In Closing: Portable Powder
Bare Escentuals’ new dispensing brush makes mineral powder convenient to carry.
By Marie Redding, Senior EditorThis fall, Bare Escentuals is launching a new product exclusively at Sephora stores—a limited-edition, portable version of its bareMinerals Mineral Veil loose powder. Called Mineral Veil On-the-Go, the product is housed in a dispensing brush.
Although dispensing brushes aren’t new to the beauty industry, this dispensing brush, supplied by HCT Packaging (Santa Monica, CA), is unique in that it is guaranteed not to leak powder thanks to a gasket device.
Loose powder is housed in a chamber in the brush’s handle. When users twist the brush handle’s base clockwise, the brush, through which powder flows, rises from the top for product application.
The act of twisting the brush handle’s base clockwise simultaneously opens a thermoplastic elastomer gasket, which allows the loose powder in the brush handle to flow through to the brush.
Twisting the base of the handle counterclockwise causes the brush to retract and the gasket to close, ensuring that no powder escapes.
HCT Packaging worked on the design and development of this package for more than two years. “We have multiple patents pending for this component and gasket,” says Tim Thorpe, West Coast president of HCT Packaging.
Several challenges arose during package development. “We used floating chambers to close off the gasket and to prevent the powder from flowing through the brush when the brush was being raised and retracted,” says Thorpe. Making sure that the package would be easy to fill was another issue.
“Portable packaging will always be a necessary niche,” says Thorpe. “Whenever we design a complex engineered part that works well, is portable, and looks great, then I feel we have hit our goals.”