The appeal of product samples and unit dose-sized beauty and personal care products has never been more mainstream. Monthly subscription services like Birchbox, Ipsy and Glossybox are all the rage, and retailers like Sephora are wooing online shoppers with the promise of samples with purchase.

“In addition to full-sized retail containers, many subscription boxes are including trial-sized (unit-dose) samples, such as mini-tubes and packettes,” says Michelle Garrett, marketing director, IdentiPak, McAllen, TX. The company emphasizes brand recognition by producing diecut packettes shaped to resemble full-sized retail containers.

Savannah Bee turned to Identipak when it sought samples for its Royal Jelly Body Butter skin care product range. “Identipak created diecut packettes based on the shape of Savannah Bee’s retail jar,” Garret explains. “There are three different scents that we packaged, each sample containing 6ml of product.”

Because the product had a viscous consistency, Identipak used hi-tech pumps to aerate the product just enough to make it run more efficiently, but keep the integrity of the product. Each of the three diecut packettes has the same shape and similar artwork, however each scent has a different colored lid with sample-specific text.

Presto Packaging specializes in creating hard plastic injected pieces that truly imitate full-size packaging. 

Dollar Shave Club uses Xela Pack sample packaging from Saline, MI-based Xela Pack Inc. to tuck into its subscription boxes and help incentivize sales. Xela Pack has produced over nine million sample packages for each of Dollar Shave Club’s product lines since 2013, and all the products are housed in 5- or 10ml Xela Packs sporting graphics that replicate their retail parent product lines.

“Dollar Shave Club chooses Xela Pack because of the environmental aspects, self-closing feature and perceived value that the pack offers as compared to other types of packaging options,” says Xela Pack’s Anthony Gentile, director of marketing. “The Xela Pack represents about 50% less packaging material overall, and about 92% less plastic than bottles and tubes, making Dollar Shave’s decision to use the Xela Pack a benefit to customers and the environment.”

Sephora’s Beauty Insider program routinely showcases new and unique sampling formats. One of the latest is the Urban Decay  Vice Lipstick sampler, produced by New York-based Arcade Beauty. It features 24 of the brand’s new shades in thermoformed blister packs. “The concept of offering an entire line of colors is a terrific way of giving the customer numerous choices,” comments Diane Crecca, Arcade Beauty’s senior vice president of fragrance, business development and corporate relations “It is enough to make an educated decision on a full-size product purchase.”

Crecca says thermoformed samples are currently an in-demand format. “With a single use thermoform bubble, every drop of product can be used—no waste, no drying up,” she says. “These individual pods can be sold in multiples in a retail piece or as singles, on their own easy-to-grab-and-go card—perfect for travel.”

Arcade Beauty used its thermoform technology to create an innovative and patented Thermoform Mascara package, which can also be extrapolated into the trendy brow-defining category. “This single- use hygienic application can be placed into a custom pouch, envelope, folding carton or card for varied presentations and can be made with the retail product’s brush,” Crecca says.

Fragrance Sampling Solutions

Fragrances are expensive investments and consumers love the chance to sample a scent without having to commit big bucks to a full-sized bottle. 

TouchUps samplers from Orlandi, Farmingdale, NY, are a fully biodegradable, patented, single-use cosmetic delivery system for sampling lipstick, fragrance and other hot-pour formulas. The product was used to support the launch of the newest addition to Coty’s Calvin Klein franchise, CK2, and delivered a proprietary blend of the pure fragrance oil in Orlandi’s inert, solid cologne base. “In collaboration with Coty’s global marketing team, our unique sampler was customized to emphasize the shareability of CK2’s scent and designed to reflect the fragrance’s modern packaging and edgy branding,” says Kay Volmar, marketing manager, Orlandi. She adds that consumers also received two solid perfume TouchUps samplers as part of a larger program that included scented blotters, fragrance labels and scent strips. “Keeping in line with the brand’s forward message, TouchUps were also chosen due to their sustainability (being fully biodegradable) and their versatility to be used to sample both fragrances and cosmetics.”

