Avon and Kalologie both utilized PKG Group’s 50ml airless jar.

Taking Stock

Developing a custom look can be quick, economical and easy. Here’s how brands and suppliers have successfully teamed up to make the most of stock products.

By Leah Genuario, Contributing Editor

Beauty brands, start your engines. Today’s consumers want new products, excitement and comfort, and they want it now. How do brand marketers reach the finish line of a successful product launch? Many ride with stock.

“We see a number of factors driving increased usage of stock packaging components,” comments Michael E. Warford, vice president, sales and marketing for Colt’s Plastics Co., Inc., Dayville, CT. Among these, Warford lists speed-to-market, lower program costs and creative decorative opportunities as main drivers of stock packaging.

An assortment of Colt’s Plastics containers.

“The benefits are quick availability in a variety of shapes, sizes and materials at a competitive price. Also, stock components make it easier to launch a new product,” says Jeff Gross, vice president, sales and marketing at Kaufman Container, Cleveland, OH.

Today’s stock packages are anything but standard. Thanks to the help of leading industry suppliers, Beauty Packaging has assembled an eye-catching portfolio of stock projects showcasing the versatility and branding possibilities that can be achieved with stock.

Stock Makes Things Clear

Avon’s mark. See Things Clearly Brightening Moisturizer is an award-winning package housed in a stock container. The 50ml airless centerpoint dispensing jar features a pump that enables precise dosages of moisturizer.

The package look was achieved using a clear outer jar coupled with an inner jar molded in white. A label is applied to the outside of the inner jar, allowing the company flexibility for additional SKUs. Seizing all space for branding, the mark. logo appears prominently on the overcap. PKG Group, Somerset, NJ, provided the brand with the stock jar and cap, as well as the label and its application.

The stock jar has been successfully used by other brands to communicate entirely different brand messages. Kalologie’s Boost Moisturizing Gel utilized the same jar as its base and built a modern silver-and-green package coordinating with the rest of its line.

Applause for Hand Perfection

Hailed as the “supermodel of hands,” Ellen Sirot’s venture into personal care products for hands is a natural extension. The packaging housing the Ellen Sirot Hand Perfection line results from a collaborative effort between New York-based The Design Spot and The Young Group, as well as Hawthorne, NJ-based 3C Inc. The line features stock components from 3C., including an oval tube with a pushbutton cap, automatic click pen, airless jar and airless bottle. To accommodate product ingredients, 3C Inc. customized the click pen to enhance dispensing.

The packaging for Ellen Sirot’s Hand Perfection line is a collaborative effort between three companies.

Primary and secondary packages are unified through use of color and fonts. The scripted font was chosen to emulate elegant handwriting. White primary packaging components are paired with silver accents. Decorations are printed in red and black on a white background, and the elegant look is finished off with clear caps. To provide brand consistency between primary and secondary packaging, as well as interesting tactile feel, outer cartons feature a combination of black sides with a soft, matte finish and red sides with a glossy finish.

Stylish Salon to Stylish Stock

Neil Weisberg and Amanda George sought to launch a line to reflect their Beverly Hills salon. The Neil George brand launched in 2008 with five SKUs, and quickly expanded with the launch of three additional SKUs. Counting Hollywood A-listers as clientele, the salon sought to create a stylishly simple and eco-friendly prestige brand that would address women’s everyday hair issues.

The Neil George brand launched with packaging from Kaufman Container.

“We wanted packaging that did not look too old, too busy or too feminine. As well as our packaging being modern and simple, it needed to be easy-to-use,” states Brad Jones, director of operations for Neil George Hair Care.

Utilizing stock packaging sourced from Kaufman Container, the brand’s logo—created by Los Angeles agency Meat and Potatoes—is the focal point of the decoration. The screen-printed logo is prominently positioned at the top of the package and is large enough to wrap slightly around the side. The package additionally allows customers to see the product inside.

A Blend of Stock and Custom

Fusion Packaging, Dallas, TX, worked with the Liquid Keratin team on a seven-SKU line incorporating both stock and custom bottles and caps. Spray and pump products are housed in custom bottles with continuous thread finishes. The remaining four products are stock bottles.

