It’s the third year of the Covid-19 pandemic, and beauty and personal care brands have accepted that the traditional approach to getting their products into consumers’ hands might not work anymore.

Shifts in consumer attitudes have spurred packaging suppliers to create innovative new solutions that emphasize heightened cleanliness at retail and improved hygienic user experiences at home.

“As well as a more hygienic beauty routine experience, brands also want consumers to be able to have the same interactive, safe, beauty experience they had in-store pre-Covid,” says Eleanor Bunting, marketing and communications manager, International Cosmetics Suppliers Ltd. (ICS).

Demand is Rising for Safer Samples

Bunting says ICS has experienced a high demand for sample-sized packaging such as bottles, sticks, lip packaging, mascara and brow packaging, pencils, pumps and tubes that enable consumers to safely try out the products at home.

Hands-free packaging with built-in applicators like wands and click pens with silicone tips, rollerballs, and doe foot and brush applicators are also trending right now.

ICS recently custom-designed a hygiene-focused, “radically intuitive,” one-handed lip balm package for Curology, an online skin care brand that provides consumers with custom formulated products. The product is accessed via a sliding applicator that opens the package and advances the lip balm bullet upward. It is housed in a matte finish, square pack with a 4g/0.14oz. round bullet, and is custom embossed with Curology’s logo on the push-button slider.

Larry Berman, senior vice president of sales for North America, Arcade Beauty, reports seeing a “large increase” in hygienic sampling over the past year, with substantial growth coming from promotional sampling, both in-store and though e-commerce. 

“Due to the decline in retailer catalogs, brands are shifting their spend to our fragrance and cosmetic label technologies, along with thermoform and packette cosmetic and skin care samples,” Berman says.

Arcade recently worked with Sephora to engineer its existing BeautiPod and LiquaTouch technologies for use as vehicles for contact-free sampling. 

“Our BeautiPod samples contained every shade of foundation offered by brands including Tarte, Nars, Laura Mercier and Fenty to name a few, [and] every shade within each collection is showcased and allows the Sephora beauty advisors to hand out a sample for a full-face application and trial,” Berman says. “Our LiquaTouch, which contains the actual fragrance, was also utilized, as Sephora wanted to fill a need for hands-free, in store sampling.” 

More Hygienic Packaging Options Are in Development

Having worked in the single-dose and unit-of-use space for more than 20 years, JP Packaging LLC has positioned itself for what the company’s Doug Rofheart, senior sales executive, contends is an inevitable future consisting of increased demand for single-use, hygienic packaging options.

“This is not limited to the sachet options, but we have seen a large increase from our customers in small jars and bottles as well as mini tubes,” he says. “Unit-of-use packaging is more of a personalized option, a ‘yours is yours and other family members have theirs’ proposition that’s clean, hygienic and gives the brands a way to dovetail sampling into the home as retail sizes still have strong sales.”

JP Packaging is currently working with a boutique hotel chain to develop a single-use, hygienic package to be used for in-room shampoo, conditioner and body moisturizer as an alternative to the mini bottles and tubes currently used.

“This custom designed Tri-Pack Sachet will hold one single-use amount of each product; a one-and-done scenario,” explains Rofheart. “If the room is booked for three days, there will be three Tri-Packs available per guest per room. It’s a greener option than bottles and tubes, which is also keeping with the brand’s ethos.”

“Sampling and single-dose packaging has been and always will be with us,” says Rofheart, adding that how it’s being presented to the consumer is what’s changing. “Free samples or giveaways are still popular and drive sales but bundling and packaging these single-dose formats for sale as a safe hygienic option is gaining traction and gives brands additional revenue streams.”

Dropper Packs Are Clean & Convenient

At Virospack, the focus on droppers as a clean, convenient solution for products that require precision in dosage and application, has never been stronger.

“[Droppers let consumers] in-take the [amount of] formula they need and apply only the quantity they need with precision in just the area they need it,” comments the company’s Rosa Porras Mansilla, marketing and communication manager, adding that formula security is another dropper attribute since the bulb dispenser ensures the product is contact-free until its moment of use.

Although droppers work best with low viscosity cosmetic formulas, she says treatment oils, beauty serums and lotions, fluid makeup and color cosmetics are helping drive demand. It also helps that the physical look of a dropper package conveys a premium message. To that end, Virospack recently partnered with Clarins to develop a dropper for one of the brand’s latest skin care serums, Calm-Essentiel.

Specially formulated for optimal tolerance by sensitive and fragile skin, the serum required a package that would protect its delicate, 95% natural ingredient blend.

Virospack delivered two glass bottle dropper configurations in 30- and 7ml capacities, with the larger, molded glass dropper bottle including “last drop” technology to help consumers evacuate every bit of product. Mansilla says Virospack custom-created a delicate, feminine and fashion-forward dermo-cosmetic image. The matte pink bottles are decorated with matte white spray painting and red screen printing.

Stick Packaging is in Demand

Stick format packaging has been particularly in-demand at NF BeautyGroup, where the company offers Ammo Stick and Helix Stick configurations that are refillable with inner cartridges. Ammo Stick is available in 30- and 50g, while Helix is available in 7g for smaller, spot applications.

“Many moisturizers and cleansers have been formulated solid and with the use of different stick offerings like our Ammo Stick, Helix Stick or Paper Stick, we can also tackle requests for sustainable options,” says the company’s Andrea Greff, design manager. “We offer Vitamin C Sticks with moisturizer, Ceramide solid replenishing sticks, as well as a Collagen Core Stick with its two-in-one formulation—[the] outer rim features a moisturizing oil balm while the inner core features a blend of three vitamins plus collagen.”

