Skincare company—Mary Kay Inc.

In my last post, I talked about patent filing from the companies with beauty products.  Today, I am going to take a deep look at the company, Mary Kay.  As a disclaimer, I’ve never used Mary Kay products and have absolutely no tie with the company.  My review of this company is purely based on the company’s patent filing information.

According to the “Business week,” founded in 1963, Mary Kay Inc. is a privately held company.  The company engages in the development, manufacture, and packaging of skin care, makeup, spa and body, and fragrances for women and men. It offers anti-aging, cleanser, moisturizer, lip and eye care, body care, and sun care products. The company offers makeup products for eyes, lips, and cheeks, as well as provides foundations, concealers, powders, compacts and applicators, and facial highlighting pens. It sells its products through direct sales force and independent beauty consultants all over the world. 

When I searched USPTO’s website using “Mary Kay” as the assignee (i.e., the owner of the patent application), the website returned 51 patent applications.  There are a lot of skincare products patent applications among them.  Here are a few examples:

U.S. Patent application no. 20120087942, titled “Compositions of Marine Botanicals to Provide Nutrition to Aging and Environmentally Damaged Skin,” discloses a topical skin care composition and method for its use comprising water, Chlorella vulgaris extract, an algae extract, a phospholipid or lecithin, glycerin, retinyl palmitate, tocopheryl acetate, and magnesium ascorbyl phosphate.

U.S. Patent application no. 20120087941, Compositions of Marine Botanicals to Provide Nutrition to Aging and Environmentally Damaged Skin, Discloses is a topical skin care composition and method for its use comprising Codium tomentosum extract and Crithmum maritimum extract or algae extract, wherein the composition is formulated as an emulsion, cream, lotion, solution, gel, ointment, or anhydrous base.

U.S. Patent application no. 20120015064, titled “SKIN CARE FORMULATIONS,”  discloses topical skin care compositions and methods for their use that include a chemically compatible combination of palmitoyl tetrapeptide 7 and Euterpe oleracea fruit extract or Terminalia ferdinandiana fruit extract, and a dermatologically acceptable vehicle comprising water, glycerin, butylene glycol, propylene glycol, and disodium EDTA, wherein the topical skin care composition is formulated for topical application to skin.

 U.S. Patent application no. 20120082737, titled “Topical Skin Care Formulations Comprising Plant Extracts ,” discloses compositions and corresponding methods of their use that include extracts from a Lonicera maackii and Polygonum hydropiper. The composition can be used to reduce tyrosinase activity and elastase activity in skin cells.

U.S. Patent application no. 20100143515, titled “MAGNOLIA EXTRACT CONTAINING COMPOSITIONS,” disclsoes a method of increasing firmness or elasticity or reducing the appearance of sagginess in the periorbital area of a person's skin, comprising topically applying to the skin in need thereof a composition comprising magnolia extract and vitis vinifera extract.

At least from patent filing point of view, Mary kay seems to have a focus on botanical products based skincare formula.  I am going to take a look at the company’s products tomorrow to see if the patent filings focus matches up with the product direction.

Thanks for reading.

Connie

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