Inside a Beauty Patent Dispute With Shhhowercap Founder Jacquelyn De Jesu

Summary

Gloss Angeles Podcast Episode Summary

Episode: Inside a Beauty Patent Dispute With Shhhowercap Founder Jacquelyn De Jesu
Air Date: January 23, 2026
Hosts: Kirbie Johnson and Sara Tan
Guest: Jacquelyn De Jesu, Founder & CEO of Shhhowercap

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Episode Overview

This episode delves into the world of beauty innovation, intellectual property, and the real-world challenges faced by independent inventors. Hosts Kirbie and Sara interview Jacquelyn De Jesu, founder of the reinvented, patented Shhhowercap, about her journey from advertising creative to beauty entrepreneur, the latest patent dispute saga involving her product, and the broader implications of “dupe culture” in the beauty industry. Jacquelyn shares personal and professional insights on protecting inventions, fighting against infringement, and what comes next for her and her brand.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Jacquelyn’s Beauty Faves and Routines

[01:16–03:53]

• Jacquelyn shares her daily makeup go-tos:
  • IT Cosmetics Bye Bye Under Eye Concealer: Lasts a remarkably long time, doesn’t crease ("it’s like spackle").
  • Supergoop! Unseen Sunscreen: Loved for its feel and inclusivity (even her husband is a fan).
  • Rhode Lip Peptide: Combines with Clinique lipstick for color and function.
  • Westman Atelier Contour Stick: Versatile for contour, eyeshadow, and easy touch-ups.
• “My mom’s a makeup artist, and that’s like, one of my favorite hacks—how a blush can be anything when it’s mixed with lip gloss and how, you know, a contour stick can also be your eye shadow.” —Jacquelyn [03:45]

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Advice for Nontraditional Founders

[04:05–06:37]

• Jacquelyn’s background: Creative director in advertising before entering beauty.
• Advice to aspiring founders without big brand experience:
  • Know your excellence and leverage it to build your team around your gaps.
  • Be aware of your strengths and use them as a litmus test for entrepreneurial aptitude.
• “If you know yourself well enough, you really need to map what your core competencies are, what your excellence is, because there’s room for that.” —Jacquelyn [04:34]
• Emphasizes differentiation and authenticity over copying trends: “Don’t pull, swipe from other people ... do it in order to be different.” —Jacquelyn [05:31]

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Inspiration vs. Imitation and the Value of Offline Influence

[06:37–09:57]

• Importance of looking beyond social media for inspiration; get off Pinterest, go to museums and libraries.
• Violette_FR noted as a brand with staying power because of a clear, original perspective.
• “Authenticity has never been more important than it is today. That’s exactly why consumers are more educated ... and they can feel it.” —Jacquelyn [09:55]

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The Anatomy of a Beauty Patent

[11:16–14:52]

• Jacquelyn explains types of patents: Design and utility patents.
  • Design patent: Protects how the shower cap looks (pleats, band, pocket, shape).
  • Utility patent: Protects how it works (hydrophobic fabric, encased elastic, functional details).
• Patenting was vital to protect her investment and creativity, influenced by her upbringing in a creative entrepreneurial family and by the example of women like Sara Blakely.
• “If you cannot trust your shower cap, what is the point? I don’t care how cute we make it.” —Jacquelyn [13:26]
• “There was never a question about whether the ideas that came out of my head had value in the world ... and for me that’s like, patents or trademarks, it all really boils down to creativity in business.” —Jacquelyn [16:43]

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The Showercap Patent Dispute

[17:04–26:51]

• In 2018, a competitor allegedly infringed on Shhhowercap’s patents and trademark tagline.
  • The knockoff looked similar and used her registered tagline verbatim.
  • Brand history suggested intent to copy, not ignorance.
• Jacquelyn explains the emotional and financial cost of defending her intellectual property.
• Cease and desist issued; she was countersued challenging her patents, making her the defendant.
• Systemic issues: Big tech companies lobby heavily against independent inventor rights, making it harder for small, original companies to protect their IP.
• “At the end of the day, when you’re managing assets like this, it is different than just being a female founder. It becomes the lifeblood of the company ... it’s your responsibility when you own them.” —Jacquelyn [19:40]
• Going to trial drained resources, forced the company to scale down, and delayed new product launches and expansion.

