Shine On

Unilever has launched Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturizer in a can that utilizes bag-on-valve spray technology.

Metals—and metallic looks—seem to be trending right now, for packaging. There are a number of glistening bottles and boxes on store shelves, and it’s not even the holiday season.

“Metal has always been used for cosmetics; whether it is more or less fashionable always depends on trends,” says Denis Richard-Orliange, general manager, Cosmogen.

John Pyrzenski, sales director, HCT Packaging, also finds that metal is popular at the moment.

“Metal runs the full gamut across all categories as a decorative asset when the customer wants to add a luxury option—from caps and collars to over-shells and primary components,” says Pyrzenski. He adds, “Closure systems have been trending away from basic plastics, and moving toward metals—especially for perfumery and cosmetics looking to add a level of prestige.”

One of the benefits of using metals is how it can help transform a package in so many different ways. A metallic look can convey an ultra-modern image, or the material can help drive the message to consumers that a product contains high-tech ingredients. A shiny finish can also look glamorous.

Metal can also be used to represent nostalgia, like when a brand chooses a classic tin. “The look of a tin implies quality. It feels solid when you hold it, which helps convey the efficacy of the product inside,” says Brian Berklich, manager, Burt’s Bees.

In some cases, a brand chooses metal purely for functional purposes. Tubes lined with aluminum barriers will help protect ingredients from light and air. Or a metal can with a spray actuator can help transform a product by giving users a new way to apply it.

However you use the material, the shine of metal can add just the right amount of bling to your brand.

Luxe Looks and Metal Overshells

When a prestige skin care product has a shiny metal cap, the consumer’s perception of the product may change—instantly. “Metal has always been associated with luxury,” says Richard-Orliange. “Metal adds value to a product line, and is an excellent way for a brand to position a collection as high-end, because it is often associated with quality,” he explains.

Combining a metal overshell with a plastic component, such as a cap or lipstick case, is one common way to achieve a luxe look, such as the case with Clarins Skin Illusion—a package produced by HCP, in collaboration with Cosmogen, which produces the brush.

It’s a cosmetic product in a square jar with a shiny plastic cap, with a gold metal overshell assembled onto it. The unique cap is designed to hold the matching kabuki brush, which has a handle made from anodized aluminum.

“Integrating the brush into the package provides a harmonious look—and an aesthetically beautiful appearance,” says Richard-Orliange.

Lipstick also pairs well with metal—and especially metal overshells.

“Metal lipstick cases continue to be very popular,” says Lou Della Pesca, president, 3C Inc. “And I’m seeing many more brands now using colored metal, rather than just silver or gold,” he adds.

Stila used a metal overshell in a brilliant way—with a dash of color—for its new Color Balm lipstick. The packaging resembles a sleek silver bullet. The modern design gives users an easy way to see the lipstick color without opening the cap.

Stila’s new metal lipstick has a modern feel.

“The Stila logo is cut out of the custom metal overshell, which shows the inner plastic sleeve that is color-matched to every lipstick shade,” explains Jill Tomandl, Stila’s vice president of product development, package design and innovation.

The many different anodized colors on display at Anomatic’s Innovation and Technical Design Center in Ohio

If you are looking for another way to give a metal component a unique look—and a color that’s not gold or silver—anodizing can be used to achieve a custom color. Anomatic is one supplier that offers this capability, plus more.

“The beauty and personal care industries are fashion businesses, and consumers constantly demand new innovations, as tastes and trends change. In order to keep up with these changing consumer preferences, metal packaging can be decorated, engraved and personalized with custom colors to create new, innovative design concepts,” says Steve Rusch, director of marketing and business development, Anomatic.

Anomatic offers its customers onsite custom color matching, laser engraving, and new technologies such as 3D printing and rapid prototyping, in its new Innovation and Technical Design Center in Ohio.

Metallizing Plastic

Other types of materials, such as plastic, are often given the “shine” treatment as well. A shiny metal surface can be created using a vacuum metallizing process.

A selection of metal and metallized compacts, lipstick and mascara packages, made by 3C Inc. Aluminum overshells can be anodized or sprayed. The plastic packages can be vacuum metallized.

“There is a huge assortment of different types of products being metallized right now,” says 3C Inc’s Della Pesca. “We have been doing a lot of metallizing for lipstick and mascara packages, as well as for compacts,” he says.

Della Pesca says that metallization is often the right decision for a brand that wants to save on tooling costs. “If a brand wants to launch a new product in a metal package, new tooling is required. So if you find a plastic package you like, it can be a significant cost-savings to keep the plastic tooling and use metallization instead,” he explains. He says that this can be an economical way to launch a package with a metal look, for a special holiday launch or promotion.

Benefit’s Fine-One-One is a 3-in-1 lip and cheek color packaged in a plastic stick package with a metallized finish. It is manufactured by Cosmogen.