The bottle forms were chosen for their teardrop shape, which perfectly accommodated Liquid Keratin’s existing teardrop logo. Fusion Packaging took its existing stock bottle and expanded its stock line to accommodate all of the sizes Liquid Keratin needed. On the custom side of the project, the supplier coordinated the tooling of U.S.-manufactured custom bottles with Chinese-manufactured custom overcaps to ensure proper pull force.

A large, hot-stamped logo runs vertically up the side of each bottle in the line to complete the desired look and ensure brand cohesiveness.

Birth of a Brand

When creating a brand for Jonathan Antin, The Maesa Group, LA and NY, looked to architecture for inspiration. “Traditional modernism [in architecture] was born out of America in the late 1950s and was all about being true to materialism,” says Scott Kestenbaum, vice president of marketing at Maesa.

Fusion Packaging and the Liquid Keratin team worked together on a seven-SKU line.

Jonathan Antin was a fan of this architectural style and also appreciated minimalism. These tastes were reflected in the branding and packaging of the line. Stock round bottles and jars served as the foundation. The team added a vertical logo using modern Neutra fonts. The busyness sometimes associated with transparent bottles was overcome with large, printed color blocks used to legibly host logos and text.

To capture the essence of traditional modernism, Maesa chose metallic copper, gold, silver and bronze colors to resemble exposed metal. Each color represents a different category of its hair care line.

Pretty in Pink

Pink ribbons have become synonymous with breast cancer awareness. As a breast cancer survivor, the creator of En Pointe skin care wanted to design a product that would make those battling the disease feel good again. She utilized pink-sprayed bottles from Kaufman Container and decorated each with a silver Chinese symbol symbolizing life and survival.

Laura Geller stands out thanks to a partnership with World Wide Packaging.

Quantities did not warrant a custom design, so Kaufman Container worked to supply an unusual package comprised of a bottle, plug and closure. To create the desired pink hue, the clear bottles were spray-coated in pink and finished off with hot-stamping and screen printing to create a desired upscale and luxurious look.

Laura Geller Shines with Metal

Thanks to a stock metal lip brush package and metal lipstick case provided by World Wide Packaging, Florham Park, NJ, the Laura Geller Winter Wonderland Collection and The Tropics Collection display plenty of luster. The line also utilizes a custom round compact with a window.

To create an upscale look and marry stock and custom pieces, packages are decorated with a black matte finish. The lip brush case contains a color identifier window to showcase the product. The lipstick case is weighted to achieve a luxurious feel.

By switching out the black matte finish from the standard line and upgrading to a shimmery crinkle finish, the brand was additionally able to offer a specialty collection using the existing components.

Pinpointing Stock Solutions

Seaquist Closures’ Pinpoint silicone valve has been utilized for product launches by several leading beauty marketers, including Kao for its Bioré brand, Estée Lauder for PX Prescriptives and Johnson & Johnson for Neutrogena. The soft-touch, conical-shaped valve was designed to create precise product cutoff. It can also accommodate a wide variety of product viscosities.

Seaquist’s Pinpoint valve has been tapped by multiple brand marketers.

Estée Lauder’s PX Prescriptives Super Line Preventor Xtreme Lifting Concentrate further enhanced its packaging with a customized metal shroud overcap to accompany Pinpoint.

Glass for Fragrance

TVG Group’s Sarkany line of fragrances employs a stock glass bottle from New High Glass, Miami, FL. The square-based bottle with heavy distribution at the bottom also boasts an elegant, narrow profile.

A stock bottle from New High Glass was employed by TVG Group’s Sarkany fragrance line.

The bottle can be used interchangeably for both male and female products, which provides an added benefit of reinforcing branding. The Sarkany brand capitalized on this characteristic, changing the look of its custom caps to appeal to the target demographic of each fragrance.

Extension by Stock

Cospack collaborated with Elizabeth Arden to extend its Juicy Couture and Viva La Juicy brands.