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Trial Outcome and Ongoing Fallout

[26:51–33:22]

• The trial concluded in 2023:
  • Shhhowercap’s design patent was upheld, but the jury found no infringement by the other brand.
  • Utility patent was voluntarily removed to narrow the case (“without prejudice,” meaning she could reassert it later if desired).
  • Outcome: Jacquelyn didn’t win damages, and the competitor continues selling their product.
• Greater lessons:
  • Legal victories don’t always translate into business wins; enforcement is often out of reach for independents.
  • Many inventors give up early, highlighting how rare Jacquelyn’s persistence is.
  • “So many inventors that I speak with don’t have the hundreds of pieces of press, don’t have the Forbes articles, don’t have the ability to have a platform for thought leadership ... I just feel like I’m uniquely poised.” —Jacquelyn [32:36]

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Dupe Culture in Beauty: Harmful or Helpful?

[33:22–37:26]

• Jacquelyn is not a fan of dupe culture, especially when it crosses into IP infringement.
  • Authentic, inventive brands need time and scale to offer broader, more affordable options.
  • Dupes can lead to safety issues (e.g., bad formulations) and confusion for customers.
  • The responsibility to distinguish between legal, trend-driven products and infringing “dupes” falls on buyers, media, and industry leaders alike.
• “If you allow inventive companies to scale into the momentum that they establish, they’re the ones that have the credibility, they build the infrastructure ... to be able to serve that customer best.” —Jacquelyn [33:48]
• Calls for stronger, bipartisan policy to protect IP.

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Quick-fire Round & What’s Next for Shhhowercap

[37:26–39:41]

• ‘Fuck, Marry, Kill’: Jacquelyn jokes she’d “marry ELF” for the Hailey Bieber deal.
• Best invention of the past three years: Cozy Clip, a flexible polymer claw clip invented for safety and durability.
• Product she can’t live without: Laneige Lip Sleeping Mask — “it’s an all day, everyday thing."
• What’s next: Launching a new hair care line uniquely formulated for “regulating your oil cadence,” and starting to invent new things (“this is my first baby, but certainly not my last”).

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Don’t pull, swipe from other people ... do it in order to be different.” —Jacquelyn [05:31]
• “Authenticity has never been more important than it is today. ... They can feel when it’s coming from an intentional place or ... from an iterative place.” —Jacquelyn [09:55]
• “If you cannot trust your shower cap, what is the point? I don’t care how cute we make it.” —Jacquelyn [13:26]
• “At the end of the day, when you’re managing assets like this ... it’s your responsibility when you own them.” —Jacquelyn [19:40]
• “Legal victories don’t always translate into business wins; enforcement is often out of reach for independents.” —Paraphrased, [32:00]
• “If you allow inventive companies to scale into the momentum that they establish, they’re the ones that have the credibility, they build the infrastructure ... to be able to serve that customer best.” —Jacquelyn [33:48]

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Important Timestamps

• [01:16] — Jacquelyn’s favorite beauty products
• [04:27] — Advice for aspiring beauty founders
• [06:53] — Innovation vs. imitation in beauty
• [11:29] — What is a design vs. utility patent?
• [17:04] — Beginning of the patent dispute saga
• [21:36] — Lawsuit and systemic patent law issues
• [26:51] — The trial, outcome, and brand consequences
• [33:22] — Jacquelyn’s take on "dupe culture"
• [37:26] — Quick-fire questions
• [38:47] — What’s next for Shhhowercap and Jacquelyn

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Tone & Takeaways

The episode is frank, engaging, and informative, blending industry wisdom with personal narrative. Jacquelyn is candid about the real toll—emotional, financial, and creative—of an indie founder’s fight to protect her invention, and the hosts reinforce the urgency of these issues amid the explosion of copycat culture in beauty. At its heart, the episode calls for a more conscious beauty industry, where true innovation, authenticity, and creative labor are valued—legally and culturally.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Kirby]

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[Jacqueline dejesu]

Glam los angeles.

[Sarah]

Hi, kirby.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Hi, sarah.

[Sarah]

Welcome to los angeles.

[Kirby]

All right, Glams. Today's guest is a founder, CEO and inventor of a company she built 11 years ago. You probably have heard me talk about my love of shower cap, a premium reusable, waterproof shower cap designed to protect hairstyles, especially blowouts and styled hair, from water and humidity. Its patented design is stylish and breathable. It's hydrophobic with nanotech fabric that repels water.

[Sarah]

It's.

[Kirby]

It's antibacterial and machine washable. I think this is why I probably have had mine for at least a decade at this point and it has seven patents. Please welcome to Los Angeles, Jacqueline dejesu. Woo.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

I love that intro. Thank you so much for having me.

[Kirby]

I'm so excited. Of course.

