In Closing
Aveda's new lipstick cap is speckled with gold flax fibers. Earth-Friendly Designs
By Marie Redding Senior EditorNo matter what their industry, product manufacturers are becoming increasingly aware that many of today's consumers demand the use of recycled materials in packages. In the beauty business, which largely centers on attractive appearances, how can product manufacturers make use of recycled materials while keeping their packages looking good?
Multilayering is an easy way to incorporate recycled materials into a plastic bottle or cap. Colors will look shiny and new on the outer layer, because they'll be made from virgin materials, while the base layers will contain all of the dingy-looking post-consumer regrind. This technique wouldn't have worked for Aveda, a company known for its commitment to environmental causes. Its new Uruku line of lip stains, which make their debut in stores this February, contain 90% recycled materials—a number unheard of in the industry. So Aveda decided to use the look of recycled materials as part of the design instead of trying to hide it.
The company chose flax fiber, one of the oldest textile fibers, because of its natural golden color. The reddish-brown lipstick cap is made of a propylene resin which is normally milky-white, but turns brownish when it's recycled.
"Luckily, the color of the resin worked well with Aveda's design concept, and the naturally golden flax really made it look unique," says Tom Holloway, vice president of product development at Risdon-AMS, the company that molded the cap and supplied the actual lipstick.
Deciding to use flax fibers as a design element marks the first time a natural fiber has been used purely for aesthetic purposes by a cosmetics company, according to Mike Ford, director of marketing and sales at Teel GRT, the natural-fiber supplier that provided the flax for Uruku. "We try to provide a natural alternative to coloring plastics," says Cari Benson, customer service coordinator at Teel GRT. For the past 10 years, its customers have only used the fibers to strengthen plastics, allowing the resin to take on the properties of wood, for example, by adding wood fibers to a brown plastic eyeliner pencil. Now, it seems that companies are just beginning to see the design possibilities in its product. Teel GRT also supplies denim, pine, maple, hemp, sugar cane, and coconut husk fibers.
"Lately we're getting a lot of interest in using our fibers as natural color alternatives," says Ford. "We're in development with someone using our denim fibers, but nothing I can talk about yet." In the meantime, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for future packages, which may slightly resemble ripped-up blue jeans.