Opening Lines
Packaging Salon Brands
By Daphne Allen, Group EditorWorking CPC Packaging’s booth at this year’s Cosmoprof North America in Las Vegas, I was struck by the number of salon and spa owners stopping by who were launching their own beauty products.
Were these folks chemists, working on some breakthrough formula? Or were they brand developers poised to take on the skin care product giants that dominate the market? Even though I didn’t quiz every such visitor, I didn’t get that sense.
Instead, these salon owners reminded me of my mother, who operated her own salon for nearly 20 years. She sold private-label skin care products labeled under her salon’s name to her clients. Her intention wasn’t to make a national name for her salon, but to handpick special formulations that would meet her clientele’s unique needs.
I suspect that these salon owners at Cosmoprof are doing the same. Some spoke about organic formulations for their earth-minded patrons. Others were interested in products that target a specific customer, like those with sun-damaged skin and hair. And yet others just wanted to follow up spa treatment with complete regimens for home use. In a way, these salon owners are extending their services into the home with product recommendations.
These entrepreneurs have better packaging to choose from than my mom did, though. Her skin care products were sold in generic-looking bottles with simple gold-colored pressure-sensitive labels with a stock product name and her salon name and number. (Despite their lack of shelf presence, these products sold pretty well, thanks to a pretty good formulation.) If she had wanted high-end packaging, she would have needed to purchase significant volumes.
Today’s private-label customer has many more options. At our booth, I stood catty-corner from Primera Technology, which showed its tabletop color label printer. All day, every day of the show, I watched Primera representatives print an endless stream of full-color labels. Salon owners could use the system to customize their product lines, with only a modest investment.
And there are plenty of service providers available. In this issue’s Contract Services Buyers Guide, we’ve listed well over a hundred companies that specialize in contract manufacturing, contract packaging, and private-label services.
The salon and spa owners I met at Cosmoprof are investing in their own lines to better serve their clientele. Packaging can help them maximize that investment.