[Sarah]

Thank you for coming. Okay, so we know what's on your head when you're in the shower, but we would like to know what's on.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Your face Currently, I had to cut it down to my absolute favorites, and I have reasons as to why it. Cosmetics concealer. Little tube goes a long way. Didn't know the brand. It was one of those things where, like, I was getting ready with the girls in my office and someone took it out of their makeup bag and I've never looked back. It had to have been like nine years ago. I hustle. So I love the way that it doesn't crease. It matches perfectly. It's blendable. But, like, really what blows my mind is that little tube. I'll blow through everything else in replenishments. That little tube lasts, like, longer than it should.

[Kirby]

It's like spackle. Is it the bye bye under eye?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Oh, the bye bye under eye. Okay.

[Kirby]

Amazing.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

And then we have supergoop. Unseen.

[Kirby]

Yes.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Beautiful product. Cannot be beat. Goes with everything. I also am, like, very inspired by how everyone tries to kind of pull from their brand vernacular and like, what they've done so perfectly with a formulation. I think another really cute thing is, like, my husband loves it and he doesn't really do, like, a man's routine. Definitely not skincare. Doesn't even wash his face. And one day he was putting it on, he goes, why do I love this so much? Like, why does it. Why does it mean? I was like, now you get it. Like, that's beauty. That's the way that we feel about all of the things that we buy and repeat purchase. Like, that's the trial and error. Like, now you understand beauty products and our connection to them, you know, So I love that. And they're a great team, so I always try to support great teams. And then Rhode lip peptide, I love their color. Just, like, such a nice flush. But it also really is doing exactly what I need it to do, which, like, it doesn't flake, it pulls, and it matches, and it's blendable. And right now I have. Can I add one? I have a Clinique lipstick underneath for a little bit more color. Because we're on camera. Yeah, but that's combo. Yeah, exactly. That's my lip combo and then the Westman atelier contour stick. And that one is really just great for my skin. Blends really nicely. And I always carry the travel one so I can touch it up and it's like a perfect, perfect. Keep it in your kit. Keep it in your bag if you are going somewhere. I live in New York City, so, like, there's a lot of, like, day to night kind of flows. And for me, I'll, like, use it for contour, but I'll also use it a little bit on my eyes. And my mom's a makeup artist, and that's like, one of my favorite hacks is, like, how a blush can be anything when it's mixed with lip gloss and how, you know, a contour stick can also be your eye shadow.

[Kirby]

Oh, totally. Yeah.

[Sarah]

Talk about, like, copying products. I feel like a lot of brands try to. Try to copy Westman Atelier's like, sticks, the blush and the contour sticks.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Totally.

[Sarah]

Like, I see it everywhere.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Yeah.

[Kirby]

Okay, Jackie, so before starting the brand, you were a creative director who worked at leading advertising agencies, and you worked on brand creative and strategy. What advice do you have for other women who want to enter the beauty industry? As a founder of, but don't have, what's considered the quote unquote, traditional beauty experience, like working at a big brand prior to launching their own brand?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

It's a great first question. What I would always say, and generally the advice that I give to entrepreneurs is every woman, if you're ambitious enough to start something, has a core set of skills that you're excellent at. And when you're starting a brand, especially in the earliest stages, there's so much to be done. So the reality is if you know yourself well enough, you really need to map what your core competencies are, what your excellence is, because there's room for that, right? You're building an entire org chart. So if you're great at operations and strategy and numbers, then that should be where you focus, right? And then you build out your brand team, because you got that. So, so, so, right. It can happen in any other way. You see the influencers that are focused more on their social and their content. You see the designers that are focused more on their quality of product and assortment and their packaging, right? Things like soft services. How beautiful is that brand? We all know what Annie's background was, so that founding team really leaned into what made them so excellent. And now that's a differentiator for their brand. But I think that that's my best advice is like a. It's a good litmus test for if you know yourself well enough to be an entrepreneur. Because you have to, right? No matter what you're building, when you're out on your own, it's really that, like, personal growth and looking inwards almost daily, minute by minute, to check in with yourself. So as a first exercise, that's really the best advice that I give. And then the other is don't pull, swipe from other people. Like, and if you do honestly do it in order to be different, right? Even if you're briefing in a design team, like, the advice that I give is like, if you're launching, let's take it out of beauty just for a second. We don't need to start with hot takes, but if you're launching a beverage brand, right, Vitamin Water is a perfect example of this. All of the water was boring and basic, so they went bold, minimal and colorful. The vitamins is not what sold that brand for 4.2 billion, totally. It was the fact that it was differentiated in a sea of same. And now I think that, like, there's so much out there that that's really the point, you know?

