Inside Design: Choosing Sample Packages That Make Scents
A set of rejuvenating products from Crabtree and Evelyn will be welcomed anytime of year.
Ready-to-give products to please any taste.
By Marie Redding Senior EditorIn this column, we've highlighted some special product lines that understand the year-round value of a well-chosen gift that delights and surprises or provides emotional recharge and rescue. Selecting and bestowing these no-wrapping-required products will be as much fun as receiving them.
Passion and purpose drive these companies. With each, we share
a special something: a sly wink at Blue Q, a touch of tradition with Crabtree and Evelyn, a self-satisfied smile with Lucky Chick, and a calm oasis of imagined times and places from Caswell Massey.
Distinctive, enticing packaging helps make these products gifts of warm feelings and good times, no matter where or when they are sold.
Drawing the Best from Nature: Crabtree and Evelyn
Crabtree and Evelyn distills the best of the past and present into everyday luxuries with the essence of English style. Renowned for beautifully designed toiletries, home fragrances, and fine foods, the company offers beautifully wrapped and ribboned items.
Every product emphasizes the firm's dedication to quality and its core heritage of restorative botanicals drawn from nature. (The company is named for two English horticulturists, John Evelyn and George Crabtree.) Thus inspired by early home apothecary, home and toiletry products are available in a variety of evocative scents, like soft sensual fragrances created from lilies, roses, freesias, and gardenias. Soft, traditional graphics with a modern flair touch consumers at their emotional core. Small, comforting luxuries such as scented hangers, sachets, drawer-lining paper, potpourri, and candles are a part of each product grouping. The stores offer custom-fragrance favors and bridal attendant gifts.
It is the firm's dedication to the consumer that makes these products so appealing. Allison Orme, director of product development, explains that consumer interests and lifestyles are the key inspiration for new products. For instance, the needs and pleasures of gardeners were a direct inspiration for the Gardeners' line.
Orme says that products under development must be considered for their look in the consumer home as well as their store presence. Visual appeal is key, but as is appropriate, she integrates as many senses as possible into the product to create a full experience. Graphics are created in-house, but supplier concepts are often used.
One Lucky Chick
Stephanie Sakoff, founder and president of Lucky Chick, says that inside, every woman is a "lucky chick." So, to provide "pampering products for a lucky lifestyle"—the tag line of the Lucky Chick product family—Sakoff has grouped a number of complementary products into Gifts-to-Go sets. Signature sets include Lucky in Love, Blushing Bride, Sole Survivor, and the Classic Beauty Box. She provides kits to pamper every part of the body, with beauty bags for Heavenly Hands, Sensational Body, and Tingling Tootsies.
Her first product was designed on a box procured from the local donut shop, creating the prototype image of her no-wrapping-required sets. Bright, whimsical drawings by Sakoff adorn every box, chronicling the life of the Lucky Chick. Lucky Chick was born two years ago after Sakoff, then a shoe designer in transition, moved into a downtown Manhattan apartment fatefully marked LC. A friend dubbed her the "lucky chick."
Sakoff's self-designed, colorful packaging is her trademark. Whimsical and distinctive, the Lucky Chick character allows every woman to see a vision of herself. Jennifer Brady, vice president of Brad-Pak Enterprises Inc. (Garwood, NJ), has worked with Sakoff from the beginning, supplying containers, pumps, and closures. "We help many young companies bring their creative vision to practical reality," Brady says.
A Bit of History: Caswell Massey
George Washington bought Caswell Massey's Number 6 cologne by the case for himself and to give to his friend, the Marquis de Lafayette. Greta Garbo, Edgar Allan Poe, Sarah Bernhardt, Maurice Chevalier, and Errol Flynn have all enjoyed its Old World preparations. In keeping with tradition, many of its formulas and methods are the same as they were 200 years ago. Almost every product is boxed, immediately ready for giving.
The Rub-a-Dub-Dub Lucky Chick in a Tub kit gives women everything they need for pampering. The firm estimates that more than half of the products it sells are ultimately given as gifts. And surveys of repeat consumers show that 75% choose Caswell Massey products as gifts. Anne Robinson, president of Caswell Massey, sees growth in the day-in, day-out gift business as a strong validation of the brand.
Caswell Massey's most popular gift set is the Almond Classics. Topped with a sheer gold ribbon, its presentation box is filled with goodies from the Almond and Aloe line. Within each line, a selection of samplers and sets for both men and women are always available.
To celebrate its 250th anniversary, Caswell Massey produced the majority of both its contemporary and heritage fragrances in limited editions of 500 and 1000. Each glass, stoppered bottle with an embossed pewter label is housed in a classic jewelry box and accompanied by a numbered certificate.
The decorative Gifts of the Sea collection from Caswell Massey evokes memories of the beach The firm uses gentle imagery to create a mood. For the new Gifts of the Sea line, soft tones of green and blue edged with frothy waves are used to remind the consumer of the sensual joys of the beach. These elements are meant to awaken the senses: consumers can almost feel the sand between their toes, their skin warmed by the sun, the taste of salt air, the sound of waves meeting the shore, and the feel of ocean breezes.
When Robinson speaks of the Gifts of the Sea collection, she says that "the products were developed to soothe, soften, and soak, particularly in Jacuzzis. Several products were packaged specifically to be gifts that could decorate a tub or Jacuzzi." The Mediterranean silk sponges and the Sea Foam Bath Gel are perfect examples, combining the highest-quality product with great home decorative appeal and a very giftable presentation.
Who Is Blue Q
Blue Q doesn't offer holiday gift sets. Instead, co-owners Mitch and Seth Nash have created collections of edgy, lighthearted products with sophisticated retro style and tongue-in-cheek copy, for any time of the year. But because their products are so shockingly fun, holiday shoppers may end up wanting to share their surprise with those on their gift lists.
Brazen, irreverent, and impolite, their products are anything but ordinary. The names are at least half the fun, but the very best ingredients back them up: Dirty Girl, Virgin/Slut, Queen, Wash Away Your Sins, Balls, Pit Stop, Tough Guy, Total Bitch, Cocktail Bar, and Bubble Monkey. "Everything we create is an opportunity for conversation. It's all about fun—for the customer and us. We really enjoy designing products."
Michelle Nahum-Albright is a beauty industry consultant, an award-winning designer, principal and creative director of Nahum-Albright Associates (Westfield, NJ), and a frequent contributor to CPC Packaging. Her clients include Maidenform Inc., Coty Beauty USA Inc., Eli Lilly Inc., M-Real Co., and Unilever Prestige Cosmetics. The firm provides both structural and graphic design. Expertise includes brand image, packaging, and merchandising. A graduate of Pratt Institute, Nahum-Albright currently teaches at Parson's School of Design.
Blue Q's newest introduction, Tainted Love, features the distinctive collage of Anne Taintor. These oddball, ultrafeminine, vintage images cross with cutting commentary for a unique look. Smart packaging solutions and cutting-edge art are married to suit individual concepts. For instance, metal cans were chosen for a distinct look for Wash Away Your Sins bubble bath. And the look of detergent cartons is reinterpreted for Hottie, Goddess, Stud, and Sexy Man body detergent.
"Squint and it's all the same multibrand mush," says Mitch Nash. To avoid blending in, Seth Nash says that Blue Q relies on "great graphics and idea quality to stick out like a sore thumb. We are not a beauty company—we are an idea company."
Making the List
A well-chosen gift is a reflection of the giver, the recipient, and the occasion. It is the tangible expression of intangible feelings. These firms offer a variety of appealing year-round choices to celebrate the important moments of life.