Utting, Germany-based Schubert International has been providing fragrance sampling “lacquers” to leading cosmetics companies for almost 30 years. The company’s Scentific fragrance varnishes can be applied using a variety of printing methods on design inserts, promotions, packaging and other printed products. The fragrance is released when the scented area is gently rubbed. “The scent may be noticed both on the printed material and on the contact area on the skin,” explains Fabian Michl, sales and marketing. “It can be activated many times.”

Ashvin Vaghani, CEO, Cosmetics & Perfume Filling & Packaging, Inc., Monroe, NJ, says tried-and-true 1.5ml vial-on-card samples continue to be a reliable marketing tool because they cost-effectively put the real juice into the consumer’s hands.

Vaghani’s company specializes in the filling of fragrance vials and other sampling vehicles, filling approximately 700,000 vials and carding about 500,000 vials in a single eight-hour shift.

Catering to Custom

From a packager’s point of view, Ernest Loesser, president, Unit Pack Co., Cedar Grove, NJ, says brands are giving heightened attention to sample packaging that allows for greater consumer customization. “There is more diversity in the products they offer and subsequently more variation among the samples they need,” he says. “For example, a fragrance company won’t come to us with a single product line. Instead, they have a single product line with ten variations, all of which need unit-dose packaging solutions.”

Additionally, brands are no longer sampling a single product but extensive variations of the product, whether it is a difference in scent, shade, color, etc. “Consumers have more sampling options, and you would think that this complicates our production, but it hasn’t,” he says, pointing out that Unit Pack’s flexible production lines enable the company to accommodate the expansive sample variations that brands are now looking for. “It’s not difficult for us to break a large run into smaller runs of each sample variant. A client may come to us with an order of 500,000 units, but among that total, there are ten variations of a single product line.”

Shira Esthetics came to Unit Pack needing samples not of a single product, but an entire skin care line spanning thirty different products like exfoliants, masks, creams, herbal supplements and astringents. Unit Pack manufactured 200,000 sample pouches, but within that total, different products needed different pouch sizes. “Across thirty products, there were five different sample sizes: 1-, 1.5-, 2-, 3- and 5ml,” Loesser says. “We adapted successfully to the variations needed by the client because our production lines were designed for maximum flexibility.” 

Barcelona-based Virospack creates and produces small-format packages in 3-, 4- and 5ml capacities with pushbutton droppers and spatula dispensers. A recent project for Flavo C by Isdin featured a 5ml, tubular glass bottle in matte, opaque white to protect the vitamin C-rich formula from oxidation. The package is topped off with a contrasting classic black bulb dropper cap to deliver a “pharmaceutical look.” The vials are screen-printed in two colors with a design—a complicated technique for tiny tubular vials.
Icelandic skin care company Bioeffect also worked with Virospack to develop a small format, full dispenser package for its Bioeffect Serum, a “shock treatment with a high concentration of active ingredients.” Virospack’s Rosa Mansilla, marketing and communications, says the package exudes a premium, luxury look because the classic dropper sits atop a brilliant, metallized vial and cap.

Precision Unit Dosing

Make no mistake, there is a difference between sample packaging and unit dose packaging. Marjorie Vincenti, communications project manager at Albéa in France explains the difference.

Promotional samplers engage consumers and have the potential to influence future purchases. “With 2ml or less, they are distributed for free and the goal is to transform the test into the act of buying,” she says. “They are a gift, a discovery… they generate buying impulse and are the ambassador of the brand.”

Unit dose products are quite different, range in size from 2- to 10-15ml, and are geared more to appeal to on-the-go lifestyles and travel needs. “They are also associated with premium brands that often present it as a gift with purchase,” Vincenti says, adding that these types of packages “retain the consumer” who will use the product more than once and be more easily convinced about future purchases.

