Don’t get me wrong, I visit Sephora for the makeup too.  But after I’ve surveyed the latest offerings from Bourjois, what I really want to do is check out brands.  I am fascinated by the vastly differing approaches cosmetics companies take to branding.

First, a ten-second trademark law primer: Trademarks are granted protectability along a continuum of distinctiveness, ranging from generic  terms, which are not entitled to trademark registration at all (e.g., “mascara”) to coined terms, which are entitled to the highest level of protection (“Zirh”).  In the middle of that fall the vast majority of trademarks used for cosmetic branding. 

Clearly, personal names are the ne plus ultra of cosmetic brands: from the sublime such as Dior or Givenchy, to the ridiculous such as Paris Hilton or Britney Spears.  (There’s also the unexpected: Carlos Santana perfume, anyone?) Those names apparently have sufficient cachet to move product.

Then there’s the almighty medical field.  While I am just not sure that this was what Hippocrates had in mind, there are a hell of a lot of medical professionals hawking their goods under their own names or a medical-sounding brand: Dr. Hauschka, N.V. Perricone, and DERMADoctor (you tell me that’s not Fran Drescher: http://www.sephora.com/browse/brand_hierarchy.jhtml?brandId=5762), among others.   What these folks can say their product actually does is a topic for others;  I will merely quote our family’s beloved dermatologist Dr. Judy, who says that all that stuff is snake oil.

Then there are the names that make this trademark lawyer cry: the totally descriptive, totally bland names: MD Formulations, MD Skincare, Perfekt, and the eerily quasi-Teutonic Bremenn Research Lab.  When a salesperson at Sephora told me they were coming out with their own brand of cosmeceuticals called “Cosmedicine,” it was all I could do not to say “so it’s a floor wax and a dessert topping?”  How little imagination do you have to come up with that?  I am sure the ad agency spent millions coming up with the name, but apart from whatever kind of trouble they could get into by the name itself implying it’s medicine, it’s just boring.

So, oh curmudgeonly one, you’re asking, what brand names DO you like?  Easy – interesting and memorable ones.  Urban Decay.  Lotto.  Hard Candy.  Pinkie Swear.  Clarisonic (Okay, I cheated there – I got that one registered). 

So consider this my opening salvo in the blog world.  My M.O. here is simple: Comment on what I like, what I don’t, what’s trendy and what’s stodgy, what makes sense from a trademark perspective and what makes my hair stand on end.