For Casey Samangooie, personal experience generated an innovative spark that led to the creation of two hygienic product delivery solutions, as well as the founding of his company, CaseMed.

While gardening, Samangooie realized a need to apply mosquito repellant to his face, but he didn’t want to apply the cream with his dirt-covered fingers. An engineer by trade, he began drafting ideas that would enable the hands-free application of a product directly to the skin, and eventually patented two cloth pad designs, the Snap Pad and the Versa Pad.

Both solutions are made for mono-dose, single-use application and feature a cloth pad and tab design that when pulled, release product through to the surface of an applicator pad.

Samangooie says Snap Pad lends itself to liquid formulations but can also dispense loose powder and most emulsion viscosities. A three-dimensional chamber behind the applicator pad is squeezed to help release up to 3ml of product to the applicator pad. Versa Pad is flat with an inner chamber that holds up to 2ml of product. It has a back pocket opening to accommodate one or two fingers to help with the application of foundation or other skin color/treatment formula. It also comes with an applicator.

 “We’ve seen stores remove testers because of Covid concerns related to contamination, and our solutions offer an elegant way of hygienically testing products both in-store or through mail,” says Samangooie, adding that his solutions safeguard product in an airtight chamber to preserve freshness until the time of application.

“Formulas such as treatments for acne, exfoliation or toner require a pad for applying onto skin and with our 2-in-1 design, you get the best experience. We can also customize the pad material to foam so that it enhances application for makeup products like BB creams or foundation makeup.”

A Renewed Focus on Cleanliness

To keep pace with demand, some packaging suppliers are turning to their most tried-and-true product delivery and application solutions with updated accoutrements to better fit with today’s renewed focus on cleanliness.

The Penthouse Group, the sole representative of Japanese packaging firm Yoshino, offers multiple options for more hygienic product applications, many of which have been influenced by innovation—and trend-savvy Japanese customers.

Some of the company’s offerings include rollerball tubes and tubes with deluxe applicator heads, as well as antibacterial treated sponges.

To preserve the freshness and security of tube-based products, Yoshino has additionally developed a deluxe purity seal system, whereby the consumer removes a “service band” from the tube neck, which engages “the inner boss” of the cap to puncture the seal inside the tube neck to release the product.

Having pioneered the use of anti-bacterial treatment in cosmetic sponges (compliant with all global anti-bac chemical regulations), Richard Esterbrook, The Penthouse Group’s director of sales, says changing circumstances with U.S. and EU regulations has led to a ban on certain chemicals commonly used in anti-bac treatments, including ZPT and silver. 

“The chemical engineers at our lab in Japan were able to quickly develop an alternative solution, a new anti-bac treatment that is both compliant with the new regulations and proven to be effective like the previous version,” he comments. “Even better, this change does not lead to any difference in texture or pickup/payoff of formula compared to sponges made with the previous anti-bac treatment.”

He adds that the company’s new anti-bac treatment is applicable to flat compact sponge applicators and 3D shaped sponges alike, for clean sponges that consumers can use repeatedly for the long term without the worry of introducing bacteria to the skin. “In the era of Covid, this issue of hygiene and safety is one of primary concern, so giving our customers the peace of mind that our anti-bac treatment provides is a win-win for everyone.”  

Cosmogen supplies a number of beauty packages and accessories that fall under the “safe contact” banner, which the company’s Maud Lelièvre, marketing and communication manager says stands for avoiding direct finger-to-face contact, as well as also containing an antibacterial agent.

For example, Cosmogen’s reusable Fresh’n ReUse and Tint’n ReUse tubes provide both innovative and efficient application gestures and enable consumers to keep the brush applicator and replace only the tube, once it’s empty.

“The formula is directly dispensed on the applicator, then applied onto the face, before cleaning after use,”  Lelièvre says. The tubes accommodate either a large, soft kabuki brush or a generously sized, cold metal pad for skin care and color application.

Cosmogen also offers antibacterial brushes, tubes and an antibacterial Squeeze’N’Tint tube that features a brush that’s treated with an antibacterial agent proven to kill Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli.

Ideal for lips, eyes and overall direct face contact, Lelièvre says Cosmogen’s antibacterial options have been scientifically proven to kill more than 99% of the bacteria tested within 24 hours of contact time. 

Tubes Are 'Finger-Dip-Free'

In contrast to jars, tubes are time-tested packages that emphasize “finger dip-free” cleanliness. At Viva Healthcare Packaging (Canada) Ltd., tubes can be fitted with targeted applicators to improve application precision and preserve a hygienic user experience.

Fenty, our Beauty Company of the Year, turned to Viva to create a tube for its Hydra’Reset Intensive Recovery Hand Mask.

Viva’s Melanie Gaudun, business development manager, says it includes a wide, custom color applicator head with a three-slot orifice, PCR and a glossy, color-matched translucent overcap. The injection-molded PP tube itself is a custom lavender color with 65% PCR and has an EVOH barrier printed in a gradient design with a white font and matte finish.

“Fenty Skin takes full advantage of the in-mold label area to completely cover the tube in shades of lavender and peach,” Gaudun says.

What Lies Ahead?

What lies ahead in the realm of hygienic and hands-free packaging remains to be seen, but it’s conceivable that the impact of the pandemic will resonate at retail for the foreseeable future.

Arcade’s Berman is reluctant to believe our current, high stakes situation is permanent, and concludes, “As we come to grips with the fact that the virus is going to be a recurring concern, consumers will be willing to touch products in stores again.”