Cosmetic/Personal Care Packaging.

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Inside Design: Creative Concepts for Lip Gloss

“We thought it would be interesting to capitalize on two trends—cell phone charms and personalization,” says Celine Kaplan, director of public relations, Bourjois Paris. “This mobile package was originally created as part of our sampling program in France, when our Effet 3D lip gloss first launched.” Now, this innovative sample has become a successful stand-alone product. “This idea has been very well received,” says Kaplan.

The miniature lip gloss is packaged in a 1.7-ml plastic bottle with a gold cap that unscrews to reveal a tiny brush applicator. A thin band is attached to the lip gloss bottle that looks similar to a rubber band with a clasp on one end. One end of the band inserts into the side loop on a cell phone. (Many cell phone models have this loop.) Then, the end of the band with the clasp is hooked into a hole on the package’s base. The small plastic bottle is silk-screened with the product’s name, the Bourjois logo, and a tiny illustration of a cell phone that helps to convey the package’s purpose.

“Due to increased competition, it definitely takes more-unusual packaging ideas to attract the attention of your consumer,” says Kaplan. However, she places great emphasis on function. “The package must be stylish, but at the same time, it has to be able to deliver the product,” she adds.

Beauty Jewels

Although Urban Decay Cosmetics is known for launching unique, never-been-seen-before packaging concepts, the company’s founder and executive creative director Wende Zomnir says that it’s her first and foremost goal to design a purposeful, functional package. She feels that customers don’t respond blindly to gimmicks. “I do think that the bar is now set very high to deliver great product paired with a great packaging concept,” Zomnir says. Regarding lip gloss, she says, “Women want to reapply it often.” The brand’s Poison Ring combines attention-getting design with a package that makes lip gloss easily accessible for reapplication.

Zomnir first started pairing jewelry with cosmetics in fall 2005 with the launch of her first sterling silver Poison Ring. The ring was skull-shaped and filled with lip gloss. Last year, a new version of the Poison Ring launched. “We created the first ring in very limited distribution for our core fans. There was such a positive response to it that we designed a new one,” says Zomnir.

Urban Decay’s new Poison Ring launched last October. It has three interchangeable pans of lip gloss. It is decorated with a colorful illustration on a black background. The quirky graphic design features images of skulls, butterflies, and fish. From afar, the graphic print simulates the look of a tattoo.

This year, Urban Decay launched Commando, a lavender dog tag–style lip gloss compact on a silver beaded chain. The flat, rectangular compact slides open and contains two pans filled with different shades of lip gloss. The package is adorned with skulls, hearts, and flowers along a vine. The multilayer decoration was debossed. The lavender color was achieved through electroplating.

“Dog tags always have a raw, edgy sensibility to them, even when they are rendered as fine jewelry in precious metal. Their style just seemed to fit our brand. We embellished ours to make it more beautiful and feminine,” Zomnir says.

This is a custom package made from Zamac. “Zamac adds weight, so it feels like a substantial piece of jewelry,” says Nick Gardner, vice president of sales at HCT Packaging USA (New York, NY; Santa Monica, CA), which supplied the package.

Zamac has been used in the beauty industry for years, often to add weight to fragrance bottle caps or compacts. During the past couple of years, its use in cosmetic packaging has been on the rise. “We believe that the popularity and use of Zamac will continue to increase. For this reason, we just opened our own Zamac factory,” says Gardner.

According to Gardner, there are several advantages to using Zamac. “The tooling costs are relatively low when compared with custom tooling for injection-molded plastic components,” explains Gardner.

Although Zamac’s material cost is slightly higher than that of plastic, the material’s low tooling cost can provide brands the opportunity to launch many different products, which is important in being able to offer customers new designs. This strategy seems to be working for many cosmetic companies, which have been launching more-unique items in limited-edition packages.

In the future, Zomnir feels that savvy engineering will become a key packaging trend. “So many things are possible now, compared with 10 years ago. The customer is going to demand slick functionality in packaging. Things like adding drawers to compacts and cases that pop open with a push will be so important—as long as they work well,” Zomnir says.

Fashion-Forward Design

Too Faced Cosmetics recently launched Beauty Brooch Lip Gloss. The package can be pinned onto clothing and worn as a fashion accessory. The lip gloss is packaged in an oval-shaped compact with decorative edges. Its style is reminiscent of a vintage cameo or locket. Short chains suspend the compact from a large safety pin that lies horizontally. Small charms also hang from the pin.

