05.09.08
| The Bulgari brand chose Seidel to manufacture aluminum caps and design rings. |
Due to its recyclable nature, metal is shining brighter than ever with brand marketers all over the world.
By Leah Genuario, Contributing Editor
Luxury mineral makeup and sun care line Colorescience offers products made from Earth’s natural minerals, so what better way to highlight its natural foundation than to choose packaging that is environmentally friendly?
Most of Colorescience’s products—brushes, pressed powders and lip serums—feature aluminum outer packaging. The spritzers and brush cleaner are also packaged in an aluminum spray bottle. The company chose aluminum packaging because of its recyclability.
As public sentiment turns toward good environmental stewardship, many marketers in the beauty industry and beyond are looking for packaging that minimizes their brand’s environmental footprint.
“One major trend is the customer’s orientation to ‘green’ topics: Consumers are demanding environmentally friendly products,” says Boris Schaefer, director of customer relations for Seidel, Montclair, NJ.
While there are many ways to limit environmental impact, one way this can be accomplished is to choose materials that are easy to recycle.
Despite higher costs than plastic and glass, metal remains a popular choice among beauty brand marketers. Aside from the possibility of recycling, it offers a luxurious, eye-catching look and provides durability.
| Be Still Face Freshener from Colorscience looks clean and cooling in aluminum packaging. |
Thinking Green
According to The Aluminum Association, Inc., containers and packaging applications are the second largest consumers of aluminum. While the food and beverage industry are major users of aluminum packaging, the beauty industry has also found multiple uses for the environmentally friendly material.
“Aluminum is very recyclable—100 percent. Even though aluminum is more expensive than glass and plastic, it still sells, I think, because of the strong environmental awareness of today’s savvy consumers. Everyone has ‘green’ on their mind,” says Jenifer Brady, VP of sales and marketing for Brad-Pak, Garwood, NJ.
Some brand marketers are also utilizing post-consumer recycled aluminum in their production.
“Aluminum can be recycled endlessly with no downgrade of its qualities,” says Schaefer.
Estée Lauder, for example, has worked with its aluminum suppliers to establish a standard recycled content of 80% for the 9020 alloy. The alloy is used for matte and satin anodized parts and for buffed and lacquered finished parts.
Despite its good reputation as a recycled material, in practice, an aluminum container may not always be recyclable. It depends on the construction of the packaging and the additional components added to it. Chris Wightman, director of the design and engineering group for World Wide Packaging, Florham Park, NJ, says that while aluminum is used in the company’s packaging, it hasn’t been “touted as a great recyclable material [within the beauty industry].”
The reason is “you rarely have aluminum components on their own, which makes it hard to recycle. Normally, you’ll have a plastic insert that’s obviously designed to stay in. Sometimes there is glue involved. Unfortunately, in its application here it is not necessarily easy to recycle,” says Wightman.
There are other potential environmental drawbacks to the use of metal. “Aluminum packaging in particular is considered very recyclable, so that is a positive impact for metal packaging. The downside would most likely be the perception of heavy resource use in its manufacturing process, mining of the raw materials, etc. Also, heavier packaging leaves a bigger carbon footprint within the transport area,” says Suzie Fenton, director of marketing for TricorBraun in St. Louis, MO.
Steel More Possibilities
For beauty companies that utilize three-piece steel cans to house products, recycling options may be limited. Most of these cans also contain valves, tubes and gaskets in varying materials, making recycling a tough challenge.
Reno, NV-based McKernan Packaging Clearing House, however, offers beauty brand marketers a way to recapture some investment on unused steel cans while saving the Earth’s resources.
“We take them rather than sending them to the landfill. We call it pre-cycle,” Mike Harkey, surplus sales executive for McKernan, explains.
The company’s delithograph system applies heat to cans that have already been printed, and then brushes off the lithography. The 30-year-old process doesn’t completely clean the steel to its original luster, but it works well enough that companies can apply a label over the can for use in industrial applications.
In addition to printed steel cans and a wide variety of other materials, the company accepts unused aluminum bottles for pre-cycling. “I buy aluminum bottles that haven’t been lithographed. I sell mainly to smaller companies. The bottles come from manufacturers and marketers—anyone who has excess inventories,” says Harkey.
Top It Off in Style
Metal’s benefits extend beyond environmentally friendly concerns. Many brand marketers choose to spend a bit more on packaging in order to crown their product with a glint or gleam of metal. Metal closures are popular within the beauty packaging industry, and can complement a variety of bottles and even tubes.
| Seidel's aluminum caps lend a recyclable touch of class to Bulgari's bottles. |
World Wide Packaging has recently begun developing and manufacturing custom metal caps for tubes to create an upscale look for its customers.