When Benefit launched its new product, Fine-One-One, the brand went for a high-shine look on a plastic stick package, which was an innovative choice for a color cosmetic. The lip and cheek colors are meant to give your skin a radiant glow, and this attribute is reflected in the package’s shiny finish.

Produced by Cosmogen, the customized stick package required five separate molds. The supplier’s teams, based in the U.S., China and France, all collaborated on this project with the brand.

Urban Decay is another brand that recently went for a metallic look—and designed an “urban chic” eye shadow compact decorated to resemble a New York City subway token. The brand collaborated with HCT Packaging to produce the small round plastic compact, which is vacuum metallized and sprayed with a chrome gunmetal finish.

Urban Decay’s eye shadow, which was also reformulated, sits in a pan affixed to a platform, which snaps into an outer shell. This package was designed so that the eye shadow could be popped out, and into the brand’s refillable palette.

Since launching, Urban Decay’s single eye shadows have been selling even more successfully than anticipated, according to the brand. The metallized package, which is produced by HCT Packaging, has proven to be an eye-catching design that is popular among the brand’s consumers.

The Urban Decay logo is suspended on the front of the eye shadow package, for a 3D effect that was created using floating embossed lettering. “It took us 18 tries to perfect the lettering,” says Amy Zunzunegui, vice president of product development, Urban Decay.

When Metal Goes Retro

Metal tins are a classic type of package, and are often used by brands conveying a vintage or retro-chic look.

Burt’s Bees uses classic round metal tins for many of its products. The brand is even promoting its products that are in metal packaging on its website—in a “classics” section.

Products from the brand that are housed in round tins include Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream; Hand Salve; and Beeswax Lip Balm.

“These are some of our earliest products—trusted favorites that we’ve kept around,” says Brian Berklich, manager, Burt’s Bees. “They are consumer favorites because they work, but they also harken back to the heritage of the brand.”

The design of Burt’s Bees classic tin has evolved since it first appeared in the 1980s.

Burt’s Bees’ original creators, Burt Quimby and Roxanne Shavitz, chose to use tins because they were simple and elegant packages—but most important, they were utilitarian, according to Berklich.

“Tins are very portable, easily slipping into a pocket. They are also reusable and recyclable. Tins also happen to be a perfect vehicle for our signature ingredient, beeswax, which dominated our early formulas,” says Berklich.

But even though Burt’s Bees has kept its classic round tin since the brand’s first products were developed, the original package design has evolved throughout the years.

“We have improved our tins over the years to reduce ink volume and remove outer PVC shrink wrap, while maintaining the look and feel of those original packages,” explains Berklich.

Tinte’s lip color is packaged in a slider tin.

Another brand that uses classic tin packaging is Tinte Cosmetics. The brand recently celebrated its nine-year anniversary, and its entire concept—including its name—is based on the use of tin. Tinte’s lip colors are packaged in classic slider tins, which have a vintage look.

“For us, the packaging was more than just an idea. It was about bringing back warm memories associated with tin packaging,” explains Stacy Provines, Tinte’s founder. She adds, “We wanted women to see the package and remember their very first lipgloss—and buy it for their daughters.”

Tinte’s lip color flavors, which include strawberry, root beer, and bubble gum, also tie in with the brand’s retro theme. Each flavor is represented by the color of each tin’s lid. Transparent inks are used to allow the reflective properties of the metal to show. The brand’s name is also embossed on the lid, to add a tactile feel.

“Our slider tin is constantly pinned on Pinterest, and shared on other social media sites, because people love the look of it. Our packaging has helped us to attract a lot of attention, especially over the past year,” says Provines.

If you’re looking for a tin, J.L. Clark is one supplier that has been making this type of package for customers in the cosmetics and hair care industries.

“We’ve produced classic tins for lip balms, salves, and hair pomades to major brands, for decades,” says Michael Tolliver, vice president sales and marketing, J.L. Clark. He says, “We have been a supplier to Murray’s Worldwide, Inc., since the 1940s. They are our longest continual customer.”

If your product is water-based, however, the best type of tin to use is one made from aluminum, according to Tolliver.

The company offers a range of sizes and decorating options, and Tolliver says they are the first metal lithographer in North America to have received Sustainable Green Printing Partnership Certification.

Metal Tubes and Tips for Functional Benefits

The trend toward shiny metallics has also captured attention in the tube market. And now brands with products that require all the barrier properties of a polyfoil tube have more design options.

Neopac’s Gloss collection of polyfoil tubes.

Neopac has a collection of polyfoil tubes called Gloss, which were launched at the end of 2012. They range from 1- to 300ml, and shimmer in bright gold and silver, as well as other metallic shades. The tube’s polyfoil barrier protects sensitive ingredients from oxygen and light.

