Supplier Side
MG New York Opens Doors to New Office
Supplier MG New York recently welcomed CPC Packaging to its new office, located at 14 E. 60th St. in New York City. The new office is in the same building that housed the company’s old office for 15 years.
Gary Korba, formerly vice president of creative global package development for The Estée Lauder Companies, now serves as COO of MG New York. Korba works together with his wife, Marlyse Gros, president of MG New York.
MG New York’s compact designs.
Korba said that the new office is larger, which has allowed the company to set up a more spacious showroom for its clients. “Our location is also in close proximity to the offices of a lot of our customers,” he added.
Korba also outlined MG New York’s specialties. The first part of the company’s business is focused on what the company calls fashion compacts. The company will wrap injection-molded components with materials such as paper, polyurethane, or fabric. The result is high-fashion compacts that brands such as Estée Lauder, Marc Jacobs, Clinique, and Lancôme have used. “These compacts are still a hot trend,” said Korba. “They’re also quick to market, since you can use the same injection-molded component and just change the wrapping on it for different promotions.”
Korba and Gros in MG New York’s showroom.
The second part of the company’s business is in anodized aluminum compacts, which it decorates using materials sourced from the fashion industry.
The company’s third specialty is in producing bags that are used for retail and promotional packaging, including makeup bags, tote bags, brush kits, heat-sealed vinyl bags, and train cases.
Korba cited current trends for bag materials. “Russian styles are becoming trendy, so we’re seeing a lot of cut-velvet fabrics. We do a lot of research on materials, because materials make the bag. In everything we do, we’re all about quality and innovation.”
Korba says that he’s enjoying his new role on the supplier side of the business. “I’m having fun,” he said.
Ampersand Label Acquired
Ampersand Label, a supplier of extended-text labels, has been acquired by WS Packaging Group.
WS Packaging Group is one of the largest printing and label-converting operations in North America. Ampersand Label specializes in its patented MultiVision line of extended-text labels, including EasyTab labels and FlexVision tube labels.
“Ampersand brings some great technologies for booklet labels to the table,” says Todd Ostendorf, corporate marketing manager for WS Packaging Group. “They hold several patents and have a high-quality product line and a good client base.” Ostendorf adds that Ampersand’s sales team will also now be able to offer items from the WS Packaging line to its customers.
Paulette Carnes, who was president of Ampersand Label, will now serve as MultiVision project manager for WS Packaging Group– Ampersand Label.
Hot Packaging
In September, hair care brand ThermaFuse turned up the heat when it launched its products exclusively to salons. Developed for people who color their hair, the products feature the brand’s proprietary HeatSmart Complex, a patented system that protects hair from heat styling and that also repairs the hair using heat.
“A lot of companies have come out with products that protect hair from heat styling. Usually, what happens is that the heat from a hair dryer or a styling iron opens up the hair cuticle, and a product’s beneficial ingredients go into the cuticle,” says Joni Rae Russell, president of Joni Rae and Associates, which designed and developed the ThermaFuse packaging. “The problem is that when the cuticle opens up to let the good ingredients in, the ingredients just come right back out. With HeatSmart Complex, ThermaFuse figured out a way to create a product that bonds to the hair so that the ingredients stay in the cuticle to repair the hair.”
The line launched with 22 SKUs. Its packages are color coded according to the type of hair the product treats. The range includes custom-molded triangular-shaped bottles topped with metallic bronzed caps.
The brand used labels from WS Packaging Group–Ampersand Label’s MultiVision extended-text label line. The supplier created a two-ply FlexVision label using polyolefin.
A unique feature of ThermaFuse’s bottles is the unique interference inks used to coat the bottles. The inks create a special two-tone effect, so that when the consumer sees the package it is one color, and when the package is turned a different way, it appears to be a different color.
Ampersand was able to achieve this look for the top page of the FlexVision label using the same interference inks. “There were some very specific color matches that were required,” says Paulette Carnes, MultiVision project manager for WS Packaging Group–Ampersand Label. “This is the first time we have ever used interference pigments in the coatings of the UV varnish for these labels. It takes the extended-text label to the next level.”
Portola Tech Experiments with Environmentally Friendly PLA
During the HBA Show in September at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City, visitors to Portola Tech International’s booth were shown a jar molded from polylactide acid (PLA), which is a biodegradable plastic made from corn.
“We tested the resin to see if it could be molded into a thick-walled jar, and it passes all compatibility tests,” says Pam Patterson, market development manager at Portola Tech International (Woonsocket, RI). “It is fully compostable, which can be a huge advantage to a brand with an environmental mission.”
The major benefit of using corn-based materials is that it is a renewable resource. “The supply of postconsumer resin isn’t there. There is an unlimited supply of PLA, since corn can be grown,” Patterson says.
PLA resin was developed by Dow Chemical Co. (Midland, MI) and Cargill Corp. (Minneapolis, MN). It is sold by NatureWorks LLC (Minnetonka, MN). It has already been used in the food industry, but it has never been used for any packaging applications in the beauty industry.
John Delfausse, vice president of package development at Estée Lauder, tells us they are performing tests on PLA. “We are considering the many different applications it could be used for, but we haven’t commercialized any yet,” he says. There have been some issues for Delfausse with PLA’s shelf life and stability at different temperatures. However, he feels its potential is huge. “Corn-based resins could make a tremendous impact on packaging. Portola Tech has been great working with us to test new environmentally friendly materials.”
New Obsession for Rexam and Fantastic Pumps
Rexam Dispensing Systems recently supplied low-profile pumps for the new Fantasy Britney Spears fragrance and the Calvin Klein fragrances Obsession Night for Men and Euphoria.
The Obsession pumps feature Rexam’s The Crimpless System. Pumps were provided for the fragrance’s 15-, 75-, and 125-ml bottles. Rexam also supplied its SP5K dispenser for the fragrance’s sample package. The supplier created the pumps, including their metal-sleeved actuators and anodized aluminum collars, to match the retail packages’ midnight-blue color.
The super-low-profile pumps for Calvin Klein’s Euphoria women’s fragrance feature The Crimpless System. The pumps fit on the fragrance’s 30-, 50-, and 100-ml bottles. They feature metal-sleeved actuators and silver-anodized aluminum collars. Rexam also supplied a customized dip tube to accommodate the bottle’s low-profile shape.
The super-low-profile pump for Fantasy Britney Spears is featured on the fragrance’s 30-, 50-, and 100-ml bottles. These pumps also feature Rexam’s The Crimpess System, which was assembled with a decorative collar (provided by a different supplier) studded with pale-green crystals from Swarovski Group, to match the crystals on the bottle.
If too much force had been applied to the collar while it was being affixed to the bottle, it could have caused bulging or flexing of the collar. Ultimately, this could have caused the crystals to pop out of the collar. Unlike many crimp pumps that require a lot of stress to fit onto a bottle, Rexam’s The Crimpless Sytem ensured the collar fit with exact tolerances onto the bottle, reducing the amount of stress required to attach the two. n