What You Can and Cannot Copy From a Viral Bottle

Sol de Janeiro built one of the most recognisable packs in body care. The Bum Bum Cream jar and the Cheirosa mist have been paid homage to, borrowed from and straightforwardly copied more times than anyone has counted. In 2024 the brand went to court over its trade dress and lost.

That case is worth understanding before you brief a designer, because the line between inspiration and infringement is not where most people assume it is.

Trade dress is the look, not the logo

Trade dress covers the overall visual impression of a product: shape, colour combination, layout, the feel of the whole thing. It is protectable when it identifies a source to a customer, which is a high bar and a factual question rather than a matter of opinion.

Losing such a case does not mean the packaging was unremarkable. It means a court was not persuaded that the particular combination claimed had come to signal one company strongly enough to fence off.

The parts nobody owns

Most of what makes a viral pack work is not ownable, and this is where a small brand should be spending its attention.

• Format. A wide jar for a thick body cream is a functional decision. Anyone can make one.
• Standard components. Necks, threads and stock closures are industry specifications, not designs.
• Colour as a general idea. A warm palette is not property. A specific combination applied in a specific way, on a product people already associate with one brand, is a different question.
• Category conventions. Sol de Janeiro's lid works partly because it stays inside what a body cream is expected to look like, which is a design lesson available to everyone.

The parts that get you a letter

• The name, or anything near it. Names are trademarks and they are defended hardest.
• A distinctive shape reproduced closely enough that a shopper glancing at a shelf could mistake one for the other.
• The whole look copied together. Individually unremarkable choices become a problem when you take all of them at once.
• Anything that suggests an association you do not have. Comparative reference is normally fine. Implying a partnership is not.

What to do with the instinct instead

The useful question is not what the bottle looks like. It is why it works. Sol de Janeiro's packaging succeeds on a contrast between an expressive body and a restrained lid, and on a shape that photographs well in a hand. Both are principles rather than property.

Take the principle, change the execution, and you get a pack that performs for the same reasons without borrowing anyone's identity.

• Name the reason you like it in one sentence. If you cannot, you are copying rather than learning.
• Change at least two of the three big signals: silhouette, colour system, and typography.
• Photograph your mock-up next to the original. If a stranger has to look twice, go further.
• Get a clearance opinion before a large run, not after. A rebrand at ten units is a Tuesday. At ten thousand it is the business.

Ordering from ten units is what makes this survivable. You can put three directions into real bottles, look at them on a real shelf, and find out which one is yours before you commit to a container load.