[Sarah]

So how do you then look for inspiration but still stay true to your own ideas? When you're on social media, you're on Pinterest, you're reading the news, and like you said, especially in beauty, there's so much like, how do you innovate and stay unique?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

I think innovation by default is creating something that has not been seen before, but you can't help but absorb, right? We're all living in the world. Whether you're founding a brand or developing product, you can't help but see what's out there. I always encourage people to focus on the behavior, right? So shower cap is a perfect example of that. I wasn't looking at the shower cap category. If I focused on the size of the shower cap category, we wouldn't be the brand that we are today. I'd probably still be working in advertising. We focused on the fact that beautiful women who are making intentional choices in every other part of their routine weren't washing their hair every day. And that's something that I learned. In advertising. It's not about necessarily the product. It's about the thing that you're selling. And the thing that you're selling is the experience and the problem that you're solving. So I think that that's the top line advice. But when it comes to like pulling, swipe and looking at things, the real focus for me is always about taking enough inspiration from online to know what might be popular or resonate. But then make sure you get offline. Because I think that what has happened over the past 20 years, since I started my career, is that it really is a world of Pinterest. It really is a world of virality. And, you know, we were talking about the 2016 trend, right? Like, I've never been a lemming. I'm not a lemming in person. I'm not a lemming in the way that I dress or any other way. So I don't translate that to my brand. I'm not a follower. But so many people think that that's the way that things are done. And really it's about getting out of that cycle and looking at what's happening in museums or old books. Like, the best design agencies, they go to the library at the first brief. They're not scrolling Pinterest. So I think when you're already on the online landscape, you're already in a place that's sanitized and distilled to the thing that everyone can view and everyone can see. And you don't really need taste to manage and find. But yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think I have a strong point of view on it. It definitely takes a little bit more legwork. But it's about getting out of that same pipeline. You're always gonna digest it.

[Kirby]

I love that you mentioned the library. I think that's why Violette Fr is so successful, because she. She's obviously just like the coolest French girl of all time.

[Sarah]

So chic.

[Kirby]

She's fabulous. Her products are amazing. And of course, she has products that, like, if you're walking into a Sephora you want to see from a brand in terms of their offering. But they have their own point of view. And we interviewed her last year at SCAD and she talked about her mirror, quote unquote product, which is not actually. There's no mirror to it. It's just a reflection so that you can see a blurred vision of yourself to touch up if you need to. And that was instilled in her from her art background. So I think you're. I absolutely love that point is all I'm trying to say. Yeah, yeah, I really like that.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

And I think that's the other thing, right? Like the brands that I think even just in the initial stages of this conversation that we name checked, for me, those are the gonna be the ones with staying power. Those are the ones that are getting the real distribution, that have cult followings. And there's a reason for it. Like authenticity has never been more important than it is today. And that's exactly why consumers are more educated than they've ever been before. And they can feel it. They can feel when it's coming from an intentional place or they can feel when it's coming from an iterative place. And then you're in a game of like price gouging and promos and growth hacking and like that's not what's special about beauty. That's not what people connect with.

[Kirby]

I think that's kind of why ELF is getting a lot of flack this past year, because they did increase their prices. And when you're known to be a brand that's accessible and affordable, even though they were maybe only increasing their prices by $1, people are like, you're a huge multi million dollar brand and becoming a conglomerate in a way. Why are you increasing your prices? They're not seeing the value. And well, perhaps they're creating, you know, their own types of products versus like duping other products.

[Sarah]

So yeah, like Costco, keeping their chicken and hot dog prices the same for every.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Exactly.

[Kirby]

Totally take away.

[Sarah]

Did that come to mind? Okay, Jackie, obviously you're an incredible inventor. Shower Cap has several patents, as Kirby mentioned. Can you tell us what those patents are and why was patenting this particular product so important to you?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

So I'll start with a little bit of education. There's four types of patents transparently. I didn't even know the second two because we only have the first two. There's design patents, utility patents, systems patents, and process patents. The latter are very common in tech and things like that. We have design, patent and utility Patent and then internationally protected. Because I always knew that this thing was going to be big enough that other countries would matter. Design is the way that something looks. So shower cap, for example. It's the pleats that radiate from the point, the band pocket, the shape of how it looks when you put it on. I'm not gonna put it on. Cause I don't wanna ruin my hair.

[Sarah]

That one's so cute though. Thank you.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Thank you. And then utility is the way that it functions. So a lot of those things that you name checked in the intro, right? And the gripper and the way that the elastic is encased in our waterproof fabric, the fact that it's used from this hydrophobic fabric instead of the others, the functionality of the thing. So this product is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Right, Right. There are certain products that only have design patents, certain products that only have utility patents. We have both because. Because of it.