“It’s a more elegant package than a standard plastic cap. It sets it apart and makes it a nice appealing package. In addition you can work in color and texture themes,” says Wightman.
World Wide Packaging recently teamed with Avon to develop packaging for Avon Anew Clinical Spider Vein. The tube packaging’s most impressive feature is its silver-colored cap; a manufacturing achievement that took months of collaboration and 18 different processes to achieve.
The custom-shaped, silver cap complements the silver and white color scheme of the product. It also features a flexible plug designed to fit into the tube’s orifice when closed.
Although it would have been easier to scrap the idea of using metal during the development process, Avon persisted to achieve just the right look and feel. “We talked to the client several times about vacuum metallizing as opposed to using metal, but they held firm. If someone wants it, we’re going to make it happen,” says Wightman.
The Bvlgari brand also decided upon metal accents, choosing Seidel to manufacture aluminum caps for its bottles and tubes, as well as aluminum design rings to decorate the caps of the crème jars in its skin care line.
An upscale look is created by anodizing all aluminum parts in a brilliant silver tone, a striking contrast to the subtly colored bottles. To emphasize the brand image, its signature “Bvlgari” logotype is de-bossed directly into the metal’s surface.
Seidel also manufactured closures for Puma’s new fragrance, “I’m Going.” The innovative closure shape is inspired by a battery. On the female fragrance, the closure is colored fuchsia, while the men’s fragrance closure is decorated deep blue. The Puma logo and inscription, “I’m Going” are included on the caps.
Stock Up
The addition of metal or metal looks is an excellent way to upgrade stock bottles. It offers marketers the chance to make their products pop, without incurring the costs associated with fully custom packages, such as tooling and research and development time.
| Lacoste utilizes an aluminum case from Seidel. |
Cameo Metal, Brooklyn, NY, worked with Yankee Candle to produce a package for its fragrance and reed diffusers. Starting with an 8oz. Boston Round stock bottle, Cameo Metal upgraded the current wax cap to a new brushed-look metal color. “Now with the metal collar, the package has an upscale presence,” says Anthony Di Maio, vice president of global sales for Cameo Metal.
Metal in Fragrance
While metal is used everywhere within the beauty industry, it is especially appealing in the fragrance industry.
“We at Cameo have found that fragrance users tend to lean towards metal before any other material. The reasoning, I believe, is the compatibility issue between plastic and fragrance oils. Metal finishes hold up better to very aggressive fragrances and lower the chance of a compatibility issue,” says Di Maio.
Metal also increases design possibilities. Schaefer of Seidel has noticed an ongoing trend in the use of casings to decorate perfume bottles.
For example, Seidel recently collaborated on Lacoste’s Elegance fragrance to design its cap and aluminum casings. The cap features the brand’s signature crocodile logo and both components have an anodized silver brushed surface.
The Lacoste project was particularly challenging as Seidel needed to accurately fit the aluminum casing to the glass bottle, “a process requiring exacting tolerances and consistent, near-perfect execution,” says Schaefer.
Sometimes fragrances can push design possibilities with metal accents. Nina, by Nina Ricci, utilizes a pink-tinted, rounded bottle reminiscent of an apple. The fragrance is enhanced with a red halo and intricately decorated with silver leaves.
| Colorscience decided upon aluminum packaging for many of its products because of its recyclability. |
There is a way to remedy the gap between design creativity and cost parameters. “The best way to maximize your performance out of your marketing team is to ask your suppliers to invite your marketing people in to view the manufacturing process,” says Di Maio.
A Metal Look, Minus the Metal
There are other marketers who take the metal look, but leave the metal material behind. In its spring 2008 line, brand marketer Tarte has launched its double dose berry boost & gloss, offering consumers a dose of pigment and a dose of high-shine gloss.
Its inner and outer tubes are comprised of plastic, with the inner tube molded into the outer tube, allowing for both gloss formulas to actuate from one orifice.
To increase the upscale look of the package, tarte decided to add metallic finishes, achieved through vacuum metallizing. The finish was applied to the top of the tube’s crimp bar and was also used on the caps. The end result is a metal-look over plastic.
The Finish Line
For those marketers that decide upon metal components instead of a metal look, there are a few ways to make the most of the material. According to Wightman, anodizing and spraying are the two most popular processes utilized to decorate metal components. In anodizing, aluminum is oxidized, forming a thin film of aluminum oxide. Both anodizing and spraying offer a wide array of colors.
Once color and finish process are decided upon, Wightman suggests one more detail: “We also like to put a UV coating on as well because it gives an ultra-sheen, a new car finish. It works
as a protective layer, and protects the graphics.”
Di Maio concurs, stating, “As far as popular ways to decorate metal, the most popular is making it shiny and then embossing and de-bossing the metal. Nothing makes metal stand out better than a fine polish to give off the high-end shine.”
