It's Metal's Moment

Metal packaging has been re-imagined and re-shaped in 2006.

By Mary Jane Tenerelli

Axilone's packaging for the Pur Mineral line underscores the visual value metal adds.

Many beauty companies, both mass and prestige, have been making it metal when choosing primary packaging for their product lines. Beauty Packaging spoke with seven metal packaging suppliers to get the latest on what’s happening in the realm of primary metal packaging within the beauty industry.

Sharing their thoughts are: Ed Martin, vice president, marketing, CCL Container; Todd Waxgiser, national accounts manager, J.L. Clark; Peter W. Philip, vice president sales and marketing, Eyelematic Manufacturing Co. Inc.; Scott Rusch, vice president, sales and marketing, Anomatic Corporation; Eric Bigotte, Axilone USA president; Maria Albanese, director of marketing, SKS Bottle and Packaging; and Boris Schaefer, director, customer relations, Seidel GmbH + Co.

Beautiful Metal Packaging

Metal packaging has been re-imagined and re-shaped in 2006. Metal has gone mostly matte in today’s beauty primary packaging arena, and color abounds; plastic’s making room for its tonier metal rival, and shapes are moving from simple to fashionably complex. Luxury beauty brands are competing with mass products using metal with stunning effect.

Says Ed Martin, “We see design becoming more and more important. People want luxury in their lives. At times, they can’t afford the big ticket items but they can afford smaller luxuries.” According to Martin, personal care products fall into the “affordable luxury” category and packaging helps put the luxury in the personal care market. Continues Martin, “There is also authenticity to metal the other materials do not have.”

Seidel's round and ridged package created for Boss fragrance is an example of the unique metal shapes beauty clients are currently asking for.

Eric Bigotte agrees with Martin on the melding of metals and personal care to create affordable luxury for consumers. States Bigotte on metal in primary beauty packaging, “Mass packaging is beginning to look just like luxury packaging.” A change in finish has come about too, informs Bigotte. “Six or seven years ago a matte finish was important to beauty clients, then it disappeared, and now within the last six months a demand for a heavy metal look is back,” he contends.

Bigotte also points out, “More and more we see color added...our customers are asking for things like shades of copper and bright red.”

Eyelematic’s Peter Philips agrees. “Look for color and sparkle. The most used colors have always been versions of gold and silver in either shiny or matte. For 2006 and 2007 you will see metal components decorated with different processes to achieve dramatic colors.”

For Maria Albanese of SKS Bottle and Packaging, it’s about tone. “I think we'll see a return to a more gold look away from silver. The natural, silver look will slowly run its course and the old traditional look of gold will return,” she relates.

Adds Anomatic’s Scott Rusch: “What we’ve seen at Anomatic are niche businesses developing within the health and beauty category —high profile fashion designers, for instance, creating product lines for cosmetic companies. Their packages typically incorporate unique shapes, sophisticated colors and innovations to traditional delivery systems.

And for Todd Waxgiser, talc tins are in. “Talc tins seem to be a hot item again. It seems that what is old is new again. The metal talc tin goes in cycles.”

For Boris Schaefer of Seidel, the question of trends is simple, “What’s new is the combination of metal and plastic, especially clear plastic. What’s losing its appeal are simple shapes, and cheap looking caps with rough edges.”

What else has been hot in metals and beauty packaging that’s receding to make room for the new? Says Martin, “With metal packaging a few years back we used to see marketers trying to decorate metal to look like plastic. We see that trend going away. Marketers now seem to want to show off their metal packaging. Metal equates to value with many consumers and marketers want to use that to drive the value proposition of their products.”

For Bigotte, trends going by the wayside include the use of brass and steel in primary packaging which, he relates, was limited to begin with. And plastic for lipstick packaging is being set aside in favor of metal.

Metallic Innovations

Lipstick packaging is taking on a long, thin metallic look, like this Mary Kay lipstick supplied by Axilone.

Revolutionary end products and new manufacturing techniques have populated 2006.

Explains Martin, “In terms of materials, manufacturing and techniques, innovation and design are the driving force.” He continues, “We have invested in the ability to create full body shaped aluminum containers. We have trade marked our technology Body Shapes and know that this technology will allow us to create shapes that were not available previously with metal containers. Our full body shaping technology has forced us to improve and modify our manufacturing techniques and materials.” In the future, states Martin, we will see alloys playing a more important role.

J.L. Clark’s biggest recent innovation has been in the company’s preflight area, says Waxgiser. “This is where we make the printing plates to decorate the steel,” he explains. “We are now computer-to-plate. This means that we have taken away the chance of error in printing plate production and we have shortened our lead-time in plate making. We can produce plates in hours, not days.”

