Inside Design: Natural Designs
Packaging conveys the use of natural ingredients in these hair- and body-care lines.
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorAetó Botanica, Naturelle Hemp, and Tawaka are three brands taking cues from nature when it comes to both formulations and packaging. Tawaka products are formulated with savage cacao. Aetó’s products contain bamboo extract. Hemp seed oil is the main ingredient used for the Naturelle Hemp brand.
Consumers won’t find any flashy hot-stamping or bright colors on these packages. Earth tones, such as greens and browns, are used on packaging to convey a “natural” feel. A logo that looks handwritten, soft-touch finishes, and the use of natural materials are a few of the details used by these brands to convey their concepts. A few of these formulas also required unusual types of packages.
Calming Colors and Functional Elements
The Aetó Botanica Natural Bamboo hair care line and the Aetó Botanica Spa Natural Bamboo body care line both contain bamboo extract and other tropical botanical ingredients. The lines are manufactured by Oloff Beauty and are sold in upscale spas and salons. It was important that the line convey a feeling of calm, according to Guita Dovas, CEO and founder of Oloff Beauty.
Earth tones created a natural look for Aetó Botanica’s hair care line. Some of the packages, such as the glass vials for Reviving Drops (above), look more like skin care packages.
Earth tones, specifically green, amber, and beige, are used on all the packages. “The colors and the scents were very important. Both must work together to create a total calming experience when you are using the product,” says Dovas.
Aetó’s Body Shampoo tube features a custom-colored flip-top cap.
The logo used on all the packages looks handwritten in Asian-style characters. Cartons with corrugated inserts are used to protect the products that are in glass bottles. These boxes have a natural matte finish and are decorated with photographs of a bamboo forest. The tube containing Body Shampoo is an oatmeal color and has a polypropylene flip-top cap in a custom shade of green. A certain plastic was used to ensure that the tube was extremely pliable and felt comfortable in the hand.
Aetó’s hair care line is considered to be a treatment line for the hair and scalp. “Since we launched it in 2005, more spas are becoming interested in offering this type of rejuvenation treatment, in addition to facials. The category is growing,” says Dovas.
Looking at some of the hair care packages, one might think that Aetó is a skin care brand. Dark amber glass bottles with eyedropper caps are used for the Fortifying Oil and Scalp Detoxer. “The oils in these products would degenerate plastic,” says Dovas.
Reviving Drops is a vitamin booster that required an unusual type of package. As a fresh-mix formulation, its ingredients need to be mixed within an hour of use. Its paperboard box contains six single-dose glass vials. Each vial is filled with solution. A powdered mixture of vitamins, including zinc and magnesium, is hidden in the vial’s plastic cap. When the user pushes down on the cap, the vitamins drop into the solution. After the vial is shaken to mix the ingredients, the product is ready to be applied to the scalp.
One of Aetó’s recent launches is the Aetó-ette Botanica Hair Spa To Go. It is packaged in a setup box that contains travel-sized products, including shampoo, conditioner, a mask, serum, and a comb made from bamboo. “The wide-tooth comb is excellent for applying the mask to the hair and also reinforces the fact that bamboo is in our formulations,” says Dovas.
All of Aetó’s packaging is produced and supplied by Area Italia (Parma, Italy). Dovas carefully chose every detail. “I’m happy it all came together so beautifully, to tell our story,” says Dovas.
Packaging’s Supporting Role
One of the challenges for the Naturelle Hemp brand was ensuring that all the packaging colors matched consistently on the tubes, metal aerosol cans, and plastic bottles.
The Naturelle Hemp hair care line uses the color green and silk-screened images of leaves to instantly communicate that the products contain hemp seed oil. The line launched in professional beauty supply stores last June, and it is manufactured by Zotos International.
When launching a new brand, Ralph Contini, creative and communications director at Zotos International, always starts with developing a clear concept. In this case, it was first decided that the brand would be marketed as a natural line based on hemp seed oil. Next, the R&D team at Zotos was enlisted to create high-performance formulations based upon the use of this ingredient. Finally, it was time to design packaging.
“When you have a direction and a clear message for a brand, the packaging naturally flows from that concept. That’s when we start thinking about shapes, forms, colors, and textures. All of these elements become part of that brand’s DNA,” says Contini.
Before deciding on this concept, the team at Zotos looked at market research and trends happening in every industry. Contini felt the timing was right for this launch. “The use of hemp in beauty products isn’t new, but the bigger trend is the move toward natural products from niche markets into more-mainstream channels of distribution. The trend toward natural products is one that will gain a lot of momentum in upcoming years,” he says.
Heather Simmons, vice president of global marketing for Zotos International, says that a synergistic approach to packaging is used. “Primary packages, store displays, and promotional items all support and help to tell a brand’s story,” she says.
The design direction for the Naturelle Hemp line is consistent and coordinated throughout every aspect of the brand. “We took specific measures to use raw-looking materials, like unlined corrugated board for our merchandising units,” explains Simmons. A tote bag made of natural hemp fibers was sold during a holiday promotion. Secondary packaging isn’t used, in order to send a message of conservation, and all of the primary packages are recyclable.
Color Coordination
The Naturelle Hemp line uses different shades of green for both its packaging and products. Naturelle Hemp shampoo is packaged in a flask-shaped, transparent PETE bottle. “We chose an apothecary-style bottle to further reinforce a natural brand image,” says Simmons. The formulas are different shades of green. A hemp leaf is a prominent design on the labeled bottle. The stock bottle is supplied by Plastique Micron (Saint-Claire, QC, Canada), and its cap is supplied by SeaquistPerfect Dispensing (Cary, IN). Both the shampoo bottle and cap are sourced through Empire/Emco (Getzville, NY).
