Trademark Issues for Salon Owners

You’ve gone to beauty school and you’ve worked hard. Your clients love you and you have some stunning, unique ideas. Now that you’re on the path to owning your own salon, there are a number of issues you’ll need to carefully consider, including whether or not to file trademarks for some of your pertinent details. Here’s what you need to know.
Trademark Your Business Name
Yes, you can trademark the name of your business. This prevents others from using the same name. This isn’t necessarily a huge deal if the other person isn’t in the same industry, but if you are looking to protect your name and what it represents, it’s important to protect yourself legally. There are several cases where trademark infringement in different industries has occurred. For example, I just recently read about a salon owner that used the same spelling as a very popular vodka brand as the name of his salon – and got sued.
What does this mean? It means you need to do your homework to make sure you are a) protecting yourself and b) not violating anyone else’s rights.
Trademark Your Logo
Yes, you can trademark your business logo as well. If you don’t, people won’t be able to use the exact same logo, but can create something very similar, which would cause confusion within the community. If you do, there would have to be very significant change to the design, if it could be used at all. Trademarking your logo will help you to protect your brand’s identity.
Can I Trademark a Hairstyle?
Nope, you can’t. But what you can do is trademark the name you’ve given the hairstyle; and you can read more about that here. Truth be told, you can’t control what people choose to do with their hair. What you can do is control how your competitors treat a style you’ve created.
First, you’re the creator, so you have the right to say you are the creator, so make sure that is included in your trademarked sayings. You are the first, you are the original creator, the style was designed by you or one of your designers, etc. Lay claim to the hairstyle and whatever name you’ve used to promote it publicly. It’s sort of like the Q-tip vs cotton swab question. They’re all cotton swabs, but Q-tip is the brand that stands out. Make sure your brand is the one that continues to stand out and people will seek you out when they want the tried and true original product.

As a salon owner, you are in a unique position. You can certainly make your mark on the world. Just make sure that mark is protected!