Neopac has also formed a new partnership, in which it offers customers HCT Packaging’s cool tips on its Polaris polyfoil tube. HCT’s ergonomically shaped ZAMAC applicator tips make Neopac’s tube ideal for a skin care cream or serum, to spot-treat wrinkles or blemishes.

HCT Packaging’s range of cool tip applicators has a unique high-tech look, but the choice of material provides other benefits as well, according to the supplier.

“Metal has become a choice applicator both in how it integrates with the formula, as well as offering a distinctive user experience, rather than just an aesthetic addition to the packaging,” explains HCT Packaging’s Pyrzenski.

These ergonomically designed applicators are available on a variety of different types of packages, including an airless pump by Pum-Tech.

Cosmogen also offers a range of dispensing applicators made from ZAMAC. The supplier’s new angled metal tips are designed to be used on Cosmogen’s Tense Tubes and mini Squeeze’n Tense tubes.

According to Cosmogen’s Richard-Orliange, the tips are designed to provide various sensations when used against the skin. These sensations include massaging, stimulating, stretching, cooling, tensing and smoothing effects.

Metal Cans for New Types of Products

Metal spray cans are being used for new types of products, such as Unilever’s newly launched Vaseline Spray & Go Moisturizer.

The formulation was specially developed to be the right viscosity to work with this aluminum can’s spray technology, which uses only compressed air. It delivers a targeted spray— the width of a woman’s wrist—at any angle.

“By starting with a can and actuator and building on unique bag-on-valve technology, we were able to create a 360º continuous spray lotion,” explains Ricardo Pimenta, global brand vice president for Vaseline. “This gives time-pressed women a chance to moisturize their skin deeply with a Vaseline formula that absorbs in seconds.”

The can has additional user-friendly features. Its curved ergonomic shape allows the consumer to easily grasp it. The actuator’s twist-lock feature is easy to press and prevents spills when the product is taken along when travelling.

This package was chosen for its functionality, but the aesthetics of a hard shiny metal can don’t always coincide with conveying a body moisturizer’s skin-softening benefits. Vaseline’s design softens the metallic aspects of the can by using colors and graphics that cue the efficacy and moisturizing properties of the product.

Secondary Packaging Also Shines

When metallic foils are used on outer packaging, the design can convey luxury—or the flashy glitz that’s perfect for a pop star’s fragrance.

A carton decorated using colorful metallics by ITW Foils.

“There seems to be a general trend toward more sensory experiences with packaging, and printed materials in general. Embossing and cold foils are being used to make a package look more special than ever,” says Gary Jones, national sales manager, ITW Foils.

He says, “Products marketed to ‘Gen Y’ seem to be the heaviest users of metallic effects for bling value and the ability to stand out on crowded retail shelves. But we are also seeing plenty of luxury brands using metallic effects, not only for special editions but as an essential brand standard.”

A supplier that produces a variety of different types of secondary packaging with flashy metallic accents—plus unique metal designs—is Utility Printpack. Its factory is located in India, but the supplier’s customers are located in 40 countries around the world.

Utility Printpack’s unique process can create detailed designs such as this one. The design is carved onto an extremely thin metal plate, which is then glued onto a box.

Utility Printpack often decorates cartons with metallized finishes, UV printing and spot holographic effects, and intricate designs are one of its specialties. The supplier developed a unique process that can be used to decorate a carton or set box, according to Jinesh Mehta, executive director, Utility Printpack.

“A detailed design is laser cut into an extremely thin metal plate 1mm thick, using a unique process,” explains Mehta. “Then we glue the plate onto the box.”

Since it is so thin, the plate is undetectable, and it looks as if the design was done directly on the carton substrate. “It’s like carving a piece of stone—and very challenging,” adds Mehta.

To show off its capabilities and the designs that are possible using this method, Utility Printpack created a design based on Indian architecture and embroidery. Executing this design involves cutting intricate details and sharp corners, using a special process.

“It is difficult to achieve the same look using normal hot foiling, cold foiling or embossing,” says Mehta. “This technique now makes detailed designs like this possible.” It can be executed in a range of metallic colors, including gold, silver, bronze and gunmetal.

Need a shiny—and reflective—mirror finish? Utility Printpack offers that capability as well.

“We offer many different types of metallic mirror finishes,” says Mehta. “We treat the substrate with a unique process, after which the surface resembles a mirror,” he explains. This effect, which is available in a range of colors, can be applied to specific spots on a carton.

What’s Next for Metal?

Anomatic’s Rusch says that metal is the perfect “green’ material,” since it is ideal for creating packages that are meant to be recycled or reused.

“We personally feel that the next big mega-trend in consumer packaging in the U.S. will be specifying processes, packaging and products that emphasize sustainability,” says Rusch. “Resource conservation will soon be a huge decision point for American consumers, and beauty and personal care companies must match their products accordingly,” he adds.

Rusch says the company intends to get more brands on board with embracing more sustainable processes and concepts. “For instance, we can separate components and recycle the base materials.”