“I was inspired by the goth-glam safety-pin trend that has been so hot on the streets of Paris, London, and New York,” says Jerrod Blandino, CEO and founder of Too Faced Cosmetics. The brooch was created for two different lip gloss shades. One is a dark-beige lip gloss and features skull charms. The other is a pink gloss and has heart- and handcuff-shaped charms.

“Consumers today have become experts. They not only want value; they also want originality. They want to stand out. They want things the whole world won’t have,” explains Blandino. “We respect our customers’ needs and try to deliver by thinking outside the box. Our whole philosophy is about bringing innovation and incredible designs to cosmetics,” he continues.

One of the design challenges faced when producing this package was to make sure the compact could work in brooch format, according to Blandino. Another challenge was to communicate to the consumer exactly what the unusual package was all about. “We relied on the outer carton to do this,” says Blandino. “The front of the box has a large die-cut window so you can see the product. The back of the box has illustrations that are intended to help our customer understand this unique design and see the different ways the product can be used,” he adds.

Blandino feels that the fashion, design, and art worlds will continue to influence beauty packaging. “Soon, I think we’ll start to see even more influences coming from the worlds of interior design, architecture, fabrics, and pop culture—all infused into cosmetic packaging,” says Blandino.

The Benefits to Your Brand

Design conveys so much about a brand’s personality and makes a statement about a brand’s image. After speaking to the experts at Bourjois, Urban Decay, and Too Faced, the one message we heard repeated is that a package design can be unexpected or unusual, but more importantly, it needs to be functional and the right fit for a brand. On a recent trip to Hong Kong for the Cosmoprof Asia trade show, we saw lip gloss packages shaped like fruit, supplied by a retailer named Sasa. These whimsical packages caught our eye—and if they perform well, would make us immediate fans.

Packaging Samples with a Book

A few beauty companies have recently chosen to connect with potential customers in an unusual way—by packaging samples with a book. The book is titled The Beauty Buyble: The Best Beauty Products—2007. It was written by Paula Conway and Maureen Regan, owner of literary agency The Regan Agency. Published by Regan Books, the paperback is packaged in a box that is filled with more than 30 beauty items. Most of the beauty products included are sample packages, but a few are full-sized.

Conway, a freelance writer, came up with the idea to write the book after working as a reporter on In Style magazine’s annual beauty issue for six years. Each year, her assignment was to compile a list of the best beauty products, including descriptions and recommendations. Conway thought this would be a great concept for a book.

Judith Regan, former CEO of Regan Books, came up with the innovative packaging concept, which allows the reader to try some of the products that are recommended in the book immediately after reading about them. The selection of products varies with each box.

When packaging the book, Conway faced the challenge of calling beauty companies to solicit thousands of samples. Surprisingly, it took a long time to get some of the larger companies onboard. “It’s like free advertising, but many companies said no at first because this was a concept that had never been done before,” Conway says.

Many smaller companies knew immediately that they wanted to be a part of the project, even though donating such a large number of items can be difficult for a new brand. “They had to reach deep into their pockets to be able to make it happen,” Conway says.

Cat Cosmetics is one small company that was thrilled to be included in the project from the beginning. Two of its pencils are included in the box. “They came to me because they loved my pencils. It didn’t make sense not to do it,” says Catherine Hickland, founder of Cat Cosmetics.

After agreeing to send her pencils, Hickland encountered a problem with her supplier and wasn’t sure if she’d be able to deliver on time. “I needed to donate 75,000 units, and I had four weeks to meet the deadline. Cosmolab saved the day, and on a budget,” she says. Cosmolab is a supplier located in Lewisburg, TN.

Freeze 24.7 contributed a trial-size Lip Plumper. The 0.3-ml plastic vial has a silver cap with a miniature rod attached to it and a standard doe-foot applicator. This package is supplied by Sampling Dimensions (Wayne, NJ).

“I thought this idea was revolutionary,” says Eden Grimaldi, president and founder of MediaCraft, the company that represents Freeze 24.7. “The decision to be a part of this was a no-brainer. We didn’t even have to think about it. From a marketing standpoint, this was a great opportunity,” she says.

 

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