Caps Are Key

The fragrance Bon Chic ‘BCBGMaxAzria,’ by Elizabeth Arden. Lombardi Design & Manufacturing produced its complex cap, for N2O2 Branding.

Forget being an afterthought—caps and closures are the “star” of a package’s design, for many fragrance, skin care and body care products. A uniquely decorated cap, with a bold color or bright finish—or one that’s molded into a unique shape—will help create shelf presence, as well as convey the feeling of luxury.

Plastic caps and closures are still the most popular form, and are expected to reach 106 billion units by 2016. Plastic closures for beauty and home care products accounted for 7% of global retail closure consumption in 2012, with a CAGR of 3% between 2012 and 2016. (Source: Euromonitor International’s 2012 State of the Industry report: Packaging: Identifying Growth Opportunities for Plastic Closures in Beauty and Home Care.)

Convenient designs, such as dispensing closures, are most in demand according to Euromonitor International’s stats. Plastic dispensing closures grew at a CAGR of almost 4% between 2007 and 2012, gaining significant shares in hair care, as well as bath and shower categories.

Aside from plastic, other materials are being utilized for caps as well, especially metal—and even wood. No matter what material you choose, suppliers say that using various design techniques to differentiate is key.

Materials and Complex Shapes

Some suppliers, such as Coverpla, a French manufacturer of caps for fine fragrances, say that “material diversification” has been a trend, because beauty marketers have been demanding lots of options when creating caps—especially for fragrances.

“Last year we introduced natural wood caps, but this was not enough. This year we are adding custom-colored wood varnishes to our ever-growing variety of shapes,” says Dave Desai, national sales manager, Coverpla.

Also on the horizon is a glass lookalike cap. Desai tells Beauty Packaging: “We are also about to launch our first cap molded in Eastman’s Glass Polymer. It won’t be available until September, but the trials have been quite impressive.”

Nathalie Nowak, vice president of marketing, Albéa Group, agrees that having the ability to use different materials is key for a cap supplier right now.

Nowak says that Albéa customers have come to expect a skilled level of expertise in injection molding, which includes the ability to use different materials, including Surlyn.

“Surlyn is renowned for its transparency and compatibility with fragrances, as well as for its ability to withstand demanding production processes,” Nowak explains. “A superior closure, with a design expertly executed, can help elevate a premium consumer product to an art form,” she adds.

Many of the uniquely shaped caps that Lombardi Design & Manufacturing has recently created certainly resemble art.

The supplier has experience using Surlyn, PCTA and Tenite. These advanced resins often enable the company’s team of engineers to achieve more complex designs, according to Jack Albanese, sales engineer, Lombardi Design & Manufacturing.

“We’ve been seeing a trend towards organic shapes, and floral-inspired looks for caps, for a while now. And, they are often designed as very complex shapes, which require engineering multiple parts,” explains Albanese.

Lombardi recently created an oversized cap inspired by a flower for the BCBGMaxAzria fragrance by Elizabeth Arden. Explaining the critical parts that consumers don’t see, which are required to execute this shape, Albanese says, “This cap was engineered with two geometric petals that come together, due to a mechanical snap underneath a decorative icon.”

A floral-inspired complex cap design was also recently requested by Bath & Body Works for its Sweet Pea Eau de Toilette fragrance. “This cap required engineering four pieces—incorporating three flat petals with a mechanical snap ring,” explains Albanese.

Lombardi also recently created a skull-shaped cap for Ed Hardy’s fragrance Skull & Roses.

Brilliant Hues Make Metal Shine

Differentiating your brand by designing a uniquely shaped cap is one design route to take. Choosing a straight-walled cap that has a “clean” look is another design direction, which is popular for skin care and body care products.

Color is even more important when a cap is made in a simple shape, and many skin care brands are choosing metal caps. Lisa Walsh, founder of Indigena, a prestige skin care, bath and body care brand, says she chose to use metal because its “vivid shine” was so appealing.

The cap Walsh chose for the brand’s jars (including its Blueberry Bliss Body Scrub, shown) has an aluminum over-shell and a polypropylene inner closure. Cospack America supplies this cap, which is a custom color—bright purple.

Walsh says they decided on the unique shade of purple in order to stand out. “The color looks enticing, and it’s synonymous with royalty and spirituality,” she says. “We also wanted to choose a color that would appeal to both men and women,” she adds.