[Kirby]

Well, because the design is also important to the utility in this case. Right. Like the pocket in the back. You made that so that the thickest, longest of hair would have a place to sit.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Yep, exactly. And so many of my customers, you know, have protective styles and locks. And what was really important was that we weren't sacrificing the solution of making it sleek and eliminating such a cor part of our customer. And I think that that is also something that's found in here. There's inches. So if you have protective styles, for example, and they're as long as mine, those braids will hook under and the elastic hooks under, as opposed to what existed in market before. The elastic is flimsy. The material is flimsy and it pops up.

[Kirby]

Yeah, just expands.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

If you cannot trust your shower cap, what is the point? I don't care how cute we make it. Right. And then same. If you have high volume curls, this lifts without crushing them. So those are the things that like I care about. And what was inspiring to me, the answer to why it was important to patent was quite frankly, I knew it was going to be special and new and dupe culture wasn't as big as it is today back when I started. But I was very much inspired by the story of Sarah Blakely, like so many female entrepreneurs are. And I had a really lucrative career in advertising. I was like staying at shutters and literally shooting Midol commercials with like the director of Legally Blonde just for fun. Like, I remember when we got briefed in on that campaign, my partner and I were like, this is a 15 second spot. It's they're never going to prove anything cool. So when we got anything approved that was worth shooting, which is a feat in itself in advertising, we were like, who's the coolest person that we can get to shoot this thing? Same thing. Like, when I was working on IMEs, it was a little print campaign. Campaign. But do you know the Selby?

[Kirby]

No.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

He's like an incredible photographer. He does a lot of, like, home stuff. And I don't really remember where I was going with this.

[Sarah]

You had a great career and you left it all because it's so important.

[Kirby]

Yes. It's so important.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Too hard. Can I tell you why? Because I literally. I remember, like, we used to just stay at Shutters. Yeah. Like, that was the only place that we stayed. If you're. If you're in California, Shutters is a very, very, very expensive hotel in Santa.

[Sarah]

Monica, like, right on the beach.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

We would come out for, like, nothing projects and stay at Shutters.

[Kirby]

Yeah.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

You know, and our producer would, like, book extra days because she was like our producer mommy and be like, do you guys want to stay a couple extra days? So that was the life that I was living, and I really, really loved it. And if I was going to leave that life, I wanted to make sure that the leap that I was taking was something that was, you know, going to be my own, going to be protectable. I didn't want those decisions, those risks and all of that hard work to be for nothing. And it felt like one of the best ways that I could protect something that I knew was important. But also, I'm the daughter of two creative entrepreneurs. My dad is a set builder. He owns a set design company in the Brooklyn Navy Yard and which has also now boomed. But he was kind of like one of the earliest there. And my mom is a professional hairdresser and makeup artist, and she did a lot of special effects when I was growing up. So, like, that plus my career in advertising, like, there was never a question about whether the ideas that came out of my head had value in the world. I was making my salary off of it. I was winning awards based off of it. I was impressing clients, Fortune 100, Fortune 500 companies from these things that came from me in a white room, scribbling on a wall and then executing it and being like, do you want to buy this? Like, that was what I knew. But it was also who I always, always was because I saw my parents in a gig economy. You know, some months were good, some months were bad, but generally provide a middle Income, Long island kind of upbringing based off of creative skills. And for me, that's like patents or trademarks. It all really boils down to creativity in business. The value of creativity in business is kind of how I articulate it. So that's why it's important to me. It's recently become way more important to me, but it's. It's always been important to me.

[Kirby]

Three years after you launched Shower Cap, you said another brand had allegedly infringed on your patents, not only on your product, but on your trademark tagline, and they were selling a cheaper product made in China. What about this product made you feel that they had infringed upon your own product?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

It's a legally dicey question, but I can say the short answer is, you know, we went from 0 to 3 million real fast. I didn't really see anything else with pleats or anything that was close to, you know, my patented design. And I think we were in 70 sephoras at the time. Hundreds of pieces of press. What I've experienced is there's what's called efficient infringement, strategic infringement, and then there's like, whoopsie, we just bought this company. Like, let's clean this up. Like, didn't know. And we had had some really productive, respectful conversations with, you know, the latter category. And at this stage in our growth, this really felt like the first one that was the other really trying to come and eat the market that I had built. And it was also, you know, the packaging, it didn't look like our pink box. It looked like the only other ethical competitor and my registered trademark at the time the Shower Cap reinvented was used word for word on the front of the box. The other aspect was that they have a history of doing this. So when we dug into their behavior, it didn't really follow the pattern of the other companies that we had looked at with more respectful conversations. It followed a pattern of like, this might be a part of their business model. And my patents were proven defensible because we had had other conversations with, you know, like I said in earlier years with other, let's call it more respectful players that resolved swiftly and fairly and apologetically and respectfully. I am a female inventor. I took all of the risk to leave a 400k salary in advertising to launch this business because I knew that it was going to be something valuable and that immediate traction and the millions that we were selling and the retailer response and the consumer response validated that it was something special. And at that time, I had girls depending on me for their salaries, for their rent. I had put everything in. And yeah, that's why, I mean, at the end of the day, when you're managing assets like this, it is different than just being a female founder. It becomes the lifeblood of the company and the thing that you really do need to stand up for. And I think from the outside looking in, people look at patent or IP matters as potentially petty. It's not. It's your responsibility when you own them.

