Too Faced Is Facing A Lawsuit Over Lipstick

Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, but in some cases, it could be grounds for a lawsuit. WWD reports that Tatcha, a luxury Japanese-inspired cosmetics company, filed a complaint against Too Faced in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, CA, earlier this week, accusing the Estée Lauder-owned brand of packaging infringement. Tatcha alleges that the upcoming launch of Too Faced's Peach Kiss Moisture Matte Long Wear Lipstick “use[s] and/or imitate[s] Tatcha’s inherently distinctive trade dress.”

In the suit, the company claims that Too Faced is “already causing confusion in the marketplace” with the packaging for the new products, which it believes bears a similar design to its Kyoto Red and Sunrise: A Plum Blossom lipsticks. “Too Faced has added a gold band and logo medallion at the closure, added a molded logo plate at the top, and significantly adjusted the dimensions and placement of its tube indentations to mimic Plaintiff’s distinctive Tatcha Trade Dress,” the complaint reads.

To back up its allegations, Tatcha refers to a number of comments on Instagram that called out the perceived similarities, including one that said, “The lipstick has the exact same packaging as the newest Tatcha lipstick lol.” Several replies to a Trendmood post teasing the Too Faced lipsticks echo a similar sentiment, with one saying, “Why does the lipstick look like they ripped off the packaging from Tatcha?”

Tatcha believes that, because it’s been using its signature packaging since 2015, it owns “the goodwill of its trade dress.” As such, Tatcha is asking the court to prevent Too Faced from using the packaging, and seeking damages. The company noted in the suit that it first expressed its concerns in a letter to the Estée Lauder Companies in early July, but claimed that outside counsel for Too Faced had since stated its intention to move forward with the launch of the products in question later this month as planned.

Tatcha has declined to comment on the matter at this time. We’ve reached out to Too Faced and will update this post when we hear back.