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Color Cosmetic Packaging: Makeup: Green and Chic

A Bamboo Compact

Bamboo has a natural look that instantly conveys a green message to consumers. Urban Decay partnered with HCT Packaging (Bridgewater, NJ) to create the brand’s new Sustainable Shadow Box, which the companies believe is the industry’s first retail compact to be made from bamboo. Launched in October, the palette contains 10 eye shadow colors.

“Our customers are very open-minded, but most importantly, [the product] must still be great makeup in a package that looks cool. The fact that we found an opportunity to use a greener material makes it even more awesome,” says Wende Zomnir, founder and executive creative director, Urban Decay Cosmetics.

The compact’s lid was made from bamboo. A magnet keeps the lid closed. The compact’s base features a bamboo panel mounted to a paperboard insert made from certified postconsumer recycled (PCR) materials. The metal pin in the compact’s hinge was made from recycled aluminum.

The compact took more than two years to develop. “When our supplier suggested working with bamboo, we decided to find out what could be done with the material,” says Zomnir. “We didn’t want to rush the production process. We had to be sure it would function well and look beautiful.”

Decorating bamboo was new to both Urban Decay and HCT Packaging, and so a few different decorating techniques were tested out before the right solution was found. HCT Packaging decorated the compact using silk-screening and then applied a lacquer. “We tried to use greener decorating options, but unfortunately, they didn’t work very well,” says Nick Gardner, vice president of sales, HCT Packaging USA (Los Angeles). The decision was made to go with the option that looked best, aesthetically.

The Next Green Material?

No one is claiming that the Urban Decay compact is the greenest package ever made. It does contain nonremovable metal pans and a mirror. Obviously, there is room to improve on the design in the future. However, the compact does demonstrate a new use for a natural material that’s never been used to create a retail compact before.

According to Gardner, bamboo is a truly green material with many potential packaging applications. “Bamboo is a fast-growing resource,” he says.

HCT’s decision to offer its customers bamboo for packaging was the result of years of research. “I don’t consider myself to be an expert on all things green, but I did consult many experts,” Gardner says.

One expert Gardner contacted was Material ConneXion (New York City), consultants on innovative and sustainable materials. “I showed them the bamboo palette,” says Gardner. “We know it’s not completely there yet, but we did receive affirmation that we’re on the right path. We’re confident that it represents a huge step in the right direction toward the development of more-sustainable cosmetic packaging options in the future.”

Before deciding on bamboo, HCT Packaging and Urban Decay considered other materials. “At first, we looked into using corn-based plastic. We decided against it because its manufacturing process still requires the use of oil, while bamboo doesn’t,” says Zomnir. Energy is also saved during shipping of materials, because the source of bamboo is close to HCT Packaging’s factory in the Far East. If plant-based resins had been used, they would most likely have had to be shipped from the United States to the Far East.

“We’d love to take this concept to the next level in the future,” says Gardner. “We want to create a bamboo compact that is 100% in line with the cradle-to-cradle philosophy.”

PCR Aluminum for Mascara

Tarte Cosmetics is another cosmetics company starting to go green. When developing its new Lash Hugger mascara, which launched in September, the company’s goal was to design an eco-friendly package.

Tarte’s first priority was to communicate to consumers the fact that the mascara is an all-natural formula. Outer cartons helped the brand achieve this goal by displaying symbols for certain ingredients. Consumers can look up each ingredient’s symbol on Tarte’s Web site to find out more about that ingredient.

“Prior to Lash Hugger, there hadn’t really been an all-natural mascara formula that still provided the same volumizing, lengthening, and curling properties of a traditional formula. We are very proud of this innovation,” says Alexis Mezzina DiResta, vice president, Tarte Cosmetics.

“In order to do the product justice, we felt it was crucial that the medium match the message,” says DiResta. Thus, the goal became that the package be environmentally friendly, yet still look chic.

Identifying sustainable materials that would be compatible with the mascara’s formula due to the highly volatile materials used in the mascara’s base was a challenge. “We solved these compatibility issues by using a plastic inner bottle that had passed formula stability testing,” says Heather Ratushny, senior manager of product development, Tarte Cosmetics.