Since Naturelle Hemp’s customers are mainly professional stylists, aesthetics are extremely important. “This type of customer is strongly influenced by colors and bottle shapes, because they think visually,” says Contini. “They are also extremely critical of how functional a package is, so flip-top caps that provide ease of use are very important. The last thing a stylist wants to do is look for a lost cap in a crowded salon, or deal with a messy cap,” he adds. Flip-top caps are used on the shampoo’s bottle and the conditioner’s tube.
A tube helps the thick conditioner to be dispensed more easily. “Tubes have become an industry standard for dispensing hair products, particularly conditioner,” says Simmons. The conditioner is in a medium-density polyethylene tube supplied by Berry Plastics/Tubed Products (Easthampton, MA). Its flip-top cap is by Polytop (Slaterville, RI).
Naturelle Hemp’s hair sprays are packaged in metal cans sourced through Chicago Aerosol. One of its hair sprays is a root-lift formulation in a can supplied by Moravia Can (Czech Republic). It has an extended dispenser that is able to provide a concentrated application close to the scalp. Naturelle Hemp’s regular hair spray can is supplied by U.S. Can & Ball Corp. (Broomfield, CO). The valves for all of Naturelle Hemp’s hair spray packages are supplied by Precision Valve (Yonkers, NY).
“The image, product colors, and even the typeface we chose are all coordinated and play a role in conveying a unified look,” says Contini. The one challenge the team at Zotos experienced was making sure the correct shade of green, used on all of the packaging and also for some of the formulas, matched across all the different substrates. “For the most part, the package development process moved smoothly,” says Contini.
The Naturelle Hemp brand looks very different from all the other lines sold in professional beauty supply stores. “We wanted it to stand out and jump off the shelf. As long as the line gets noticed, the packaging has done its job,” says Contini.
An Exotic Design Concept
The packaging designed for the Tawaka Rare Harvest Collection by Ojon Haircare conveys an exotic image. It is meant to tell a story about the tropical rainforest, and the trees from which its ingredients are harvested. The brand launched last October on QVC and may be available at Sephora later this year.
The products contain Ojon oil, a restorative conditioning hair treatment, and savage cacao, which provides moisturizing, antioxidant benefits. This type of cacao is only available in a limited supply, according to Denis Simioni, CEO and founder of Ojon Corp. He first discovered these ingredients during trips to Central America. He even helped the native people set up a company that is the exclusive supplier of these ingredients.
A dark, chocolate-brown color on the Tawaka packages conveys the products’ high concentration of ingredients, according to the company.
Once Simioni decided to create the Tawaka brand, he was faced with the task of designing packaging that would reflect the exclusivity of its ingredients. A dark, rich chocolate brown was chosen for the plastic bottles that contain Tawaka’s Ancient Tribal Rejuvenating Cleanser and Conditioner. “The dark color reflects the high concentration of powerful ingredients,” Simioni explains. Selecting the right color was a challenge. “We used Pantone plastic chips, which are expensive, but you are able to see color more accurately on different thicknesses of plastic,” he says.
The bottles are tall and slim, with an elegant curve. “We wanted the bottles to be a classic, timeless shape,” says Simioni. “They also had to be easy to handle in the shower,” he says. The same bottle is used for both the cleanser and the conditioner. The products are meant to be used on both the hair and skin, which is why the cleanser is not called shampoo. One huge consideration for Simioni was how easily the bottle could be squeezed. “A lot of vendors have bottles that looked amazing but that weren’t practical. It was difficult to squeeze the product out,” says Simioni.
Both bottles have flip-top caps that lock on for faster assembly. The products are differentiated by the color of the cap. The cleanser’s cap is white translucent polypropylene. The conditioner’s cap is opaque dark brown and matches the bottle.
A cap made of real wood adorns the jar for Tawaka’s Ancient Tribal Rejuvenating Cream. The cap was made in Spain. The jar is housed in a burlap bag.
Tawaka’s Ancient Tribal Rejuvenating Cream, a full-body conditioner, is in a high-density plastic jar that resembles the look and feel of glass. Its cap is real wood made in Spain. The jar is packaged inside a burlap bag with two brochures. The decoration on all the packages is done with a silk-screening process.
Tawaka’s packaging is designed to engage all of the senses. “I wanted to use sight, smell, and touch to transport consumers to another world,” Simioni says. The products smell like chocolate. The bottles are molded with a soft-touch resin meant to remind the user of the softening effect the product claims to have on the hair and skin. “I wanted the bottles to look and feel like they might melt in your hand,” says Simioni.
“Tawaka was a difficult packaging project,” he continues. “We worked with suppliers located all around the world and had language barriers to contend with. Luckily, we were able to anticipate problems from the beginning and do whatever we could to prevent them. I learned how truly important it is to not want to just get things done quickly, but rather take the time to source a good vendor. Your second order is more important than your first. You have to be sure your supplier will be able to produce the volume you will require if your product is successful, especially when you’re selling on QVC,” he says.
The Bottom Line
The demand for natural products will no doubt continue. Soon, we may see even more creative ways to use design so that packaging reflects a “natural” feel.
Simioni suggests remembering that simplicity is one of the most important elements of design. “A complicated development process is often used to achieve simplicity,” he explains. “That’s the magic of a great design. It’s when every element fits together just right.”