Color Cosmetics Packaging: Packaging Powder
A compact’s sifter doubles as a mechanism that lets Smashbox customers grind pressed powder into loose powder.
Small packaging tweaks can greatly improve a consumer’s experience with powder makeup.
by MARIE REDDINGPackaging experts are always being challenged to make powder makeup easier to use. For loose powders, solutions have included dispensing brushes and compacts with sifters. However, there’s always room for improvement. Some companies have gone the extra mile in terms of testing and adding extra touches to improve on packaging designs for both loose and pressed powders.
Protecting a Delicate Design
Filling pressed powders in decorative designs is a trend that has endured over the years. Estée Lauder’s Vivid Garden compact, featured on the cover of CPC Packaging’s March/April issue, contains pressed powder that was filled to create the detailed image of a garden. The team at Estée Lauder went to extra lengths to ensure that the design stayed intact.
A plastic piece serves as a shock absorber that helps protect Estée Lauder’s Vivid Garden powder design from cracking or crumbling if the compact is jolted or dropped. “The stability of the package becomes extremely important with this type of product,” says Wayne LoPrete, vice president, global package development, The Estée Lauder Companies. “It was a challenge to make sure that the packaging, including the pan, supports this intricate design that is made with powder. You don’t want a customer receiving powder that is cracked or crumbling.”
To prevent the powder from cracking or crumbling, Estée Lauder included a shock absorber in the packaging. The shock absorber is an extra plastic component that was placed in the compact between the pan and the compact. “If a customer drops the compact, the powder makeup is not as prone to damage,” says LoPrete.
The powder’s design was inspired by a Japanese tea garden. “We always make an effort to be very thematic. Our color story this spring was about Asia and was called Vivid Garden. The theme was developed and expressed in everything, from the product to the packaging,” explains Tara Cohen-Stewart, vice president and senior color stylist, global makeup product development, The Estée Lauder Companies.
The garden design was created by triple-pressing the powder makeup. “The process is called Tasselli,” says Cohen-Stewart. “There are three different colors in the powder that were pressed separately. The powder was then embossed with the design and oversprayed using a stencil.” Creating small details, such as flower petals and the dragonfly’s wings, required skill.
“It takes a great deal of craftsmanship to create such a detailed design,” says LoPrete. The team at Estée Lauder worked closely with Intercos to accomplish this. “Intercos has the unique ability to make art with their powders,” adds Cohen-Stewart.
Another challenge was making sure that the design didn’t adversely affect the makeup. “The consumer needs to be happy with how the colors combine and payoff on the skin. We also wanted to make sure that the colors stayed separated so that the consumer would be able to use them alone as well,” says Cohen-Stewart.
The round blue and gold Vivid Garden compact is one of Estée Lauder’s signature designs and is often used for different products. A gold bezel frames the product pan and was decorated with the Estée Lauder name. The bezel’s edge is not visible. “This is another example of the kinds of details we are always incorporating in our packaging. The consumer may not even realize that they’re there, but it is subtleties like these that help to create a quality package,” says LoPrete.
A Daily Grind
Loose powder can be difficult to contain. Compacts or other packages often become messy or can open when customers don’t want them to. Smashbox Cosmetics solved this issue by incorporating a specially designed grinding mechanism inside a compact.
According to Sylvie Rouaix, vice president, global product development, Smashbox Cosmetics, the Smashbox team discovered the round matte-black compact at a supplier’s Cosmoprof trade show booth last year in Italy. (Smashbox prefers to keep the supplier’s name anonymous.)
The compact’s features were created to optimize powder dispensing. “Our innovative formulation deserved a new dispensing system that would offer a mess-free application method,” says Rouaix. The Smashbox product is called Halo Hydrating Perfecting Powder. It is a sheer formula with a smooth texture designed to “glide” onto the skin, while delivering antiaging benefits. The product was first sold exclusively on QVC in December 2007. However, it only launched to other retailers in December 2008.
“When Halo first launched, the market was saturated with a lot of ‘me-too’ mineral powder concepts, and we wanted to create something different,” says Rouaix.
The powder, pressed in a pan, is housed in a lower compartment in the compact, beneath a powder sifter. When customers are ready to use the powder in its loose-powder form, they can twist the bottom of the compact, which causes a shaver built into the compact to grind the pressed powder into loose powder. “The built-in shaver transforms the pressed powder, which is more travel-friendly, into loose powder when you’re ready to use it,” says Rouaix.
A patented spring-loaded mechanism is what makes the grinder feature work. Twisting the bottom of the compact causes the spring to push upward against a platform on which the pressed-powder pan sits. When the spring presses the pressed-powder pan up, the pressed powder is pushed through the holes of the aluminum sifter, which has sharp points on its underside. “As the pressed powder comes into contact with the sifter, it is finely ground,” says Rouaix.
Research and engineering ensured that the grinder was compatible with the product formulation. “The powder contains a very flexible hydrogel that gives it a unique feel. We had to build a very different type of grinder to optimize its performance and delivery,” says Rouaix.
After the customer uses the loose powder, any loose powder left over in the compact sits above the sifter in the top compartment of the compact. The compact’s lid has a latch closure for a secure close.
“A lot of work went into finding the right closing mechanism, and it is always being improved upon,” says Rouaix. “I believe we’re now using the third generation of the latch.”
Polished and Portable
With Blush Brush, Clinique uses a classic component, the dispensing brush, to make powder travel-friendly.
Clinique is always looking for ways to make packaging more user-friendly. This spring, the brand decided to launch a product in a dispensing brush, which it calls Quick Blush.
“It’s a lifestyle-conscious design,” says Ted Owen, Clinique’s vice president of global package design, referring to the package’s portability. “We’re not a brand that takes cues from fashion trends. For us, it’s more about looking at lifestyles, and this is a lifestyle tool. It’s portable, but the full-size brush is also practical.”
Although many suppliers offer this type of package, this one was customized according to Clinique’s high standards. Testing and development was a time-consuming process. Owen says that the firm worked hard to make sure that the brush dispensed the right amount of product when the brush’s base is twisted. “Ensuring that the mechanics of the torque were correct took some time,” he says.
The brush’s hairs were given an antimicrobial treatment. The package is aluminum, with a buffered lacquer finish.
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