Cost efficiency and environmentally friendliness have been the driving forces in the newest innovations at Anomatic. States Rusch, “We have made a shift to include more assembly services — and a movement towards an inclusive one stop shop for those customers that need this service.” As for Anomatic’s commitment to being green, Rusch says “There’s a real trend toward creating friendlier products that are more environmentally responsible. This involves using more recycled materials in beauty packaging — especially in using a higher content of recycled [material] into the end product. This is where anodizing overall plays well. Anodizing has long been called the ‘green’ or environmentally friendly finish in the metal finishing field because it uses almost no heavy metal.”

China has played a big part in Axilone’s business strategies. Says Bigotte, “Everything (in terms of the beauty industry) is shifting to Asia. China is a great place but the downside is that you have to add four to six weeks for shipping.” Bigotte insists that China produces impressive quality. He continues, “Our newest area is our plant in China, which will open in June (and joins an existing plant there). We have created new ways of anodizing, new techniques to produce bright colors. These techniques are already in use in our plant in Spain, but will be new in China. Also in China, we have introduced a new eyelet machine. Caps can be produced more than one at a time, and trickier looks and shapes are being achieved in metal packaging.”

The La Prairie Spring Rain bottle achieved its silvery appearance through metalizing.

For Eyelematic, color and design are where the biggest innovations are evident. Explains Philip, “In order to achieve some of the new colors being developed we have to use multiple operations to achieve the required effect.” He continues, “The aesthetics of our customer design group may require a shiny gold shell that is decorated with shiny hot stamp foil to create the contrast and impact of the design.” Phillips asserts that by using combinations of anodizing, buff and lacquer, injection molding, hot stamping and screen printing, unusual visual effects can be created on metal componentry.

Intricate packaging and new surfaces are the challenges the Seidel team are currently working on, with help from the German government. States Schaefer, “The packages are getting more complex. The shapes are very challenging and sometimes close to not being feasible. In the last few years we had to keep on pushing the limits of what can be done. Metal is a tricky material: If you stress it too much it will break. But not stressing it too much leads to a round cylindrical shape. That is not what the industry needs.” Seidel’s customers are looking for extreme square shapes with sharp radii (like the square Renutriv package) or oval shapes with non-concentrical circles. These shapes are extremely difficult maintains Schaefer.

Schaefer further relates, “There is also a huge demand for new surfaces. The developments of break through new surfaces on metal have been very limited in the last years. We are very optimistic that we are about to change that. We and two local universities joined forces in order to develop new surfaces on a nano-technological level. That means we will change the properties of the metal on a molecular level. No one knows where it will lead us and what will come out of it yet, but we are very excited to find out!” Seidel was recently awarded a grant from the German government to enable them to build dedicated equipment and to hire a full-time research lab staff.

Metalizing and Packaging

Vibrant color is all the rage, as seen in this Maybelline Slimline packaging supplied by Anomatic.

Last spring La Prairie introduced a fragrance called Spring Rain, packaged in a silvery bottle shaped like a rain drop. The package was produced through a process called “metalizing,” where a container (in this case a glass bottle although the process is done on plastic too) is overlayed with metal. Bigotte sees the process of metalizing as one way to achieve client requested metallic color on a container, and Albanese thinks it is a process that will be used for the immediate future. But both Seidel and Philip were less than optimistic about the end result when components are metalized.

Explains Philip, “Metalizing is a process where aluminum is vaporized in a vacuum chamber and allowed to deposit on the components in the vacuum chamber. The parts come out shiny silver and then are top coat lacquered to achieve the final color. The component will look like metal but will not have the ‘feel’ or durability of true aluminum parts. Metalizing will always have its own lower cost, ‘looks like’ aluminum niche in the cosmetic industry.”

Schaefer insists, “Metalizing plastic is trying to imitate the metal look on plastic. The quality is poor and it is not very resistant over time. Real metal on the other hand is honest material: You get what you think you will get.”

Metal Adds Value

What can metal do for the beauty product nestled within it? Add value and appeal. “I think the answer is two words: precious metal. Consumers equate metal to value and that value is transferred to the product in a metal package,” says Martin.

Packaging, says Schaefer, is “very important in our industry.” He continues, “Metal looks and feels high end. It looks valuable and precious. The shininess and the reflection of the light give it almost a jewel look. When a consumer then touches it and feels the cold metal feel that only real metal has, he or she gets the subliminal perception of high quality and high worth.”