This shade of purple was also chosen because it represents a “natural” landscape—if the Northern Lights happen to be in your backyard. Indigena is based in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and Walsh says the color was mainly inspired by the brilliant purple hue that often appears in the night sky.

Indigena skin care worked with Cospack America to custom color the shiny purple shade of this cap, which was inspired by the hue of the Northern Lights.

Indigena’s product formulations are based on using natural and organic ingredients. Walsh worked with package designer Deena Riggs to make sure the line looked luxurious, and different from other natural brands.

“We always consider the ‘reach for’ effect, when thinking about our packaging,” Walsh explains.

She describes the ‘reach effect’ as what makes a consumer reach for your product first, whether it’s in store, at home, or virtually online. “The packaging has to provide this, and visually capture the consumer’s interest,” she says.

Practically, Indigena’s cap has a solid structure and durable weight that makes opening the jar easier, according to Walsh. She says, “Our cap makes our product look and feel expensive, which helps our customers to feel luxurious when using the brand.”

Cameo Metal Products specializes in giving metal caps a more luxe look—and the bright shine that a lot of the supplier’s customers have been requesting.

Anthony Di Maio, chief operating officer at Cameo, says he often hears requests for metal caps that have “rich color.”

Di Maio explains one of its popular decorating techniques, saying, “We combine color with our transparent lacquering technique, which enables us to utilize the brightness of the aluminum.” He says, “Polish coating a cap with a high gloss lacquer and rich color tones creates the bright metallic finishes that our customers want, in order to catch the consumer’s eye.”

Di Maio adds that when “real” metal is chosen for a cap, rather than a plastic cap with a metallized finish, it feels more luxurious. “Metal has a certain feel to it that you can’t replicate. And the finishes that are available for metal offer better protection against some of the most aggressive product formulations,” he explains.

More Customization Options for Metal

If you have a custom color in mind for a metal cap and are in need of color-matching expertise, Anomatic Corp. is another supplier skilled at decorating metal. The company offers extensive decorating capabilities—and matches nearly 500 custom colors every year, offering quick turnaround times.

“Our in-house color-matching capability for anodization, which we added last year, is unique for the industry and greatly contributes to our short lead times,” explains Steve Rusch, director of marketing and business development at Anomatic Corp.

“There is definitely a trend toward using all types of decorating techniques to customize a metal cap, including embossing, debossing, or choosing a custom anodized color. Double anodizing is another way to give a cap a very distinct look—and this is a technique that we are hearing requests for much more often lately,” says Rusch.

A new decorating capability that Anomatic now offers is laser engraving. “Laser engraving is ideal for customizing a stock metal cap, and we’re very excited to offer this decorating option now,” says Rusch.

' Anomatic used its new laser engraving technique to customize the cap on the tube for Wrap Me Up Pink by Victoria’s Secret.

Anomatic recently engraved the Victoria’s Secret logo around the metal closure on the brand’s tube of body lotion. The company worked on this package in collaboration with Aptar.
Saco Ltd. is another supplier boosting its decorating capabilities.

The supplier will be investing $6 million in its new facilities through 2014, to increase capacities and capabilities, in order to offer its customers more customization options. “We’ll be increasing our manufacturing space, anodizing capacity, decorating capabilities, and machinery,” says Peter Philip, the agent representing Saco Ltd.

The team at Saco creates customized designs for caps using the software program Solidworks. The supplier offers more than 1,500 different stock caps, which can all be customized to create a unique look, without the tooling costs or extensive lead time that a custom cap requires, according to Philip.

“We have been fulfilling many requests where our stock cap is modified by adding top stamp logos, and screen printing to achieve a custom look,” adds Philip.

Wood—Luxurious and ‘Green’

Technotraf, a Quadpack company, recently developed the wood cap on the Guerlain Homme L’eau Boisse fragrance.

Finding a balance between making an eco-friendly package and one that looks luxe is always a struggle for prestige brands, but choosing a wood cap solves this issue, according to Tim Eaves, CEO, Quadpack Group. Technotraf is a Quadpack company that manufactures components made from wood for fragrance and cosmetics packaging.

Eaves expects that wood will soon be in greater demand, and used more often for packaging for prestige fragrance and skin care products. “We were the first to bring wood to the prestige fragrance market 12 years ago, when we created the wood cap for the Burberry Touch bottle,” he says.