[Sarah]

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[Kirby]

Okay, so you alluded to this, but because of this, with this particular brand, you sent a cease and desist to them. Then you were sued by this brand claiming your patents were invalid. What happened next?

[Sarah]

When was this, by the way?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

They came to market in 2018.

[Sarah]

Okay.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

And then we kind of monitored to see how big of an impact it would feel as we were continuing to try to scale the company. But we sent a cease and desist, I think a respectful one, all things considered. And they sued me, making me the defendant in my own IP enforcement case. And a lot of people can't get over that hurdle. I also, you know, just have to be careful. Like I can say, I know that my, my sephora.com brand images were sent to China now and all of this is public record. I know those things as fact. But I think there's, there's people who respect patents and then behave because they see them and then there's people who look at them like something to invalidate or steal. And it seems to be if you have a part of this as your business strategy that you kind of lean on the latter. But we were proudly and publicly like self funded, you know, things. I've always been transparent and authentic in situations like this and we've had a lot of press and there's a lot out there for how I was telling my story and how we relied on growth marketing and how we were fueling Meta ads. You know, if Glossy was tapping me for a quote on, you know, Black Friday, we would speak to how much we were pumping into scaling Meta ads and how important Holiday was for us. So now in hindsight I see how much information I was given. Anyone who wanted to kind of benefit from our hard work, shall we say. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't know that that would be the outcome. And what made it really challenging was that everything was marked. Attorney's eyes only. And that's normally a delineation for like trade secrets. But so much of what I later learned was the evidence was not anything that I had seen for seven years going through the process. And that's really limiting as an inventor because you don't, you don't have the facts, your lawyers aren't allowed to tell you. And I was getting like inferences of how kind of strategic and egregious it was. But I didn't know until I was actually sitting in the courtroom and prepping for the trial. Two weeks before that like my pictures from sephora.com were sent to factories in China.

[Sarah]

So like as a common person who's not like a business person, if you were to like tell this to them, like myself, I'd be like, that's crazy. How do they even have a case.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Like you own the patents policy changed. Big tech, the Samsungs of the world, Apple, Metta, places that we benefit from while growing our businesses lobby pretty heavily against independent inventor rights. And there's a reason for that. But there has been a lot of policy change that has effectively put independent inventors in positions that make it more of a liability to assert yourself and stand up. So that's one of the fundamental principles. But I think, I think the other aspect is, you know, one of the most eye opening things was how little policy or little support there was on the Wholesale distribution side of things. And that's one of the places that I'm really focused on, you know, creating change. Does that answer the question?

[Kirby]

Well, I was gonna say, what was the result of them suing you? And how has this affected shower cap?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Effectively, we needed to, like, hunker down and focus on the basics. And when you think of how globally kind of what that velocity was, we were sold everywhere from Lane Crawford to Selfridges to the moma design store, Sephora, Detox Market, Violet Gray. Love you, Cassandra. I hope you're listening. Revolve. All of those are little nodes, right? For information leak for. And mind you Also, this was 2019. That was really the year that my company got rocked. And 2020 was supposed to be when we were, like, launching the hair care line and, like, back to business. If we survived 20. And looking back, like, that's comical if you hear, like, the laughing in my voice, because what I. I learned how to protect my business in 2019 in a catastrophic event, if you will, you know, but effectively, we scaled down. The closer that we got to trial, the more complicated things got. And I can't speak to any one point on that, but that is the. That is the kind of the build into where we are. And now we're. We're really focused on a relaunch of the brand. That's where we are today. We're really focused on our customer experience. I think that, like, so much of where. Where I'm focused is, like, what can I take from this traumatic experience? And that's really what it is. Like, it happened to me. People say that these things aren't personal, but they're deeply personal. I invented this thing, you know, I sacrificed everything. It's impacted every aspect of my life on a personal level. And I think because of that, like, what's inspiring to me in the way that I view the world is, like, shedding the toxicity and just moving beyond it.