The plastic inner container was wrapped in a 65%-PCR aluminum shell. “Using recycled aluminum reduces energy use and doesn’t produce the greenhouse gas emissions that are created when aluminum is first made during the primary production process,” says Ratushny. “It’s also a material that can be recycled again and again without affecting its structural integrity. We saw no reason to use additional natural resources to produce the shell.”

The purple aluminum bottle was then anodized with a matte finish. “This process made its surface more porous and enabled the aluminum to better absorb our custom dye color. It also made the material more resistant to wear,” says Ratushny.

DiResta believes that aesthetics should always remain a priority for color cosmetic packaging, even as companies strive to use environmentally friendly materials. “The metallized look is a design element that we’ve incorporated in our line before, and we felt that it was important to use again because it creates a strong point of difference from other products on the market,” DiResta says.

Designed to Be Refilled

Mary Kay is yet another beauty company making sure that its customers know that recycling and environmental issues have become its top priorities. This message is being communicated in a number of innovative ways, including the launch of Mary Kay’s newly designed refillable compact last June. Mary Kay estimates that the compact’s magnetic space can be customized with 18 million different color combinations.

The compact’s slick look proves that style was definitely not a secondary consideration. The compact’s sleek shape was designed by Kenneth Hirst, president of Hirst Pacific Ltd. (New York City). Its chic design practically reinvents the image of the Mary Kay brand. The company is using television commercials to promote this new image, with the compact as the focus. The camera pans around the compact’s sleek curves, as though the compact were in a car commercial.

Because the compact is designed to be refilled and used over and over again, consumers won’t have to purchase new compacts as often, resulting in fewer packages that have to be produced. Mary Kay estimates that offering this refill system will eliminate 60 million units of packaging and reduce carbon emissions by more than 60,000 tons.

Durability Included

Refillable packages must be engineered for long-term use. This requires more-rigorous testing procedures, according to Qualipac Amercia (West Paterson, NJ), the supplier that produced the Mary Kay compact. “We had to make sure that the compact would have the longest possible life cycle,” says Eric Vanin, vice president of sales and marketing for Qualipac America. For almost three years, Vanin worked closely on this project with Alex Sobal, senior project engineer, Qualipac America, and Tim Maddy, master package designer for Mary Kay.

Decorating the compact, with all of its curves, required a high level of expertise. The compact is made from ABS-grade SAN. “Our technology enabled us to use an advanced heat-transfer technique and a superior spraying process in order to achieve the design goals,” explains Vanin. The team at Qualipac tested 15 different types of sprays before finding the one that offered the best shine, scratch resistance, and adherence.

The compact’s closure system utilizes magnets. Due to the compact’s shape, there isn’t a lot of material to grasp when opening it. It was necessary for the team at Qualipac to be able to control the magnet’s strength perfectly in order to achieve the right opening force, according to Vanin.

Extensive tests were also done to make sure that the magnet’s glue would withstand extreme heat and cold. “This compact had to pass many tough tests, some of which were newly developed for this package,” says Vanin. “Overall, it is an accomplishment we’re very proud to have achieved.”

Will Green Become the New Standard?

Consumers aren’t willing to sacrifice performance for a greener product or package, especially when it comes to cosmetics, according to the experts at Urban Decay and Tarte Cosmetics.

“I think that it’s still fairly early in the green game, and that consumers who are using environmental factors as their primary deciding factor when choosing a product are probably still in the minority,” DiResta says.

Zomnir agrees. “Women want to first know that they have a great product,” she adds. Zomnir feels that consumers would make better purchasing decisions in line with causes they care about if they were given enough viable options. “If you look at fashion a few years ago, consumers had to choose between buying a burlap bag if they wanted to be green, or something cute instead,” she says. Today, consumers have more options.

DiResta feels the same. “Green packaging can still look glamorous,” she says. “It makes the consumer feel good, too. She’s happy to know she’s done her small part, without having to go out of her way,”

As more green packaging options become available, Zomnir hopes that they will inspire change throughout the industry. One day, she hopes, green won’t even be a newsworthy trend anymore. “It should just be the norm. People should say, ‘If it isn’t green, why would I ever want to make it or sell it?’”

More on Color Cosmetic Packaging

Sidebars:
   Stock Compact, Designed for Recycling
   HCT Packaging’s Green Standards
   Mary Kay’s Recycling Initiative
   A Certified Green Pencil

Related Articles:
   Ideas for Green Packaging

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