But wood was never the first choice for a package development team or engineer, due to the issues it presents. “Wood is still living after it is cut off the tree, so one challenge is to make sure it remains stable when it is used as a packaging material—throughout the life of that product,” says Eaves.

“We have perfected our manufacturing process over the years. We have the ability to maintain the correct tolerances when making a wood cap for a glass bottle,” he explains.

Besides its ability to convey a look that is both natural and elegant, choosing wood for a cap means the cost of tooling will be relatively low, when compared to metal, says Eaves. Wood caps are also highly customizable; many different colors and finishes can be created by using various drying processes. “Since wood doesn’t require a mold, adjustments to a wooden cap’s shape can be made relatively simply and cost-effectively,” Eaves adds.

The team at Technotraf is also able to ensure that its wood caps have the same degree of stability and resistance to chemicals as plastic.

The fact that wood is also a “green” material is like the icing on the cake. The wood that Technotraf uses is PEFC-certified, obtained from renewable sources.

“Due to all of these benefits, as well as our recent advancements in manufacturing, wood now has a place in the luxury market,” Eaves says.

Prestige brand Guerlain recently launched a fragrance with a wood cap made by Technotraf. “The cap had to match the tolerances of the others in the Guerlain Homme range, which are Surlyn,” says Eaves.

Eaves also hints that we can expect to see more new fragrance bottles with wood caps launching soon, but won’t reveal any details yet.

Final Tips to Keep in Mind

No matter which shape, material or decorating process you choose, a fabulous cap can help take your package design to the next level.

Albéa’s Nathalie Nowak sums it up by saying: “A beauty product’s cap or closure is its ‘crowning glory.’ It can convey a sense of exclusivity.”

Nowak adds, “An artful rendering executed with precise color printing, and choosing to use a material with a certain weight and feel, are a few of the elements that contribute to the creation of a fabulous cap—and a package design that will elevate your brand’s image.

Custom caps at Nivea Nivea Invites Consumers to Create Custom Caps The brand’s fans can design a lip balm package at the new website Style, Uncapped. Consumers get to play “package designer” by choosing from one of the 400 patterns on Nivea’s website, StyleUncapped.com—or even make their own pattern using one of the symbols in the design tool. The design tool has many customizable options. Colors can be changed and text can be added to create a unique design. Nivea also partnered with fashion designer Rebecca Minkoff to offer a stylish pattern based on one of her runway looks. Designs can be shared through social media—or, ordered. Nivea will print a consumer’s unique label design, apply it to a lip balm package, and ship it within two weeks. The team at Beiersdorf worked with Rosetta, a consumer engagement agency, to turn this idea into a reality. More about this partnership, and how it is helping Nivea increase its brand awareness and engage consumers through social media can be found in an Online Exclusive story at BeautyPackaging.com.

Bruna’s luxe inner seal Sealing It Bruna Seals has created new looks for inner seals designed for cosmetic products. A cap has some ability to keep a product’s formulation fresh—but an inner seal offers more. And we don’t typically see them being used under caps on prestige products because they often look generic, and plain white—just like one you might find on your yogurt container after lifting the lid. That wouldn’t be a good look for a prestige skin care product. Bruna Seals has developed a new type of inner seal, however, and it is designed for the personal care market. It’s called the LuxeSeal and it can be made in custom colors, and decorated with an embossed logo. “It’s our ‘Luxe’ induction seal—an innovative, functional seal that protects the product, and enhances your brand’s image,” says Juan Bruna, president, BrunaSeals. “It’s perfect for hair and skin care products,” he adds. There are numerous benefits to using an inner seal. It helps keep a product fresh, and can be especially useful if your formulation contains a lot of essential oils that are sensitive to light and air. An inner seal also helps to discourage shoppers from tampering with your product on store shelves. Plus, consumers will no doubt equate a seal with “freshness” and value. Germ-sensitive consumers will feel reassured that no one else has touched the product. “In addition to the practical benefits of having the seal, our ‘Luxe’ seal also extends your branding, and enhances the consumer’s experience of using the product,” says Bruna. He suggests using a LuxeSeal with a see-through cap, for a unique look. He says, “It can add that ‘wow’ factor, when it is decorated to match your packaging.”

More Feature Articles from Beauty Packaging's July/August 2013 issue