Latest Launches
Passport to Travel-Friendly Lip Color
For travelers, club-goers, and lipstick aficionados alike, Passport Cosmetics offers its latest ticket to beauty. The brand’s Lipsticket product, launched this summer, is offered in an extremely portable, intriguing direct-application lipstick package.
Lipsticket features Orlandi Inc.’s patented ColorKiss single-use technology. It comprises a small-sized card that is pretreated with lipstick. To apply lipstick directly from the card, users simply peel off the plastic cover, fold the card in half, and press the card to their lips, transferring the lipstick. Though ColorKiss has already been recognized as an effective sample package, Passport may be the first brand to use it for a retail package.
When asked why the brand chose ColorKiss, Passport’s founder and creative director Erin Cotter says, “As soon as we saw it, we thought that it made total sense for our brand. The package is all about convenience and ease of use, as is our brand. After that, it was just a matter of coming up with a marketing concept. For us, the metaphor became an airline ticket, and so we packaged the product in an airline-ticket-style envelope.”
Each Lipsticket package contains three shades of lipstick. Cotter adds that Lipsticket is not meant to replace a customer’s regular-sized lipstick; it is simply meant to be a travel-sized version for when portability is a must. “When you go out at night, you can put it in your back pocket, in your wallet, or in the teeniest clutch,” she says. “It really goes where a traditional lipstick container would never fit.”
One challenge was ensuring that customers knew how to use the packaging. “The challenging part is educating consumers, because it’s a new way to apply and carry lip color,” says Cotter. “To help, we printed directions on the back of each card, along with graphics to show customers how to use it. Launching on QVC was also a great avenue to demonstrate how to use it.”
The product first launched on QVC in June, and it is also sold in Sephora. “It’s also in the Kitson boutique in Los Angeles,” Cotter adds. “The first weekend Kitson had it, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan came in, and they each got it.”
Razor-Sharp Design
ê SHAVE’s luxury shaving products have been a mass-media reference on television shows such as Queer Eye for the Straight Guy and The Sopranos. With its newest launch, the company is set to smoothly cut ahead of its competition. This September, the brand introduced a sampler containing eight of its shaving and aftershave creams to provide potential customers with a better idea of its product offerings.
“One reason I decided on this mini kit is to give people who have never used our products before an opportunity to try them and see which one really works best for them,” says Danielle Malka, ê SHAVE’s president. Trying product before buying is important for ê SHAVE customers because the products come in different scents, each of which is suited for a certain skin type. “The floral and cucumber are best for sensitive skin, the almond is suited to dry to normal skin, the white tea is for all skin types, and the citrus is for normal to slightly oily skin,” says Malka.
Malka cites another reason for retailing the samples. “The other thing we were looking to do was to make sure the products were accessible to consumers. Usually, we have to rely on salespeople to hand out samples in stores. If salespeople fail to hand out enough samples, then we lose potential customers. So we found that this box of assorted samples is a great way to ensure we accommodate consumers who wish to try our product.”
For the packaging, the company turned to the Cosmetic Packaging Group, a division of O. Berk Co., which also supplies the stock bottles and jars in the rest of the ê SHAVE line. For the sampler set, O. Berk provided a 1¼8-oz clear, thick-walled polystyrene jar topped with a shiny black, smooth-sided polypropylene cap with a liner.
“It definitely helped us to use the same supplier, in part because we were able to match the additions to our existing packaging,” says Malka. “Also, we work with Dean Lang at O. Berk, and he definitely understands our brand. For instance, it was Dean who suggested using a black cap instead of the standard white cap the jar came with. The black cap immediately gave a luxury feel to the jar.”
Malka relies on labels to lend brand identity to the stock jars and the other stock packages in the line. All of the brand’s colorful labels are supplied by Label Makers. “Label Makers suggested sticking to one-color process printing for the labels for these jars,” says Malka. “There’s nothing less expensive than one-color process printing, but the labels don’t look inexpensive. Using a label of a different color for each jar makes the packages come to life when they are placed side by side. Together, the labels make the jars look like colorful candies.”
Designed for Fathers
For a Father’s Day promotion, Sothys, a European luxury beauty and skin care company, chose a tin to house its Sothys Homme eau de toilette, deodorant, and aftershave balm.
The oval tin was supplied by Crown Specialty Packaging and decorated with an elegant mesh design. The company’s name and the image of a man’s face were printed in blue ink directly onto the can.
“Metal packaging conveys quality and—much like making cologne or other personal care products—its production involves both hands-on craft and high-tech industry,” says Céline Milord, promotion assistant at Sothys. “Crown’s design skills and technical insights helped us to produce stylish new packaging for our men’s line of products.”
Aluminum Looks for Lipstick
Crown Risdon supplied the components for two lipsticks by Avon. The supplier’s TrimGlide lipstick component was chosen for Avon’s My Lip Miracle lipstick, while its ColorTouch mechanism was used for Avon’s Ultra Color Rich lipstick.
For the My Lip Miracle lipstick, the TrimGlide mechanism provided a sleek outer profile for the custom-shaped plastic-and-metal lipstick container. The container’s plastic cap was decorated with a bright aluminum medallion that was debossed with the Avon logo. The aluminum accent matches a bright aluminum collar that sits between the container’s metallic blue cap and base.
The custom plastic-and-metal full-sized lipstick container for Avon’s Ultra Color Rich lipstick features the supplier’s ColorTouch mechanism. The container’s cap and base were molded in metallic blue. The cap has a bright aluminum medallion debossed with the Avon logo and a one-piece sleeve collar.