Design Forum: Fragrance, Freedom—It's All in the Packaging
Ping Li Consumers are getting the message: fragrance is choice and choice is everything.
In today's saturated beauty market, companies creating packages for fragrance must offer their consumers more than pleasurable perfumes. Companies must differentiate their fragrance products from those of their competitors with unique, innovative designs. Such customized looks begin with a concept—one that translates into a meaningful message for consumers.
BCBGirls EDT sprays provide women with four fragrance choices: (left to right) Nature, Metro, Star, and Sexy. Photos courtesy of Unilever Prestige. Interestingly, the fresh, original packaging that many such companies are creating is being born of the same general concept and message. The choice is yours, you can have it all, companies are telling their customers, and it is all right here in our fragrance. Moreover, companies are communicating that there is no limit to what fragrance can be, and concomitantly, no limits for the woman or man who wears it.
No Boundaries
BCBGirls is a brand without boundaries. This first fragrance collection from BCBG designer Max Azria, launched in 2001 by Unilever Prestige (New York City), is designed to give women choices. "Fragrance is like fashion," says Azria. "Women should have a selection of perfumes, like a wardrobe that changes with their moods," he says.
The four BGBGirls EDT sprays—Nature, Metro, Star, and Sexy—provide just such options, giving women the opportunity to "celebrate the girl within them," whether she happens to be spiritual, radiant, bold, or playful.
The bottle for men's fragrance OP Juice is surrounded by a thermoplastic elastomer shell, for packaging that enhances the appearance and convenience of the product. Photo courtesy of Lombardi Design & Manufacturing Together, the packages for each BCBGirls fragrance are designed to encourage female consumers to embrace all their girl-like qualities, to possess them all. Inspired by an obelisk, the 1.7-oz fragrance bottle has four faces designed to fit comfortably in a woman's hand, according to Unilever Prestige. The bottle is frosted for a soft, textured feel, like a woman's skin.
Colors and icons distinguish each fragrance package and relay its message. For example, Nature is green with a leaf motif, to indicate nature and renewal, harmony and balance. Star, by contrast, is pink and features a star icon, to exude excitement and energy, to appeal to the ambitious extrovert.
Clean white cartons with a modern look are secondary packages for the collection. Textured paper is intended to add dimension, according to Unilever Prestige. In addition, the cartons bare the names of the fragrances in seven languages, as well as in Braille, to communicate the brand's global presence.
Breaking with Tradition
An unconventional approach to package design can mean a broadening of the benefits a fragrance product can offer consumers. Such is the case with OP Juice for men, the March 2001 launch of the Ocean Pacific–brand fragrance from Parlux Fragrances Inc. (Fort Lauderdale, FL). Designed by Parlux in conjunction with Parisian design house Ateliers Dinand, OP Juice is marketed with a clear message. "The packaging communicates that [OP Juice] is 'not your father's cologne,'" says Kathleen Galvin, director of marketing for Parlux. "There is nothing conventional about it." Consequently, the fragrance can be more—everything, perhaps—to the customer who wants it all.
Breaking away from more traditional packaging enabled the designers to create a fragrance with all the qualities that today's male consumer could expect—style, functionality, and convenience, all rolled into one package. "The design and development of [OP Juice] was not influenced by any trends," says Galvin. "We were intent on going off in a totally new direction." The overall goal, she says, was to create a comfortable, easy-to-wear fragrance and put it in a package that was radically different in form and function from other men's fragrances on the market.
Enter Lombardi Design & Manufacturing (LDM; Freeport, NY), the injection molding specialist hired by Parlux to develop and manufacture the custom cap assembly and plastic overshell, which bring OP Juice's complex design to life. The design consists of a glass bottle, supplied by Algroup Wheaton (Milville, NJ), that is surrounded by Versaflex, a thermoplastic elastomer shell similar to material used on the grip of high-tech pens and pencils. The name of the fragrance printed on the bottle is visible through the transparent material. Also unique is the package's dispensing mechanism, which sprays the juice straight up from the top of the cap, rather than from the side. The plastic shell and the sprayer make the OP Juice package the first design of its kind in the cosmetic industry, according to Carl Lombardi, president of LDM.
Parlux chose the Versaflex shell for more than its fun tactile quality. Convenience was also a key factor. The plastic overshell "creates a package that guys can toss into their gym bags or [travel with]," eliminating concerns about leakage or breakage, says Galvin.
"The plastic shell is revolutionary," adds Lombardi. "The Versaflex material is overmolded on a polypropylene sleeve, creating a single unit. The glass bottle is inserted through the bottom of the sleeve. The bottle's neck and crimped actuator extend through an opening in a flange with an internally molded gasket at the top end of the unit." The cap assembly snaps over the crimp, sandwiching the flange between the cap and the bottle and holding the assembled package together, Lombardi says.
The globe-shaped bottle for Sphera, developed for Jafra Cosmetics, was designed to project an image of completeness. Photo courtesy of LiDesign The vertical spray is also a calculated departure from more conventional sprays. The brainchild of Parlux, the spray is consistent with the firm's not-your-father's-cologne image for the product, says Galvin. Risdon-AMS (Watertown, CT), which supplied the pump and actuator, reengineered the design of its actuator to create the upward spray; development and manufacturing was done by LDM.
Other suppliers that contributed to the OP Juice design are The Rothchild Printing Group for the actuator-use labels; Kroger Packaging Inc. for the base label; and Precision Techniques for the canister (secondary package).
OP Juice for men is sold at such department stores as Federated, May Corp., Saks Inc., and Dillards. OP Juice for women will hit retail shelves in September in the same packaging as its for-men counterpart, but with changes in color and graphics.
In the Spotlight
Choose to be the center of attention. Step into the spotlight. It's all about you.
Such is the concept behind Sphera Eau de Toilette, the latest sheer Oriental fragrance, with top notes of bergamot and kadota fig, developed for Jafra Cosmetics International Inc. (Westlake Village, CA) by Quest International. The message is strong, confident, one that the package design helps communicate to the female consumer. "We wanted to give customers a complete concept," says Gladis Issaei, senior manager, global product marketing. "The fragrance, the bottle, and the concept had to flow together."
And flow together they do. The lavender-colored bubble-shaped package, designed by LiDesign studio (Los Angeles), is an image of completeness—a sphere, a spotlight, and a globe. It is, by design, a package that puts the world in the consumer's hands.
"Sphera is, to our knowledge, the only fragrance bottle that is a perfect sphere," Issaei says. Ridges were cut into the top of the glass bottle, so that it could click into its hemispheric cap made of tinted Surlyn. "This feature eliminated the need for additional components to secure the cap," says Issaei, "and enabled us to make the glass bottle completely transparent."
"We met all our design objectives and [overcame] technical challenges, and created an irresistible design that sells," adds principal of LiDesign studio Ping Li, who is interviewed in this issue. "Sphera EDT has exceeded [projected] sales by a big margin." The line extension is currently in development, Li says. Sphera EDT, as well as other Jafra Cosmetics products, are direct door-to-door sales.
The 1.7-oz bottle is supplied and decorated by Vitro of Mexico. Other vendor partners contributing components to the design are Risdon- AMS, Zeller Plastik, and Moldeo de Plasticos Far S.A. DE. C.V.
Packaging Fragrance, Freedom
Today's wearers of fragrance want perfume without parameters. Companies looking to survive in the competitive fragrance marketplace are wise to heed the call, with such offerings as perfume collections for every mood, and fragrances that put the consumer center stage. Those firms already providing a complete fragrance package know what their customers know: fragrance is choice and choice is everything.