Applications: On a Roll
One firm continues to create packaging that adds more style to the depilatory market.
By Jennifer Kwok, Managing EditorThis fall, Parissa, a depilatory brand, added a new product to its stylish packaging line. The product is a wax that comes in a convenient roll-on package that allows for direct application. In addition to being extremely user friendly, the Quick & Easy 2 in 1 Roll-On package looks like a piece of modern sculpture.
The Parissa package comprises a sphere-shaped bottle prefilled with wax. Customers are provided with two roll-on applicators that they can interchangeably screw onto the bottle. One applicator is small and is meant for use on the face and eyebrow area. The other is larger and is for the rest of the body.
Though Parissa isn’t the first depilatory company to retail a roll-on container for waxing, it is the first company to launch one that looks so stylish. Both the Nair and Veet brands offer roll-ons, but those packages are shaped similar to typical deodorant containers. In addition, they only come with one size of applicator built in.
Parissa’s vice president of sales and marketing, Fardad Moayeri, describes the company’s initial goal for the package’s design. “People have so many preconceived, negative notions about at-home waxing,” he says. “They think that waxing is painful, messy, and difficult to do. Our job was to make sure that anything we did in terms of packaging helped dispel a lot of these negative preconceptions. We wanted to make the packaging aesthetically pleasing and to look more like a beauty product.”
For the design, Moayeri worked with childhood friend Ian Johnston, an industrial designer for Quinine Design Partnership. Four concepts were initially proposed. “We created foam models of all of the different versions and ran a number of focus groups,” says Moayeri. “We asked people in the focus groups to judge, just by looking at the package, which one seemed easiest to use. Then we had them physically handle the packages to determine which one was actually easiest to use. At first, everyone who looked at the ball-shaped version that we ended up choosing didn’t think that package would be the easiest to use, but once they handled it, they ranked it the most ergonomic.”
According to Moayeri, what makes the sphere shape so ergonomic is that it can be held from any angle. “A lot of companies with roll-on packages tend to go with the deodorant-style shape because it seems ergonomic,” he says. “But the challenge with that type of package is that it limits the customer to using it in a certain way, whereas, when you’ve got a ball shape, it can be held in a number of different ways.”
Moayeri also says that the container’s shape makes it easy to wax smaller areas. “You’d think that if you were trying to apply wax to your eyebrows or your face with the package, the ball would be an obstruction in terms of allowing you to see what you’re doing in the mirror. But because the package is a ball, you can just hold it with your fingertips and still have a lot of maneuverability.”
The bottle and the roll-on applicators are all made from recyclable high-density polyethylene. Turnkey Technologies in Canada made the molds for the applicators and also injection molded them. The bottle was blow molded by Century Packaging, also in Canada.
The package has been nominated for this year’s International Packaging Design Awards at HBA. “In terms of anything else in the depilatory category, I think this package is definitely unique in a lot of ways,” says Moayeri. “Aesthetically, it looks great. The green color adds a modern element. But the functionality is also incredible.”
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