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Cosmetic Feature: Techniques Old and New Beautify Today's Cosmetics Packages

The Holographic Effect

Holographic packaging has helped take Girl Cosmetics (Los Angeles) from a $10,000 investment to a $6 million business in less than five years. Girl founder and CEO Shawn Haynes sees packaging as an important aspect of the Girl Cosmetics brand, which is sold in such high-end boutiques and department stores as Sephora, Bloomingdale's, and Nordstrom. "Girl Cosmetics is about the girl inside every [female]—youthful, playful, and fun," Haynes says.

When the brand launched, the products were packaged in a glittery holographic foil that was "excellent and attractive, but a bit too young," Haynes says. Wanting to show that his cosmetics were about "youthfulness in attitude, rather than youthfulness in age," Haynes relaunched the line in the spring of this year using sophisticated-looking lavender unicartons with a holographic sheen. "The new packaging is a perfect example of our marketing," he says. "The packages definitely attract your attention and draw you in as you walk toward them."

Haynes notes that although holographic packaging can be expensive, the return on such an investment can prove quite worthwhile. "[Cost] is the biggest challenge," he says, "but the packaging is beautiful."

And so are Girl's sales figures. "Sales are up 300%," he says. "We attribute this to the [new] packaging."

Holographic effects have also been the decoration of choice for Schwartzkopf & DEP (Rancho Dominguez, CA), which used film labels to punch up a stale package.

When Schwartzkopf & DEP relaunched its line of Agree shampoos and conditioners in holographic packaging roughly two years ago, shampoo sales increased by 80% and conditioner sales by 55%, according to Chris Gagliano, brand manager for Schwartzkopf & DEP.

At the time of the redesign, Gagliano noticed that the multicolor, three-dimensional labels being used to package such oral-care products as Aquafresh were enormously successful in the marketplace. So he set out to create similar packaging that would capture the eye of the hair-care product consumer. "We're not a traditional marketing company with huge advertising campaigns," says Gagliano. "Our advertising is done at the shelf. We have to do everything we can to get the consumer to take notice."

To accomplish his goal, Gagliano combined holographics with another style gaining in popularity—the clear package. The result was a totally new look for the Agree brand.

Agree's redesigned packaging consists of a clear PVC bottle with a holographic label on the back panel. The label faces inward so that when consumers look through the bottle and the product's clear formulation they see a rainbow of color. The reverse side of the film is UV flexographically printed with a white base to accommodate product information. For the conditioner, an opaque formulation, a traditional front-panel label with a hot-stamp hologram to accent the logo was used. Spectratek Technologies Inc. (Los Angeles) supplied the holographic film.

The redesign was a big switch from Agree's former container—a tan HDPE bottle with a basic paper label on the back panel. And the change, worthwhile as it was, didn't come easily. The new package presented Schwartzkopf & DEP with some challenges before the product hit shelves.

"One [obstacle we overcame] was that the first adhesive we tried had a ghosting effect, preventing the label from being perfectly clear," says Gagliano. But through a trial-and-error process of trying different glues, the problem was eventually solved. The Agree relaunch was completed in eight months, he says.

"Because this [holographic] technology is quickly becoming commonplace, any delays in perfecting the process are probably much shorter now," Gagliano adds. The cost of incorporating holographic designs, which was also an issue Schwartzkopf & DEP faced two years ago, may be an easier obstacle for similar companies to overcome today. "Nowadays there are enough vendors who source this kind of packaging that you can shop around and find a pretty good deal," he says.

Making a Splash

For packagers seeking the unique, Clariant Masterbatches (Charlotte, NC) promises just that. The company has developed a polymer technology for creating special effects in a variety of resins. Called Splash because the technology produces splashes of color in the packaging, the new process can be used to imitate finishes from tortoiseshell and marble to pearl and granite.

"The technology is [our answer] to requests for a tortoiseshell effect, which people have been asking for forever," says Bill Blasius, director of technology for Clariant. "There never really has been a good way to do it with a single-pellet-color concentrate."

The Splash special-effect concentrates are pigmented particles that break apart and smear when they are sheet-extruded, or blow-molded, giving plastic parts a dynamic, organic, or textured appearance. No two uses are alike, and no two parts are identical.

"Every match is custom and has to be tailored for every machine, so it's a little [more] time-consuming [than when] someone asks just for blue polypropylene," Blasius says. The application was designed for use in polystyrene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, and SAN, and to work on standard injection-molding equipment. Effects range from chunky to cloudy depending on how much backpressure is run on the molding machine, and on the temperature.

Given these variables, two or three iterations may be needed to get the effect the customer is looking for, Blasius says. "The effect is very nice, something you couldn't do without some pretty expensive secondary operations, such as air-brush painting," he adds. General-purpose cosmetics packages created using the Splash process are currently being field-tested.

Pretty Tough

For many cosmetics companies, durability is just as important as beauty when it comes to attracting customers. That's the idea behind IMATA hot-stamp foils created by CFC International (Chicago), a holographic and specialty coated-films supplier. The foils not only create sophisticated, eye-catching effects on plastic containers, but also still retain their good looks after taking a beating inside a purse or backpack.

CFC also manufactures holographic films and foils. According to Bill Herring, CFC's senior vice president of technology, CFC's current generation of hot foils process faster, provide better definition (which is important when trying to place fine lettering on a small mascara tube, for example), and have better abrasion and chemical resistance than the previous series. "It's easy to come up with a high-performance product, but it won't necessarily process well. The key to these products is that they process well, thanks to topcoat technology," he says. The foils rapidly adhere to the product's surface, enabling the topcoat technology to quickly take effect and provide surface protection. The foils used on cosmetics containers (generally a 12-micron polyester carrier film) provide fast, clean release, and can be used on substrates such as PVC, SAN, ABS, PET, styrene, polyethylene, and polypropylene.

"Holographic film gives the package a look of elegance that is difficult to achieve by other technology," says Herring. "The holographic foils provide a cost-effective way of producing sophisticated, elegant designs on packages. It's very hard to screen-print a decoration onto a primary package and achieve the same visual effects, such as a very bright metallized or holographic look," he says.

A Fresh Idea

At DieterBakicEnterprises (Munich) the latest wave in packaging is a fresh, water-sprinkled look—a water-droplet-like finish for lipstick cases and other cosmetics containers. "We identified a strong trend toward fresh looks with the theme of water," says Eric Firmin, director of sales and marketing for DieterBakic.

The effect is accomplished with a lacquer that can be used on glass and plastic bottles and color cosmetics containers, or on top of other decorations, Firmin says. "A unique feature of this surface treatment is its slightly irregular outcome," he says. "The position of the droplets cannot be completely controlled, and this gives each package a natural, individual look."

Because the process entails an additional lacquering process, it is a bit more expensive than traditional package decoration, he says. The process is still in development, and no products have been introduced to the market yet.

A Package Decorator's Dream

The future of package decoration is wide open. Tried-and-true techniques and entirely new ones will be available to companies wanting to set their products apart from the competition.

With holographic film continuing to be such a successful marketing tool, Herring of CFC International predicts there will be even more of it used in cosmetics packaging. Companies will expect their vendor partners to introduce holographic packaging that is both attractive and cost-effective.

Schwarzkopf & DEP, Gagliano says, will rely on another recent trend—see-through packaging—to sell its latest line of herbal shampoos. Consumers like to see the colors of the product formulations through their packages, he says.

Regardless of the various decorating techniques for use, companies using them will continue to have one thing in common: their desire for a distinctly different package.

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