Latest Launches
Eye-Opening Packaging
Cargo Cosmetics’ founder and president, Hana Zalzal, continually thinks outside of the box to come up with packaging that’s super convenient for customers to use. Last year, the company launched unit-dose blisters of lip gloss, which allow customers to carry just one small-sized blister with them instead of a whole container of lip gloss. That package received one of CPC Packaging’s 2005 Editors’ Choice Awards. Recently, the company launched two new innovative packages for eye shadow that are very user friendly.
One of the packages is called ColorCards. Its packaging was inspired by the sample packaging industry. ColorCards comprises cards the size of playing cards that are printed with a unit-dose amount of eye shadow. Each card features a different shade.
The cards are specifically designed to be travel friendly. “I thought it would be a great way for customers to be able to take four or five different eye shadow colors with them, without having to carry the full-sized eye shadow containers,” says Zalzal. “The cards weigh next to nothing and can even easily fit in a wallet.”
Zalzal says she got the packaging idea from the sample packaging industry, where putting powder on cards is becoming more common. Some modifications had to be made to make the cards suited for retail. “We had to adjust the weight of the stock so that the cards would be something that would be durable enough for customers to carry around,” says Zalzal. “With sample packaging, customers tend to use the product right away. For our product, however, the stock had to look good and withstand the wear and tear of travel.”
Zalzal came up with the idea to package the cards like a deck of cards. “I grew up in Canada, where children used to trade hockey cards in the schoolyard,” she says. “This is like the grownup version of hockey cards.”
Putting the cards in a metal tin also added marketing panache. “I really liked the tin,” says Zalzal. “Hopefully, people will reuse it to hold other things once they’ve used up all the cards.”
Cargo Cosmetics’ other recent new launch is a new package for its liquid eye shadow collection. The package is a slender, single-use wand filled with a unit dose of one of the brand’s eye shadow gel. Each set of product contains two wands each of seven different eye shadow shades.
“With these packages, we wanted to encourage customers to experiment with different colors,” says Zalzal. “The container is very portable, and the wands are all self contained, so they’re very sharable. You could easily give one to someone else. And once you’ve used one, you haven’t contaminated the whole stash.”
The unique packaging is sure to capture customers’ attention. “The wands work like a little syringe,” says Zalzal. “When you push down, the product flows onto the sponge-tip applicator.”
The wand is a stock item sourced from the medical industry. “It’s never been used for cosmetics before,” says Zalzal. “I’m always looking for great packaging in other industries. For instance, [Cargo’s] foundation pouches were inspired by the collapsible drinking containers in the beverage industry.”
Both the liquid eye shadow packages and the ColorCards fit in with Zalzal’s packaging philosophy for Cargo. “For us, developing new packaging is always about making packaging smarter and easier for the customer to use,” she says. “If we can find a way to make it smarter, we’ll continue to do that.”
Pretty Plastic
Urban Decay Cosmetics offers customers a great new way to consolidate their credit cards—with a lip gloss palette. Launched this fall, the Feisty Kitten palette is a slim compact that can house six lip glosses and a credit card.
The compact features an extremely slim PCTA tray with six wells filled with lip gloss and another well that holds an applicator. To protect the lip glosses, a PVC cover the size of a credit card slides on top of the tray. In place of the PVC cover, customers can slide in their own credit card, forming an all-in-one package for the girl on the go.
“Customers like the Feisty Kitten because of its convenience factor,” says Amy Zunzunegui, product development manager for Urban Decay and Hard Candy. “You can carry six of your favorite lip glosses, a brush, and your credit card or ID in one small piece. The entire package slips easily in your back pocket, or even into a small evening bag. It is perfect for going out or just for being on the go.”
Supplier HCT Packaging came up with the original package concept. “Working together with HCT Packaging, we tweaked some of the details and ended up with the final product,” says Zunzunegui.
Nick Gardner, vice president of sales for HCT Packaging, credits the supplier’s designers in London for developing the package. One issue was finding plastic that was durable, yet flexible. “We ended up with PCTA for the base because the base needed to be extremely durable so that people could keep the compact in their back pocket and sit on it without having it break,” says Gardner. The lid was produced from the same material as authentic credit cards. It was colored purple and printed on using four-color ink-jet printing.
Another challenge was ensuring that the lid wouldn’t slide off in a customer’s purse or pocket. “We had to fine-tune the sliding mechanism on the compact so that it allowed the lid, as well as a customer’s credit card or ID, to slide in and out easily,” says Zunzunegui. “By adding small ridges to the sliding section of the compact, it also lifted the card away from the glosses just a little bit more.”
Zunzunegui says that the product has been well received. “So far, the response in the stores has been very positive. We have had a lot of press coverage as well.”
Comfortable Look for Corduroy
This fall, Zirh International Corp., a subsidiary of Shiseido International Corp., launched its new Corduroy fragrance for men. The scent’s rectangular bottle features smoky brown glass that was molded with slight waves to simulate the waling of corduroy fabric.
“The whole marketing concept focuses on the imagery that corduroy conjures—that it’s timeless, distinct, masculine, and comfortable,” says Marianne Darlak of Zirh’s marketing team. “It’s for that guy who doesn’t necessarily need designer logos. He’s very much comfortable in his own skin. The bottle needed to be a strong, architectural representation of the image the corduroy concept conjures.”
Chad Lavigne of Chad Lavigne LLC was the bottle’s designer. He describes the pitfalls he wanted to avoid when coming up with the design. “The obvious imagery came to mind regarding the world of corduroy—blazers, pants, what have you,” says Lavigne. “My biggest fear was that the company would want to get too literal with the packaging, such as using tight little lines just like corduroy on the bottle. That would have been way too literal for me. I like things that kind of wink and nod to an aesthetic or the story.”
Instead, Lavigne went for a design that was masculine and that alluded subtly to corduroy. “The glass has undulations to it that hint of corduroy, but it’s not super literal,” says Lavigne. “The front and the back panel each have three waves—hill, valley, hill, valley, hill. If you look at the glass in a certain light, the light will pick up on the hilly areas where the glass is thicker so that the light shows three horizontal bars.”
Lavigne says that achieving this decoration was probably the greatest production challenge. He credits suppliers Rocco Bormioli, which molded the bottle, and Decotech, which applied decoration.
The bottle’s silver cap, supplied by Axilone, was chosen for its masculine look. According to Lavigne, he designed it keeping in mind that a lot of Zirh’s packaging features silver elements.
The carton was made from a steely brown, beater-dyed uncoated custom stock. It was converted by Arko Paper Products.