“The on-the-go consumer lifestyle is driving new, more qualitative launches in sample format,” she continues. “We know the consumer will keep the product for several days, travel with it and will be very attached to it. That’s why brands are developing more premium samplers that will reflect their brand image.”

Albéa offers mini-packaging solutions like Mini Néa, enabling brands and their consumers to get the same packaging quality as the full-sized format, while delivering the same formula protection and distribution qualities. Uncover Skincare, a Dutch skin care brand created by the Cosmetic Dermatology Clinical Research Physician Dr. Jetske Ultee, chose the Mini Néa collection for its Samples Kit, comprised of a cleanser, toner, exfoliant, moisturizer and sunscreen.

The Néa technology is designed to preserve the neutrality of fragile formulations. The glass ball inside the engine and spring outside the dosage chamber ensure the formula never comes into contact with metal. The design also protects formulas from discoloration and incompatibility. Uncover Skincare chose to put the Néa engine inside the Albéa Airless pack 32mm, 50ml with actuator and protective insert. The Néa is also available with a self-sealing actuator to prevent the formula from drying out, and its pump operates smoothly with a high suction rate that can dispense highly viscous products.

Precision unit dose packaging is particularly effective with certain skin and hair care treatments to help ensure consumers use precisely the right amount of product. Packaging options from Unicep, Spokane, WA, appear to be suitable for sampling, however the company’s Karla Horton, marketing manager, says they are in fact precision dose, single-use packages typically used at the retail level.

“We are able to offer custom solutions for our clients that allow us to create the exact size, shape and color necessary to represent their brand,” she says. “A typical Unicep client is looking for retail solutions—from dispensers to applicators, to create a package design that is easy and convenient for the consumer to use, protects their delicate ingredients, allows the consumer to apply the correct amount of product and stands out among the crowd on the shelf.”

Unicep is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, as well as the 25th anniversary of its MicroDose unit dose package, which was later followed by the company’s Twist-Tip dispenser. “These two package designs still represent the core of our expertise and packaging solutions, and are still used by the majority of our clients today,” Horton says. “This platform technology is a modified blow-fill-seal process that was created at Unicep—from the machinery used to the packaging, itself.  Our process is unique and allows us to take our client’s ideas and bring them to production, with a low-cost, single-use package solution.”

James Alexander, Blairstown, NJ, manufactures single-use, crushable glass ampoules for clients who need a stable, unit dose packaging solution for formulas that typically aren’t compatible with plastic. The ampoules can be placed in a dropper, swab applicator or foam applicator, and can be dressed up with foil caps, clear over caps or a variety of different swabs. 

The glass ampoules are placed in either a butyrate tube with a cardboard sleeve, or a co-polymer tube with a label, says the company’s Carol Gamsby, director of sales. “Our inhalant package, which can be used for aroma therapy, is a glass ampoule encased in a cellulose acetate sleeve for protection,” she says. “To use, the cardboard sleeve is reversed so that you squeeze the sleeve to break the ampoule.” 

The ampoules, available in either borosilicate or soda lime glass, are hermetically sealed and designed to increase product shelf life. “If your product is oxygen-sensitive, we can flush the ampoule and your bulk with a nitrogen overlay,” says Gamsby. “If your formula, such as facial peels with high acid content or some tooth whiteners with a high percentage of hydrogen peroxide, have compatibility issues with other packages, [they] won’t with a crushable glass ampoule.”

An Underused Medium

According to Insight Report: Beauty Sampling, published by L2 Inc., 63% of online beauty shoppers enjoy sampling products, and 30% of die-hard “beauty enthusiasts” cite sampling as a top influence to purchase.

Despite the influence of sampling, two-thirds of the beauty brands looked at in the study did not offer samples on the monitored retailer sites during the study’s periods of observation. The study asserted that strategic sampling should be a “cornerstone” of every beauty brand’s distribution strategy since retailers can use samples to entice customers—and beauty brands can benefit from sampling as a way to both increase exposure and build brand loyalty.