could be mistaken for their items.
Rebecca Dowdeswell, 48, founder of waxing business nkd, had the name trademarked since she opened in Leicester city centre in 2009.
However, after 10 years a trademark runs out and companies have six months to reapply, otherwise they have to submit a new application.
The mother of two, from Radcliffe-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, said reapplying for her trademark was ‘on the list’ of things to do but that it wasn’t ‘at the top’, a move that she said was ‘a big mistake’.
The six month window she had to reapply fell as the pandemic struck with lockdown making the next two years ‘particularly hard’ on the beauty industry.
Rebecca Dowdeswell, 48, founder of waxing business nkd, had the name trademarked since she opened in Leicester city centre in 2009
L’Oreal owns Urban Decay, within this company are a range of eyeshadow palettes called Naked
Rebecca said: ‘This is David versus Goliath and frankly it has been horrible, exhausting and really stressful’
When she eventually reapplied for the trademark in 2022 her waxing business had progressed to include a line of after care products, so instead of applying for a trademark for the name of the salon she also had to apply for the trademark to put on her products.
Rebecca was shocked when L’Oreal objected to her application to use her nkd branding on her products and her salons.
Urban Decay, a cosmetics company owned by L’Oreal, has a popular range of trademarked products called Naked and told Rebecca that her nkd branding would cause ‘consumer confusion’, despite the fact she had already been trading under the name for 12 years.
‘I was very surprised because we have never been Naked. We’re spelled NKD, we are pronounced N, K, D.’, she told the BBC.
Rebecca says she has spent over £30,000 contesting L’Oréal’s opposition to her trademark application and the pressure of the legal battle has been a factor in her downsizing her business and closing her other salon in Nottingham.
She said: ‘There has never been any evidence of consumer confusion. In 15 years of trading, no-one has ever said ‘are you the same brand as Naked by Urban Decay?’
‘I’ve spent two years negotiating with them trying to come to a co-existence agreement where they can carry on trading as Naked with their make-up and we can carry on as nkd in our very tight sphere of waxing and hair removal.
‘This is David versus Goliath and frankly it has been horrible, exhausting and really stressful.
The mother of two, from Radcliffe-on-Trent in Nottinghamshire, says she has spent over £30,000 contesting L’Oréal’s opposition to her trademark application and the pressure of the legal battle has been a factor in her downsizing her business and closing her other salon in Nottingham
‘I’ve now racked up over £30,000 plus VAT in legal costs defending myself. I don’t know whether it was the right thing to do.
‘What I do know is that I could not just have walked away from my brand when L’Oréal disputed it. I’d spent 13 years of my life pouring everything building up this brand.’
Rebecca said if the dispute is not resolved it would be decided by a judgment from the government’s Intellectual Property Office which she believes would happen in 2025.
A spokesperson for L’Oréal said: ‘We are wholly committed to resolving any misunderstanding there might have been with Rebecca Dowdeswell.
‘From the beginning of our exchanges with her lawyers in 2022, we have communicated an offer that supports her business aspirations whilst respecting our longstanding trademark rights.
‘We look forward to resolving this matter in a mutually agreeable way.’
