All that glitters is not gold - Kylie Jenner sued over copycat makeup

Kylie Jenner, a celebrity who is valued at almost a billion dollars, is being sued by a small cosmetics company for ripping off a range of their eye shadow and using its name.

Sheree Cosmetics released its Born To Sparkle glitter eye shadow palette in October 2017 while Kylie Jenner’s glitter eye shadow product with the same name was released later in 2018.

The lawsuit was filed in a New York federal court. The complaint filed cites trademark infringement, trade dress infringement and false designation of origin.

Tiffany Herrmann, founder of Sheree Cosmetics, thinks Jenner’s Born To Sparkle range is causing her company’s sales to dip. She said: 'We are a truly self-made business and I wonder who was led to the wrong Born To Sparkle palette when searching for ours.”

A simple search on Google for “born to sparkle” yields Kylie Jenner’s Born To Sparkle line as the top two results. Sheree Cosmetics’ product appears only as the fourth result.

Herrmann told The Daily Mail: “If you are an entrepreneur and you have an idea, and someone else takes that, stand up for yourself. I am a self-made woman and I just want to make sure everyone understands you need to keep an eye on your business and to protect it at all costs. You need to take a stand.”

Like fashion, the make-up industry is competitive and rife with copycat designs. One make-up artist, Vlada Haggerty, who has had enough of intellectual property theft in the industry has set up an Instagram account, Stop IP Theft.

Haggerty, who once threatened Kylie Jenner with a lawsuit over the reality star's lip kit fingers art, lists on the Instagram account examples of big companies copying designs and ideas from smaller companies with the hashtag, #stopiptheft. Unfortunately, she is just naming and shaming the big companies, and not providing legal recourse for the smaller companies who are getting ripped off.

An interesting point about the Kylie Jenner case is that her cosmetics brand released the 'Born To Sparkle' eye shadow on 6 August, but Sheree Cosmetics filed the trademark for 'Born To Sparkle' on 30 August despite claiming to have released the product last year. Which means Sheree Cosmetics found out they were ripped off and rushed to file the trademark. Creators should always recognise and review new intellectual property and take measures before it is too late.