Tapping Cospack for PETG jars, metal and plastic closures, as well as perfume gel atomizers, the Juicy Couture team enhanced the packaging by affixing branded medallions onto the metal closures. Sophisticated decoration also included a combination of hot stamping, embossing and debossing techniques.

Massage Oils in PET

Juicy products from Cospack and Elizabeth Arden.

The Young Living Essential Oils massage oil line received a packaging revamp thanks to bottle manufacturer Alpha Packaging, St. Louis, MO and packaging distributor Industrial Container, Salt Lake City, UT.

Previously housed in HDPE, the line re-debuted in 8oz. amber PET Cosmo Round bottles, as well as one refillable 32oz. amber PET Cosmo Round. Alpha Packaging supplied the tall bottles, while black twist-and-lock pump dispensers from Emsar Group, Stratford, CT, served as closures. The marketer chose an amber color to coordinate with its essential oil products packaged in amber glass.

The Young Living Essential Oils line was aided by Alpha Packaging.

The bottles were screen printed by Industrial Container using three colors. Each bottle features white text, frosted lavender vines and a third color used to differentiate the formulations. Industrial Container overcame the challenge of printing over a dark bottle color by working with its ink manufacturer to develop an opaque ink suited to the project.

Same Bottle, Different Look

Brand marketers Kalologie and Dynamis Skin Science looked to PKG Group for a sleek airless container to house its eye products. Both brands chose a 15ml stock airless container from PKG Group—the same style—constructed so that the actuator pops up once the top is twisted.

Thanks to decorations and branding elements, the final packages look completely different. Kalologie’s Illuminate eye cream was treated with an internal spray coating in matte silver and topped with a vacuum-metallized cap mechanism. The entire package decoration coordinates with the rest of the line. Its green logo is screened vertically onto the container and a powder-coated, aluminum collar is also colored with the brand’s signature green.

DieterBakicDesign’s Pan Airless Dispenser comes in three sizes.

Dynamis Skin Science’s Meg 21 Eye Treatment is sold by skin care aestheticians and related professionals. Supporting a clean, almost medical look, the bottle is sprayed with a frost spray coating on the outside. The apothecary-like font is screened across the bottle horizontally. The cap mechanism is vacuum metallized in silver.

Decorative Options Add Pop

DieterBakicDesign, Munich, Germany, offers its Pan Airless Dispenser stock line to brands. The new airless dispenser bottle is available in 50-, 100- and 150ml.

Brands can use the package and make it pop through decorations. Decoration possibilities include screening and hot stamping.

Maesa Group and Henri Bendel chose stock with custom details.

Two Cheers for Airless

Edgewater, NJ-based ISPEC, Inc, with factories in Korea and China, is offering a variety of stock products. Among their new lineup is a dual airless bottle, with two 15ml compartments. Made of polypropylene, the bottle stands 140mm high with a diameter of 27 x 49 mm. The company's latest stock launches also include an automatic mixing airless dispenser, a single wall airless jar, and a single wall polypropylene airless package.

Bath and Beautiful

Package designers at Maesa Packaging were tasked with creating an attractive package for Henri Bendel Bath and Body Line that would easily be recognized by loyal consumers, while remaining affordable. The brand’s origins were traced to Bath and Body Works before selling exclusively in Henri Bendel stores.

For its inaugural three SKU line—a bath and shower gel, body lotion and body cream—containers were selected based on how well they coordinated with older Bath and Body Works packages in order to tap into its existing customer base. The line quickly expanded to numerous other products.

Meridian used tall, sleek bottles from Kaufman.

Looks One-of-a-Kind

Kaufman Container worked with Meridian’s packaging team to provide creative packaging using standard package components. Meridian opted for tall, sleek bottles, spray coating them blue for instant brand recognition.

Forgoing silver hot stamping, the company chose a more cost-effective alternative for accents: silver screen printing. Stock silver pumps tied the entire color scheme together for a cohesive look.

The company used the same pump on different-sized bottles, employing the distributor to cut the dip tubes. “Not only does the package look cohesive, but it shows that with a little bit of creativity, even the most standard package components can take on a one-of-a-kind appearance,” says Mary Chase, account manager, Kaufman Container.