L'Oréal is fighting a small-time salon owner, trying to force her to rename her product range

L'Oreal claimed the name of Rebecca Dowdeswell's salon, NKD, causes confusion with its 'Naked' eyeshadow, sparking a long and draining legal dispute.

• L'Oréal asked the owner of UK salon to drop an attempt to trademark her "NKD" product line.
• L'Oréal argued its product, branded "Naked," should take precedence in case "NKD" confused people.
• Salon owner Rebecca Dowdeswell is pushing back, saying she spent some $38,000 on the lopsided legal fight.

L'Oréal is taking on the owner of a small British hair salon over a product line it says is too much like its own.

The company objects to a product line from the NKD salon in Leicester, England, run by Rebecca Dowdeswell.

The dispute arose when Dowdeswell sought to renew a lapsed trademark on her line of products, also branded NKD.

The products include body balms and cleansers, retailing from around $15.

L'Oréal objected, saying it was too similar to its "Naked" eyeshadow product, on sale from $35, saying it may cause consumers to mix them up.

The L'Oréal product is on sale globally, but NKD exists only in the UK.

Dowdeswell held the trademark for 10 years — 2009 to 2019 — without issue.

But she forgot to renew it, and when she started a fresh application in 2022 L'Oréal took the opportunity to dispute it.

The company — a French cosmetics giant with a market cap in excess of $200 billion — sent an email asking her to withdraw her application.

Dowdeswell said she declined and has spent significant sums — more than $38,000 — countering L'Oréal's efforts.

"It very much felt like they had a strategy of just dragging it out, knowing that their pockets were always obviously going to be so much deeper than mine," Dowdeswell told Business Insider over the phone on Friday.

She said L'Oréal said it would back down if she renamed the products, or promised not to make any new ones under the NKD brand.

Dowdeswell said she wouldn't.

"In my eyes, there's never been any sort of crossover between the two," she said. "We're pronounced N-K-D, we've never been spelled or pronounced as 'Naked'.'"

L'Oréal didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from BI by email and phone.

But a spokesperson told the BBC it was "committed to resolving any misunderstanding there might have been with Rebecca Dowdeswell."

They said the company was seeking a compromise "that supports her business aspirations whilst respecting our longstanding trademark rights."

Dowdeswell said the long-running dispute has damaged her business, causing her to close a salon in another city.

Dowdeswell said the dispute will be decided by the UK Intellectual Property Office in a tribunal starting in 2025.

"As a business owner who's worked hard to develop the NKD brand over 15 years, I would like to keep all options open," said Dowdeswell.

"Although frankly, right now I'd just like to go sleep for a hundred years."