2009 Editors’ Choice Award Winner: Cosmetics
TurboLash All Effects Motion Mascara
by The Estée Lauder Companies
Estée Lauder’s TurboLash All Effects Motion Mascara is an industry first—a vibrating mascara wand. “There is a direct correlation between the power of the vibrations and the performance of the mascara, adding incredible separation, volume, length, and curl,” says Elana Drell Szyfer, senior vice president of global marketing, Estée Lauder.
The patented design was first conceived by George Kress, Estée Lauder’s vice president of corporate packaging innovations. Kress says that he came up with the idea while painting his daughter’s room. “I was cutting a line between the wall and the ceiling using subtle pumping movements,” he says. “The idea just came to me. I wondered if vibration technology could be used in conjunction with applying mascara.” After creating his first prototype from a standard mascara wand and motors and batteries from vibrating razors and toothbrushes, Kress took the concept to the Estée Lauder team.
The mascara bottle and its motor are housed in separate compartments in a folding carton supplied by Arkay Packaging Corp. The motor, which includes a battery, snaps into the top of the bottle’s cap. When customers unscrew the cap, the first eighth of the turn starts the motor, and the wand begins to vibrate. “We wanted to make sure that it was an intuitive design so that the package could be used in one fluent movement, without requiring the customer to push any buttons to activate vibration,” says Kress.
Testing was done with a slow-motion camera to determine the correct rpm, ensuring that the motor’s vibration delivered the right effects and also felt comfortable in the customer’s hand.
The twisted-wire brush was supplied by Alcan Packaging Beauty, which also provided the mascara bottle. NyPro Co. helped engineer and produce the motor, which uses an Energizer battery. Radius Product Development consulted on engineering and design.
CPC Packaging awards panelist John Alongi, senior manager of package engineering for mark, calls this package “highly innovative, with an excellent overall execution of design and product performance.”
“Although it takes some time getting used to, it is very well engineered and easy to use,” says panelist Gail Boyé, vice president of global product development for mark.
To help customers transition to this new mascara concept, Estée Lauder took care to make the bottle look like a familiar mascara package. “We now know that people are willing to try something completely new and different,” says Drell Szyfer. “There are people who [are hesitant to use] vibrating mascara, but we find that when we sit the customer down and show her the performance, she is immediately sold.”
Awards panelist Scott Widro, vice president of manufacturing and materials management for Chanel, tested the package with a customer. He reported: “The surprise of turning the cap and feeling the vibration captured your interest and drove you to use the package. The mechanical nature of the wand made you feel as if the wand was interacting with the mascara bulk and creating an even better experience. Upon use, immediate results were seen, and the consumer felt that the application was very even and much better than her current mascara package offered.”