Christophe Bianchi
President and Founder, Feeligreen, France

Abstract

The consumer expectations for functional packagings have pushed the industry to rethink the role of packaging. This paper reviews the fundamental trends and innovations concerning smart packagings and their transmutation into beauty devices. Brands and packaging suppliers compete to deliver innovative functional packaging solutions. Today, capabilities of integrating technology can and will go much further than “simple” mechanical adjunction to the beauty ritual. Innovative startups have proven that beauty devices’ technologies can easily be incorporated into packaging. However, adding technology to the products’ packaging is a source of anxiety for both the manufacturers and the brands regarding, among other things, additional skills, intellectual property (IP) and regulatory framework. Packaging that delivers added value and functionality will continue to play a strong role in the purchasing decision process, and will also positively improve brand image and influence sales growth, particularly in mature developed markets.

INTRODUCTION

A year ago, at Packaging Innovations London, as part of The Beauty Forum, Emmanuelle Bassman, Founder & Managing Director of In-Trend Ltd, gave her predictions for the next big things in cosmetics packaging:

 “Today it’s no longer enough to use just a topical product. You need to enhance the effect using tools. Think about your topical and then think about what kind of device you can include within the pack that works really well.” (1)

In this paper we will review the fundamental trends and innovations that confirm this prediction.

Beauty packaging trends and consumer careabouts
Cosmetics packaging, and in a broader view luxury packaging, has always been at the forefront of innovation and this trends is now reaching significant momentum as a recent study by ALL4PACK demonstrates:

“42% of cosmetics packaging purchasers, and 53% of cosmetics packaging manufacturers allocate or intend to allocate specific means to developing connected/intelligent packaging. Manufacturers and purchasers think that connected/intelligent or smart packaging is a genuine avenue for progress to imp ...