Inside Design: Back to Basics
To help convey a natural image, bath and body brand Carol’s Daughter included dried flowers in the bottles for its new spring line.
Two natural-ingredient companies decide between glass and plastic packaging.
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorOftentimes, brands that market products made with natural ingredients choose natural-looking packaging to convey a wholesome image. Two recently launched lines, Carol’s Daughter and t’Zerah, have done just that. Natural elements influenced the packaging for both of these lines; however, each brand took a different approach to design. One chose plastic packaging, and the other chose glass.
Plastic Packaging Gets a Handmade Look
Carol’s Daughter is a bath and body collection created by Lisa Price (a.k.a. Carol’s daughter). Price began making products in her kitchen in 1993 using all-natural ingredients. Soon after, she opened her first store in Brooklyn, NY. From the beginning, the brand’s packaging was intended to have a simple look. Although it achieved this, the line lacked cohesiveness. “We bought close-out packages, in any shapes available. Until recently, we couldn’t even afford the luxury of professionally printed labels,” says Price. Last year, the packaging was given a makeover in time for the opening of the Carol’s Daughter flagship store in Harlem, NY.
Even after the redesign, the line’s packaging was able to maintain the same simple, natural look. Price met with a packaging consultant who helped her find suppliers. All of the glass packages were changed to plastic, a more bathroom-friendly material. PET was chosen for its clarity, to more closely resemble the look of glass. “There is a place for glass in packaging, such as for perfume bottles, but plastic is a better way to go for products that will be used in the bath,” says Price.
Only simple shapes were chosen for the line’s bottles and jars. The different-shaped jars containing salts and scrubs—one of which resembles a mayonnaise jar—all have straight sides. The bottle shapes all match. All of the caps and closures were silk-screened with the words Carol’s Daughter.
New labels were designed to resemble aged parchment paper. They were coated with a film to protect them from moisture in the bathroom. The vintage look of the labels and the look of the Carol’s Daughter logo written in script add up to a homemade feeling.
Prior to the redesign, the line’s packages included real seashells, dried flowers, and cinnamon sticks to reflect the products’ use of natural ingredients and to add decoration. “This was the simplest way for me to achieve the look I wanted for the line, without having to be an arts-and-crafts person,” says Price. These elements were used again in the redesign.
A new collection of bath and body oils launched on Sephora’s Web site this spring. Dried flowers were placed in the bottles prior to filling. “The only challenge was to find flowers that were dried but that were still pliable enough so that they wouldn’t disintegrate. Also, the color of the flowers had to be naturally vibrant, without the use of dye,” says Price.
It took three months for the repackaging to be completed. All of the redesigned packages were launched at the same time. “It was important for us to try to make a seamless transition to the new packaging, even though it happened all at once. We didn’t want our long-term customers to feel that the products have changed in any way,” says Price.
In Favor of Glass
T’Zerah Skin Care will soon switch from plastic jars to glass jars for its Forbidden Fruit collection.
Switching to plastic might have been the right decision for Carol’s Daughter, but Tzeira Sofer, founder of nature-inspired brand t’Zerah Skin Care, decided to go with glass packaging for some of the products in her Forbidden Fruit line. “There is nothing like glass to preserve [the scent and taste of] any type of product,” says Sofer. She uses milk as an example. “Remember the taste of milk when it came in old-fashioned glass bottles? It was better,” she says. “If you’re sensitive [to flavors and scents], you can tell the difference.”
Sofer founded t’Zerah Skin Care two years ago. The Israeli name t’Zerah means “young and fresh.” T’Zerah’s new Forbidden Fruit collection is launching this spring on Sofer’s Web site. (The products will make their retail store debut shortly.) “The purity of this line and the live active molecules it contains demand very specific packaging,” she says.
The Forbidden Fruit collection is based on the use of pure, 100% organic oil from the seeds of pomegranates. The oil used in the products is named POMega5, which is a powerful phytoestrogen, antioxidant, and rare plant-based source of Omega 5 conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) that can restore skin’s harmony, elasticity, and firmness.
When Sofer first started to look for packaging, she tested some plastic packages. She learned that there are many grades of plastics and that a few aren’t compatible with her products’ formulations. “I always knew that you couldn’t put high concentrations of essential oils in plastic, but I had to see it to really believe it. When we tested our product in one type of plastic bottle, after just one week, it started to disintegrate. First the lid cracked, and then the entire bottle literally started to crumble,” she says.
Sofer did manage to find a plastic jar that worked without any compatibility issues for two moisturizers in the Forbidden Fruit collection. However, she plans to switch this jar with a glass one within the next six months. “I have found that the essential oils react so much more beautifully in glass. The product stays much more aromatic and fresh,” she says. The plastic jar being used now is made from polyethylene and has a thick double wall and a PET insert.
Overall, the packaging for the Forbidden Fruit collection looks modern, but certain elements of its design were influenced by the past. For instance, the PET cap that will be used with the glass jar has a brushed-silver finish. “We wanted the cap to have the look of brushed silver to represent pewter and the other metals that were used to cover containers during ancient times,” Sofer adds.
Another glass package in t’Zerah’s line is an oval, egg-shaped frosted glass bottle with an oval-shaped frosted plastic cap. The cap snaps off, revealing the pump dispenser. This bottle is used for two treatment products, Grenade Actif and Serum Grenade Intensive. The bottle’s shape was designed after bottle shapes more commonly used in the past. “In the past, there were no modular, geometric shapes like the ones popular now. I wanted to use a classic shape, without any sharp edges,” says Sofer. She tells us she searched for pure, high-quality glass that didn’t contain any traces of metal or additives.
The bottle has very thick walls. Although it isn’t completely shatterproof, Sofer says that it comes close. “We have accidentally dropped it many times, even on a concrete floor, and it always rolls without breaking. I cannot explain this phenomenon. It must be a very perfectly balanced shape—or else we have just been very lucky,” says Sofer.
A round pewter metal label, engraved with a “Z,” was glued to the top of all of the caps in the line. It was designed to resemble a coin and is supplied by Packaging Arts (Mare Island, CA). Labels printed with metallic inks are used on all of the packages. The outer cartons are still being developed. They will be cylinders made from a combination of paperboard and see-through plastic.
What’s Natural For a Brand
As the two brands described above exemplify, when it comes to natural-looking packaging, different materials—whether it be plastic or glass—suit different brands. Companies should choose the material that is right for their brands and their customers and that works with their formulations.