[Kirby]

In 2023, that's when the trial ended, Right. And a jury said that this brand did not infringe upon your patents. Is that correct? The design patent.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Design patent.

[Kirby]

Okay, so I guess since Sarah and I and a lot of our listeners are not inventors, what did that mean? Like, what did that signify? Did that mean that you had to go back to the drawing board to, like, redefine your patent? Or were you at risk of losing your patent because of that? Like, what. What was the outcome?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

It's a great question. So it is really nuanced. I'm going to break it down as simply as possible. We asserted our patent rights, our design patent, our utility patent, and the trademark that was granted to me. All granted. Awarded to Shower Cap. My assets, my female invented created assets, no question. We were sued for a declaration of non infringement, which effectively is, you know, in layman's terms, a defense strategy of like, say we didn't do it. The response to the cease and desist when we first sent it was like, drop this or we'll see you. And I was like, well, can't do that, because seems like if I don't do anything, you're gonna make my life worse. So there's a lot of things that happened within, like the loopholes in the law of how they were able to proceed and kind of like hamstring the business and distract us from the values of what matters. But the closer that we got to trial, it seems like punitively. They filed to invalidate both of my patents, not at the same time, mind you. So first they filed to invalidate my design patent. And, you know, that's basically putting it back up for re exam at the uspto. It's like getting a deed for the car and then being like, you stole my car. And then someone being like, but is it really. Should it be your car? Should it be a car at all? The utility patent, then I don't even remember such a blur, but, like, seemingly months later, then they filed to invalidate that. I guess once they saw us still operating. I don't know.

[Kirby]

Not to interrupt, but where. Where is the brand now going like, do you have to reexamine this patent?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

I'll. I'll answer this. So what happened in the trial was we had won the design re exam, so I was in the best position to see the evidence, basically get a real sense of these people, be the first brand that I know to actually take them through the entirety of the process. Because everyone else that we had heard kind of settled behind closed doors and wasn't able to speak on it. I always had a great founder story and an inventor story, and I was starting to see this rise of dupe culture and me being, you know, really in a unique position to be able to advocate for change of the human experience of what happens here. And we remove the utility patent without prejudice, which means if I ever wanted to, in theory, but I want nothing to do with these people on record. I want nothing to do with these people. And we went on design. So that allowed the evidence to be public record, all of it, the trial testimony to be public record. But the damages themselves. It wasn't whether my patent was valid or invalid that had already been re stamped by the USPTO that my inventorship. None of that was at issue in the trial. The trial was really about are my trademarks valid and is the jury gonna say that this was an infringing product on my design patent, which is a much more narrow view than a utility patent. And yeah, there were some really traumatic experiences that happened in the proceedings of the trial that impacted my performance on the stand. And I was our company's only sitting witness, and I survived it barely. But we didn't win. And I think lashify is a perfect example. She won her trial in hundreds of millions of dollars of damages, and she's still fighting to get it. So what I've learned in these experiences is that it's not actually about the win or the loss, because if you're doing this strategically, there's so many gates of how you can avoid ever paying someone what they're rightfully owed, even with a win. And what was most valuable to me is for them to not have the right to continue to sell. And right now, today, despite them still for years later continuing to sell and having these distribution points that really should know better, and they're not legally able to sell both. Both parts of this thing that they sent to China to make their own version of quote unquote. On the other side of it, I'm really just focused on the things that matter most to us, which is my founder and inventor story, the rehabilitation of my brand and my business, the consumer love that's always been there, and the education in hopes that what I've been through is something that can continue to create a sea change. Because it's not about the big guys when you're shopping dupes. I think that's the common consumer misperception. Most of the cases exist, you know, in inventors getting knocked off at their first toy show. And the majority of what I see is like, heartbreakingly so, right at the first real sign of like, market impact, right of like, real traction, real millions. No one's knocking off something that feels invaluable. No one's fighting this hard and investing their own time and energy for something that they view from the outside doesn't have value. So that's the irony around situations like this. But there's so much policy change and there's so much advocacy work and there's so much education that I have with my platform and how successful thinking. Thank God my product was in market because so many inventors that I speak with don't have the hundreds of pieces of press, don't have the Forbes articles, don't have the ability to have a platform for thought leadership, aren't able to sit down in situations like this without a 50k per month PR team. And like, I just feel like I'm uniquely poised. Edit that however you want. I gave you a lot there, but it is a meaty topic.

[Sarah]

So dupe culture is super mainstream in beauty, super mainstream everywhere. But obviously we see it so much in beauty, it's just like inevitable. How are you looking at as an inventor who obviously have gone through so.

[Kirby]

So much, but is there a world where it's helpful.

