Plaintiff Vicious Brands, Inc., doing business as Saints & Sinners, brought this action against Defendants Face Co., LLC, Skin Saint, LLC, and Holly Cutler, alleging that Defendants infringed Plaintiff’s trademark and falsely advertised Defendants’ skincare products.
Plaintiff relied in part on an expert declaration of Karen Young, a beauty industry consultant. Defendants challenged the declaration of Young.
According to Young, there is a current trend towards the “skinnification of hair,” with haircare products and routines increasingly focusing on scalp care. Industry reports and commentary confirm consumer-facing manifestations of that trend, including that “major brands well known for skincare” have begun to offer haircare products.
Young also reports that “industry studies and market research confirm that platforms such as TikTok and Instagram have materially increased impulse buying among beauty consumers.”
Beauty Industry Expert Witness
Karen Young is a beauty industry consultant specializing in market strategy and consumer behavior across skincare, haircare, and adjacent personal care categories with over 25 years of experience advising global beauty brands on product category trends, consumer perception, and ecommerce buying behavior.
Young has also been an adjunct professor at The Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in NYC for 21 years, teaching product development [and brand differentiation] in their graduate program.
Discussion by the Court
Skinnification
To begin with, Defendants argued that Young’s opinions regarding “skinnification”—a purportedly increasing crossover between the haircare and skincare markets—are not sufficiently reliable because “they are based simply on internet articles.”
But Defendants offered no competing evidence as to what constitutes generally accepted standards for expertise in beauty industry. Young stated that she has “advised global and emerging beauty brands for over 25 years on portfolio architecture, brand positioning, and go-to-market channels, including digital commerce and social media ecosystems,” and that she bases her opinions on that experience in addition to trade publications. Young asserted that her methodology and sources “are standard in the beauty market research field” and “routinely relied upon by industry professionals and experts to evaluate market trends, consumer confusion, and brand relationships.”
In the absence of competing evidence, the Court was willing to infer that Young’s experience and review of trade materials—in conjunction with the specific articles she cited—were sufficient to qualify her as an expert in her field capable of testifying about market trends.
Impulse Buying
Defendants also challenged Young’s opinions regarding a rise in impulse buying. They asserted that the sources on which she relied did not say that consumers “are prone to mistaking what they are buying or who they are buying from,” as opposed to merely describing a rise in use of social media when shopping for beauty products.
But Young relied on her own extensive experience as a brand consultant in addition to the sources she attached to her declaration. In the absence of evidence to the contrary regarding consumer behavior, evidence that Young’s qualifications are not generally accepted in her field to address such matters, or cross-examination of Young revealing defects in her analysis, the Court is not prepared to exclude her opinions on consumer behavior. Defendants also contended that those opinions are inapplicable when they do not sell their products directly through social media.
Young appeared to be describing a broader trend in the market that derives in part from social media, rather than specific behavior consumers exhibit only when shopping on social media.
In a footnote, Defendants asserted that Young lacked a sufficient basis for her opinion that the term “medical grade” has no recognized definition in the skincare industry.
Defendants offered no evidence to the contrary, instead vaguely referencing “the SKIN SAINT website” as showing that “medical grade products contain acids, bleaches, sulfur, retinols, and other chemicals.”
A footnote is not the place for a substantive argument, and the Court is willing to accept that Young’s experience as a consultant qualifies her to address generally accepted definitions (or lack thereof) in her field.
Consumer Confusion
The Court did not rely here on Young’s ultimate opinions on likelihood of confusion. The Court instead credited only her opinions regarding the nature of the relevant markets, trends in consumer behavior, and other issues that may bear on the ultimate question of likely confusion without purporting to resolve it.
Held
The Court is satisfied that Young’s experience is sufficient to qualify her as an expert in her field capable of testifying about market trends and consumer behavior. However, the Court reserved the contours of what “ultimate issue” opinions Young may be able to offer at trial for resolution on motions in limine.
Key Takeaway
Not all expert testimony requires adherence to a strict methodology. Daubert makes it clear that the factors it mentions”—testing, peer review, known error rates, and the like—”do not constitute a ‘definitive checklist or test.” The factors identified in Daubert may or may not be pertinent in assessing reliability, depending on the nature of the issue, the expert’s particular expertise, and the subject of his testimony.
Case Details:
| Case Caption: | Vicious Brands, Inc. V. Face Co., LLC |
| Docket Number: | 3:24cv4996 |
| Court Name: | United States District Court, California Northern |
| Order Date: | February 03, 2026 |
Leave a Reply