Fragrance Bottles: Pretty in Pink...and Silver
La Prairie's Silver Rain packages were inspired by the pure beauty of a raindrop. This year's newest fragrances are unique—yet they share some common design elements. By Marie Redding, Senior Editor
Pink colors, shiny silver finishes, and heart shapes influenced package designers working on many popular new fragrance launches this year. These elements can be seen in some of the decorating techniques used for the pretty pink Envy me bottle by Gucci and XOXO's heart-shaped fragrance bottles. mark.'s True Heart opted for a more mystical look in a black bottle. One of the most extremely innovative and beautifully executed designs is La Prairie's Silver Rain, which launched March 1. Read on and see our cover to learn more about these fragrance packages.
Inspired by a Raindrop
Why did La Prairie choose a silver raindrop? The story behind the concept, as told to us by the Swiss company, is this: The purest rain is transformed into brilliant silver ice crystals at the top of the Alps. In the spring, a thousand feet below, rare botanicals bloom in alpine meadows and are watered by the melting ice.
"The quest was to find a sculpted form in nature, a single raindrop, that pleases both the eye and the touch. To fill it with a fragrance that embraces nature's most elegant ingredients was a phenomenal achievement," says Lynn Florio, president of La Prairie. "The concept was designed by our creative team. The packages are tactile, sculpted, and executed in a gleaming silver finish. The shape of the flacon is perfectly balanced, reflecting the gentle angle of a raindrop." Claude Dir and his team at Quest International Fragrances created the unique scent, which includes "the rarest roots, herbs, and flowers from all over the globe," says Florio. It actually requires a thousand pounds of petals to make a single ounce of the fragrance, according to La Prairie. Silver Rain is La Prairie's first fragrance launch of this magnitude.
The Silver Rain collection includes a limited-edition signed and numbered cachette, made entirely of sterling silver and shaped like a raindrop. It is a hand-crafted sculpture created by legendary silversmith company Christofle, retailing for $2000. Florio describes it as "a treasured possession." The cachette contains three replaceable vials of eau de parfum: Silver Rain, Silver Spice, and Silver Sensuality. The house of Christofle is known for the most luxurious quality and excellent craftsmanship. It was founded in 1830 by a jeweler, Charles Christofle, and it has since been run by six generations.
A Glistening Eau de Parfum
Designed to look like an exact replica of the sterling silver cachette, but molded from glass, the bottle for Silver Rain Eau de Parfum was difficult to produce. Rich Suhr, of La Prairie's packaging team, describes the product development process by saying, "It has been quite a roller coaster ride, and there were many challenges along the way, but we are very excited about this accomplishment."
Like a trophy case, a transparent setup box showcases the Silver Rain Eau de Parfum bottle. Some of the manufacturing challenges overcome included fitting the irregular-shaped cap to the bottle and aligning it correctly, preventing the cap from scratching the glass finish during opening and closing, and making sure the silver finish would withstand contact with the fragrance. Bormioli Rocco produced the glass bottle using an automatic production method. This was a great achievement, because the bottle looks as though it were hand polished. "Automatic production was necessary, due to the large quantities needed in a short time frame," Suhr explains. "Our suppliers did great in achieving the look we wanted."
Once the shape was finalized, La Prairie's operations team, headed by Anil Kalyanpur, coordinated the decorating process with Solev (France). The glass was metallized to create a shiny, mirror finish. "As soon as a glass bottle is metallized, every small dimple, or minor imperfection, becomes magnified. We were aware of this and took the proper precautions from the start. We used a much higher quality of glass, which is above the luxury standard," says Suhr.
The electroplated ABS cap is produced by Auriplast (France). It took much trial and error to marry the two finishes on the plastic cap and the glass bottle, according to Suhr. Next, since the cap comes to a point at the top, it took some time for the team to find the right low-profile pump and nozzle to fit inside it. Valois of America (Congers, NY) supplied the pump.
Completing the Luxurious Collection
"The artful, jewelry-like raindrop design is mirrored in the purse spray and is sprinkled on the caps of both the body cream and the scented candle," says Florio. The raindrop-shaped purse spray is produced by Auriplast. It is made of ABS, with an electroplated finish. Refillable, it holds 50-ml glass fragrance vials. The perfumed body cream and scented candle are packaged in round jars with silver lids, which look as though they were wet with beaded raindrops. "This effect was achieved through the use of mirrors, lenses, and injection-molded plates," says Suhr.
The jar lids for Silver Rain's scented candle and perfumed body cream look as though they were wet with beaded raindrops. A transparent cylindrical setup box was designed to show off the Silver Rain Eau de Parfum flacon. The box has a frosted finish and is hot stamped in silver. Florio explains: "Silver Rain was designed to self-merchandise. Its translucent outer packaging allows customers to see the polished silver flacons at all times. This is the ultimate way to communicate luxury in every type of retail setting."
Four different materials were used to create the box. The bottle looks like it is standing freely inside, with nothing holding it up—like a statue in a museum. Suhr explains, "You can't see the band in the back, [nor] the loop on the top that holds it all together. We engineered the box to give the bottle the appearance of standing by itself." When every aspect of the packaging is united in this way, it all makes an extremely luxurious presentation.
A Pink Pattern for Gucci Girls
In February, Cosmopolitan Cosmetics launched the new fragrance Gucci Envy me. The packaging was designed under Tom Ford's artistic direction, and its look capitalizes on the popularity of Gucci's signature GG logo. "The design for Envy me is anchored in Gucci heritage. The GG pattern is a key icon of the brand," says a spokesperson for Cosmopolitan Cosmetics.
