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Pencils & Pens: Drawing a Line Between Trend and Tradition

The Indispensable Pencil

From Revlon to Urban Decay, most cosmetic companies' lines have a common element—the classic wooden pencil. The reasons for the pencil's staying power seem to be both sentimental and practical.

Some brands like the notion of tradition that is associated with pencils."Pencils have been a staple in cosmetics for years," says Erin Cotter, founder and creative director for Passport LLC (San Francisco). Mansoor Gilani, president of VIP Cosmetics Inc. (Pacific Palisades, CA) says: "A pencil is classic."

A pencil remains an ideal package for products with soft consistencies. Gilani, who has been a cosmetic chemist for more than 20 years, explains that, unlike a lipstick bullet, which must be rigid enough to withstand pressure during application, a product housed in a pencil can be much softer because the pencil casing provides protection and support. Thus, a pencil is ideal for housing products like eye and lip liners, which must be soft enough for the consumer to smudge and blend.

Products with soft consistencies also allow customers to apply color more quickly and easily. "When more wax is added to a lipstick bullet for sturdiness, the trade-off is that the lipstick contains fewer color pigments," says Gilani. "If a product is softer, it is often saturated with more color pigments, meaning that the customer need only apply it once in order to get the color on."

Gilani calls VIP Cosmetics' Earth Matte chubby pencil lipstick "one of the best pencils in the world" because of its high percentage of color pigmentation. The Earth Matte pencil is manufactured by Schwan-Stabilo Cosmetics GmbH & Co. in Germany, where Gilani and other cosmetic marketers say some of the highest quality cosmetic pencils are made.

Though the traditional pencil is still a basic part of many cosmetic lines, pencil styles are being modified to accommodate and entice the modern customer. "There will always be room in the market for the classic pencil," says Cotter. "But the industry will see more classic pencils with a modern twist." For its Roundtrip Eye Definer, Passport LLC revised the classic pencil for a user's convenience. "We updated our pencil by making it two-sided, with a different shade of color on each end," says Cotter.

With the launch of its Aqua Liner product this February, Body & Soul (Honolulu) has modernized the conventional pencil, using it to hold a product not typically packaged in a pencil. The firm is using the pencil's rigid body to house compressedpowder eye shadow. "The pencil provides good support for the soft product," says Angela Lim, marketing representative for Body & Soul.

"Multifunction is a big trend for pencils," says Walter Dwyer, president of Cosmopak (New York City). Among Cosmopak's innovative designs is a plastic pencil, which features a bottle and an applicator on one end, suited for lip gloss or mascara, and a retractable pencil on the other.

Trends in Pens

The cosmetic pen lets companies package products with a range of consistencies, including liquid and nail polish. With increased options for decorating pens, pens can be an ideal choice for brands that specialize in eye-catching, trendy packages.

One advantage that pens hold over pencils is that if a pen's finish is transparent, the user can see the pen's inner components. This effect can become part of a pen's design. For Bloom's Lip Lacquer flow-through pen, for instance, "the pen is completely transparent so that you can see both the product color and the high-tech-looking mechanisms of the pen," says Natalie Bloom, owner and managing director of Bloom Pty Ltd. (Melbourne, Victoria, Australia).

"Last year, transparency was a big hit for pens," says Cosmopak's Dwyer. "Many companies are now leaning toward see-through tinted plastic." Sugar Cosmetics has used colored transparent plastic to its advantage. Translucent fuchsia, the trademark color for most of the brand's packages, can be seen on the company's Lip Fever pen-bottle hybrid package, which debuted in Sephora early this year.

Translucent packages also allow a product's appearance to contribute to a package's look. "Now that pen packages have become popular, it is important to be innovative with the color and viscosity of the products," says Sugar's creative director, Carisa Janes. "Of course, when choosing a package, you have to consider what is the appropriate vehicle for your product," says Jeanine Lobell, founder, president, and CEO of Stila Cosmetics (Los Angeles). "Sometimes you cannot get a quality product into a vehicle such as a pen. However, we are finding great technology to be able to do this."

For Stila's Convertible Lip Color, launched at the beginning of this year, the company was able to house lipstick bullets in a double-ended pen. "To me, this pen is very unusual because it doesn't have an applicator, but rather, the entire lipstick bullet, like you would find in a traditional lipstick container," says Lobell.

"Women under 30 are more likely to experiment with new types of packaging," says Dwyer. "Thus, you'll see these innovative types of pens used a lot by younger-market brands."

Innovation on the Drawing Board

So which has more marketing might—the pencil or the pen? Experts predict demand for both, as long as cosmetic companies ensure that their packages meet the needs and tastes of modern customers. "The packages suppliers are able to offer are driving a lot of cosmetic companies' moves towards innovative packages," says Dwyer. Whichever a company chooses for its product, he says, "It builds credibility for your company when you offer customers something new."

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