[Sarah]

Yeah.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

To have a dupe straight up? No. Why? So many things to unpack. If you allow inventive companies to scale into the momentum that they establish, they're the ones that have the credibility, they build the infrastructure and the expertise and the community love to be able to serve that customer best. With scale, you can launch a bridge brand, you can reduce your pricing, but that's all about how that momentum continues to build in order to be able to offer that to the customer. I think in the world of TikTok shop, we're seeing it in formulations. Girls are getting rashes from dupe formulations, you know, and it's because they're confused from, you know, the originator brand thinking that they're buying an original. So that happens on a formulation side. And I don't think that iterative products need to exist. Truly, it's not just about my experience. I think that, like, the industry is so saturated, consumer goods is so saturated, there's so much product pollution that happens when creating a beauty brand, period. Whether you're using plastic or not, just the sheer nature of the volume of the freight and the manufacturing lines and all of it that like, really at the end of the day, like bringing things that serve a customer need in unique and novel ways is how I think business should be done. Not every company has the same set of values. And I think that originator brands will always continue to listen to and serve the customer when they're given the opportunity to. And that's what I hope every originator brand has the opportunity to do. How I'm looking at my position in dupe culture as an inventor is it's really important that we don't ladder up intellectual property infringement underneath the dupe umbrella. I think that's a responsibility for buyers to understand. I think that's a responsibility for media to be More mindful of. I think that it's the responsibility for, you know, panels that are talking about, like, the validity of dupes. At the end of the day, the USPTO was established by our founding fathers because it was an important part of our society and a thriving one. Right to have our citizens incentivized to be able to protect their works and their creative ideas. That's why the USPTO exists. So in this conversation and this place that we are today, we all individually have a responsibility to educate ourselves. But dupe culture in beauty is super popular from, you know, a teal eyeshadow trending. That's not a counterfeit product. That's not a patent infringing product, or even one that could be accused as such. So I think assuming that it all ladders up to the same name or the way that we talk about it in that way, parsing out the behaviors for where the legalities really lie and the policy change that I'm working so hard to lobby for in DC, which, in 2026, there are so few bipartisan issues, but it seems to be one that, like, policymakers on both sides of the aisle can actually agree on. That's a really powerful position for us. Not us us. The collective us. And I hope that, you know, in the next decade of my journey, as I continue to put one step forward and speak with these opportunities with intention, that we'll start to see a little bit more responsibility for people who are developing and launching and creating and purchasing anything that could be, you know, conceived as such.

[Kirby]

Okay, Jackie, thank you for sharing all that with us. We're gonna go into quick fire. First question. Fuck, Marry, Kill, Emco, Beauty Revolution, Beauty and Elf.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

I don't know the first two well enough to fuck or kill, but I will say I want that. I want that Hailey Bieber deal. So I'm gonna marry Elf. Okay. If that can be my answer.

[Kirby]

Okay, great. Interesting, Interesting.

[Sarah]

Add Mary Elf, too. What is the best invention of the last three years?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Shower gap. Well, not three years. Three years. Oh, I'll shout her out. I love Cozy Clip. She went viral. She. She invented a polymer claw clip. She started going viral because apparently a lot of women, like, die or get paralyzed in car crashes. We've talked about this. We talked about this.

[Kirby]

Yes.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

And also, they break just, like, from the average consumer experience. So she invented one that's actually like a flexible polymer and it holds your hair. It's called Cozy Clip. She's a great founder. She's an original in the truest sense of the word.

[Sarah]

Check that out.

[Kirby]

And besides shower cap, what is the product you can't live without?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

The Laneige lip Mask. Like it's a sleeping mask, but it's always in my bag. Like that is a daytime product for me. It's an all day everyday thing.

[Sarah]

Another often imitated.

[Kirby]

Yes, that is so true.

[Sarah]

Okay, Jackie, what is next for shower cap? What can we all expect?

[Jacqueline dejesu]

So we have for 10 years now built a community of women that are united by the behavior of not washing their hair every day. And I've been working on a hair care line that is uniquely formulated for effectively regulating your oil cadence through all of these touch points and first party data. And it's so good and so yummy and I use it every day and we can't keep the samples in. Like I'm just really excited to be able to bring that to market with confidence. And then I on my side, am gonna start inventing new things. You know, I think this is my first baby, but it's certainly not my last. And that's the power of inventors. When they're not mired in all of this nonsense. A lot of us tend to have to get stuck in it just by the nature of the success of our first one. But our brains and our creativity have the opportunity to do so much more. So that's what I'm focused on.

[Kirby]

Amazing. Thanks for sitting with us, Jackie, and telling your story.

[Jacqueline dejesu]

Thank you.

[Kirby]

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