Pretty and pink, the Gucci Envy me bottle features Gucci's trademark GG logo. The 100-ml bottle is produced and decorated by Bormioli Rocco. The delicate, light-pink logo pattern, reminiscent of lace, wraps around the bottle on all four sides. It is applied using a decorating technique called serigraphy. According to Cosmopolitan Cosmetics, some of the challenges in printing this pattern were centering it on each side of the flacon, since it comes very close to the edge; printing it as thin as possible, which was difficult because it is small and detailed; and obtaining a homogenous print finish, as the flacon's sides are irregular.
The column-shaped bottle was originally created in 1997 for Gucci Envy. Its sleek, geometric lines were innovative at the time, because it was difficult to achieve such a well-balanced and elegant glass distribution in such a slender shape. "This bottle shape is a challenge, because you must achieve perfect glass distribution on the side panels as well as at the top and bottom," says Xavier Adnet, president, sales and marketing, Bormioli Rocco.
The new logo decoration updates this flacon for 2005, as does a glossy, white cube-shaped cap. "Gucci Envy" is hot stamped in silver, and "me" is printed in pink. It also has a silver actuator and pink nozzle. Its dispensing system was supplied by Valois of America.
The folding carton uses matte-white paperboard, varnished with the GG logo pattern in a soft, washed pink. The goal for the supplier was to print the pattern using the shiniest possible finish. The box opens to reveal a vibrant hot-pink color on the inside. "The 'Envy me' customer is a young Gucci girl, but still Gucci right down to her fingertips—daring, narcissistic, an object of desire," says a spokesperson for the brand. "This fragrance will be her new must-have Gucci accessory—like the bag she's been dreaming about."
A Love Potion
mark.'s True Heart launched in time for Valentine's Day. Its bottle design is meant to symbolize a magical elixir. "True Heart marries the dreaminess of fairy tales and enchanted love with the modern allure of mystery and alchemy," says Tina Leeds, vice president of product development for mark. She describes the bottle as "a mysterious and precious black sphere, reminiscent of a crystal ball that holds the spellbinding scent." It looks like an ancient fragrance, almost like the kind of bottle used for a secret potion. Leeds says, "The difficulty was in achieving the right black color with a high-gloss organic spray and pairing the right shade of pink for the logo and decoration. Saint-Gobain Desjonquères and Rexam Dispensing were able to control the color variations on the bottle and cap and pump, respectively, with the help of Anomatic, our anodizer."
The solid-black bottle for mark.'s True Heart fragrance was based in part on the look of a crystal ball. The Pink flower-and-hearts pattern on the carton is a perfect contrast to the bottle. "We didn't just treat the box as a shipping container—we used it to reinforce the product's positioning and tell its story a bit more," says Jerome Berard, president of Berard Associates. The company handled all design work for the fragrance. "The graphics on the box add a little romance. It is meant to convey the image of it being a secret scent from a magical garden," says Berard. Flowers and hearts were also used as the cover art and inside of the meet mark. magalog (the brand's catalog). The folding carton was made with a standard paperboard and contains a black E-flute liner.
Silver Hearts
Trendy junior clothing manufacturer XOXO licensed its brand name to Parlux Fragrances, and its first two scents launched in January. Although the two scents, XOXO and XOXO Heartbeat, have distinctly different designs for their 1.7- and 3.4-oz bottles (produced by Saint-Gobain Desjonquères), they both have silver heart-shaped 1-oz bottles. These purse-sized packages consist of an inner polypropylene bottle for the scent, zamac weights, and a shiny silver heart-shaped outer shell in electroplated ABS—all produced by Fiampack. The shiny silver actuator, supplied by Rexam Dispensing Systems, has a pink rubber cover and a pink spray insert. The clear outer box is tinted pink, and a pouch is included to hold the fragrance. Both are also supplied by Fiampack.
Unlike the similar purse-sized bottles for XOXO and XOXO Heartbeat, the fragrances' larger-sized bottles are taller and more distinctly different. XOXO is the scent meant to be worn during the day, while the night version is called XOXO Heartbeat. "We chose to immediately launch two scents to highlight the XOXO girl's day-to-night life-style," says a spokesperson for the brand.
Two different cap styles for the larger-sized bottles are manufactured by Fiampack. The polypropylene cap for XOXO features electroplated ABS on the outside and is weighted with zamac. XOXO Heartbeat's oversized cap is unique. "This one is complicated," says Fintan Ryan, vice president, Fiampack. "It's a five-piece cap with electroplated ABS on the outside and weighted zamac/polypropylene on the inside. It features a PCTA heart-shaped ornament on a matte electroplated ABS disk." The pumps are supplied by Rexam Dispensing Systems. Two different folding cartons (matte pink for XOXO and silver for XOXO Heartbeat) are hot stamped and silk-screened by Stuart (Canada).
Linking Bottle to Brand
No matter what the trends are in bottle styles or decorating techniques, it is still most important to stay true to the style of your brand and speak to your customer. Heart shapes worked for XOXO, while Gucci chose to capitalize on the popularity of its logo.
Both purse-sized bottles for XOXO Heartbeat and XOXO are silver and are heart shaped Berard says he has been working with the mark. brand for three and a half years, and is involved in every product category, which is sometimes unusual for a designer. "By having one design point of view for everything, from fragrance to cosmetics, it brings an entire brand together, presenting a unified image throughout every product," he says. "With mark., you have to keep a certain edge. It's the little, fresh ideas that will set a younger brand apart. But every product must still also be well done and well made... and at a good price."
All of the above fragrances represent fresh, innovative ideas. If La Prairie's Silver Rain sets a new trend for unique bottle shapes, we might be in store for many more exciting fragrance launches in 2005.