Applications: Getting Hitched
Estée Lauder's innovative Photo Perfect Powder Duo package features a pressed-powder compact that screws onto a loose-powder jar. Brides are saying "I do" to Estée Lauder's new Beautiful Bride connectable compact.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorFor brides, a wedding day can be as stressful as it is magical. In addition to fixing any snafus involving the flowers, the cake, or the caterer, there's also the pressure of having to look picture-perfect through it all. To help, Estée Lauder has launched its new Beautiful Bride Collection designed to make this aspect of the big day a little easier. According to Estée Lauder representatives, it is the first cosmetic line to be marketed specifically to brides. The collection includes a new connectable compact designed especially for the bride on the go.
Portability was one of the primary concerns for the Estée Lauder design team, which included Pat Chiappetta, vice president of package development; Gary Montalbano, executive director; and Munisah Brown, manager, package development. "A bride has a lot to deal with on her wedding day," says Chiappetta. "She typically doesn't want to carry around a big bag of makeup with her all day. The packages in the Beautiful Bride Collection are portable and at the same time, elegant.".
The collection includes a Photo Perfect Powder Duo compact containing pressed and loose color-corrective powders; another compact housing blush, lip gloss, eye shadow, and an applicator; and previously existing products from the Estée Lauder line, including Pure Color Lipstick, the Artist's Eye Pencil, and the Beautiful Sheer Eau de Parfum spray. The two compacts were custom created especially for the line.
The Photo Perfect Powder Duo compact's design in particular is quite unique. Its concept was developed by Estée Lauder's corporate innovation group, with a nod to the successful trend for two-in-one packages. The duo compact comprises a pressed-powder compact that can be stacked on top of and connected to a loose-powder pot. "The idea is that a bride can apply the loose-powder version initially, and then detach the pressed-powder compact and take it with her for touch-ups," says Montalbano. "Since a bride takes many, many pictures on her wedding day, she can just keep reapplying her powder throughout it."
Both the compact and the pot are made from acrylic. The pressed-powder compact has a frosted-white finish and a hinged lid with a mirror underneath it. The loose-powder pot is clear. "What I like about the clear compact is that you can see the product shade inside," says Chiappetta. "Plus, it ties in with the transparent look of our Pure Color line." The components were custom molded by World Wide Packaging (Florham Park, NJ) and took 12 months to develop, from design to completion. Since then, World Wide Packaging has been recognized for the compact with the Cosmetic Innovator of the Year Award from the Independent Cosmetic Manufacturers and Distributors association.
The way the compact connects to the pot is cleverly engineered. Both containers are square and of the same breadth and depth, so that when they are stacked, they line up perfectly on top of each other, giving the illusion of being a single component. The loose-powder jar features a flat lid with a raised circular platform. This platform screws into a circular cavity located on the base of the pressed-powder compact, connecting the two.
The entire Beautiful Bride Collection is designed to be portable and convenient for the bride on the go. It includes two new, easy-to-use, elegant compacts. To further the design's convenience, the loose-powder pot can be detached in two different ways. If the two containers are screwed apart using a twisting motion, the loose-powder pot's lid automatically comes off with the top compact, making the pot's sifter readily available for use. However, if the compact is pulled off the pot in an upward motion, the pot's lid stays attached to the pot. This way, the loose-powder jar remains sealed and can be transported separately without leaking powder.
The Photo Perfect Powder Duo compact may be the first compact ever to be designed so that one container acts as a key to opening another container. It's no surprise, then, that the compact was a challenge to produce. "The container has a square orienting closure," says Harry Bennett, Estée Lauder's vice president of technical packaging. "Unlike with a continuous-thread closure that you screw on until it stops, an oriented closure screws on only until its orientation point. This means that the seal is not as secure as with a continuous thread. So because of that, and because powder is a hard product to contain, we had to make sure that the cap's tolerances and dimensions were very precise."
"We did a lot of tests to ensure that the compacts wouldn't detach and leak product in transit," adds Chiappetta.
The other custom compact created for the collection is a slim, convenient palette design. It features an ABS inner component covered with white, soft-touch urethane that was intended to give the compact a custom, fashion-industry feel. "It has magnetic latches that had to be carefully matched in order to get an effective close, yet not be too difficult to open," explains Bennett. The compact was produced by supplier MG.
The Estée Lauder design team made sure that both compacts' decor would match the elegant white theme of the Beautiful Bride Collection. It was particularly important that the compacts' look tie in with the collection's other components, including the Pure Color containers. "We used the standard gold Estée Lauder logo as the connecting factor," says Montalbano. "In addition, the white colors helped give the line its own pure, simple, and elegant look."
Chiappetta agrees that though the packages are practical, they aren't severe looking. "The design is unique in that way because often portability in packages translates to a very sterile, utilitarian look, which this compact is far from having," she says.
The result is a compact that brides will want to keep using long after they say, "I do." "I think the compacts' design is modern because of its simplicity," says Chiappetta. "They're something very practical that you can carry with you on your wedding day, but are also something you'd be proud to have on your dresser at home."
The potential for retail success is extremely high. Estée Lauder estimated that more than 6.1 million brides were married throughout the world in 2002. Millions more got married in 2003 and 2004. With a customer base that vast, targeting the bridal market could possibly be the smartest marketing decision to be made recently.