Hair Care Packaging: As Varied as the Products

It’s not just shampoo, conditioner and hair spray anymore. The hair care menu also now includes mousse, gels, sprays, clays and waxes (to name just a few)—all customized for thick, thin, curly or straight hair, processed or not, colored or not. With so many new products crowding the shelves, it’s no wonder that packaging is more important than ever.

Sexy Hair Concepts has grown dramatically with a range of salon products presented in bright, bold packages.

Mass and Spa Lines
Hair care products fall into two broad categories: mass distribution of national brands, and salon or limited distribution of independent designer lines. There is some overlap as certain salon lines have broken into mass channels, putting names such as Nioxin, Biolage and Paul Mitchell on shelves in drug stores, grocery stores and big box discount retailers.

According to ACNielsen Strategic Planner, Schaumberg, IL, the mass market in hair care products amounted to $4.5 billion (excluding Wal-Mart sales) for the 52 weeks ending Sept. 6, 2003. This total is down slightly from $4.6 billion for the same period a year ago.

The salon part of the business is smaller but still significant. In 2002, there were approximately 227,000 salons in the United States, with approximately 160,000 being salons with a hair care focus, according to Cyrus Bulsara, president of Professional Consultants & Resources, a Plano, TX-based strategic salon and beauty industry marketing company. The rest of the salons are nail care, skin care, massage, barber and assorted single operator establishments.

Salon retail is an important business for brand marketers. According to Bulsara, the top five salon brands are: Biolage (L’Oréal); Paul Mitchell (John Paul Mitchell Systems); Redken (L’Oréal); Aveda (Estée Lauder Companies); and Nexxus (Nexxus).

Shampoos sold through salons accounted for $252 million in manufacturer’s dollars in 2002, while conditioners added another $195 million in manufacturer’s dollars, according to Bulsara. All together, back-bar (products sold in salons) amounted to approximately $1.19 billion, including shampoos, conditioners, hair color, ethnic relaxers/curl perms, perms, hairs sprays, hair styling, and specialty products.

Although a comparatively small segment, there are some hair care products sold through U.S. department stores. In 2002, these high end products tallied $37.9 million in retail sales, which was an 8% increase over 2001, according to NPD Beauty, a division of The NPD Group, Port Washington, NY.

Masses of Products at Mass
Walk down the hair care aisle in your local grocery store and prepare to be amazed. In the Information Resources Knowledge Group report on the shampoos and conditioners sold through mass outlets for the 52 weeks ending March 23, 2003, there were 977 products for which sales and unit numbers were given—and that was just for shampoos.

Owens-Illinois manufactures plastic containers for a wide range of hair care and personal care products.

That’s a Lot of Plastic
This spring, Unilever, L’Oréal and Alberto Culver each launched new shampoo and conditioner lines—Dove, Fructis and a new Tresemme line, respectively. Considering that the vast majority of these products are packaged in plastic bottles, Cosmetic Packaging & Design decided to find out how much plastic was involved in bringing those products to market.

Tom Ryder, business manager at Owens-Illinois (a major supplier of blow molded bottles in this category), had the answer. Ryder explained that the average size of a shampoo or conditioner bottle is 13-oz or 383-ml. The bottles for hair care products are either made of high-density polyethylene or high-density polypropylene by a blow molding technique or made of PET in a stretch blow molding process. For either technique, about 30-35 grams of resin is needed for each bottle. PET bottles use a little less resin but the material is generally more expensive than polyethylene or polypropylene.

For a nationwide, annualized launch, brands usually order 20 to 40 million units—typically a shampoo and conditioner—in a 50/50 split. (Once a product is on shelf, reorders are usually 60% shampoos and 40% conditioners). So, if a launch required 20 million bottles made of high-density polyethylene, the order would require 1.4 million pounds of resin. Multiply that by three and you have approximately 4.2 million pounds of resin minimum used in those three launches alone.

The bottles are made in a variety of machines that can have eight to 20 cavities. One machine, running 24/7, can make as many as 20 million containers in a year.

Garnier Fructis from L’Oréal stands out in brightly colored packaging.

Styles for Big Brands
Ryder noted that five or ten years ago, a national brand customer would launch a new shampoo and conditioner in the same bottle, distinguished by different labels. “Now they want a custom package for each. Often the shampoo is an upright bottle and the conditioner is in a tottle,” Ryder said.

“There seems to be a strong influence in styling from Europe in terms of shapes, colors and material, but when Pantene first came into the market in its pearlized white container, it started a trend to others using similar colors,” Ryder noted. “Now Fructis and Pert are in bright green packaging and we can expect more bright colors.”

There is also more of a diversity of product (which translates to more SKUs on the shelf) as brand marketers seek to accommodate different hair types—curly, straight, thin, frizzy, ethnic, etc.,” Ryder explained.

O-I projects currently include a lot of silkscreen decoration, because it provides a “no label look” and offers production and demand flexibility as it eliminates having to maintain a label inventory and/or lead-time.

Where labels are used, pressure sensitive labeling is popular due to graphics and metallic effects that the label can offer, according to Ryder.

O-I has a closures division and therefore offers the ability to supply the dispensing cap as well as the bottle. Ryder added, “Most of the dispensing caps are streamlined and integrated with the bottle so that it follows the style and color precisely—O-I makes those too.”

Aluminum Aerosols Add Shapes, Colors   “The latest fashion trend in hair care packaging is new shapes,” said Ed Martin, vice president of sales and marketing for CCL Container, Hermitage, PA, a major supplier of aluminum bottles and cans used in the beauty business. Some of the new shapes are custom projects. Others like CCL’s Comfort Hold, which features an inward curve in the top third of the container that gives it a graceful point of difference on shelf and makes it easier to hold, are stock molds. “Marketers need a point of difference to attract attention in a crowded market,” Martin noted. “TIGI’s salon line started the trend to wild packaging. It’s bright and attention-getting across the brand in all kinds of packaging to attract a young, hip customer.” Mass marketers aren’t far behind. A benchmark was when Unilever’s Thermasilk went for a bullet-shaped container, according to Martin. Now L’Oréal has a bullet shape container in its line. Zotos is the first major marketer to pick up the CCL’s Comfort Hold container.

Launching this fall, Sexy Hair Concepts has created Fresh Concepts, a hair care system of 10 products containing botanical ingredients and antioxidants as well as fruit scents. The new line has distinctly different packaging.

Sexy Hair Concepts: Bold, Simple
“Salon lines are the source of new ideas for hair care in general,” stated Donna Federici, senior vice president of marketing for Sexy Hair Concepts, based in Chatsworth, CA. “The brands convince the hairdresser, who then talks to her clients and shows them how the products work. That generates a demand and once it’s big enough, the major national brands pick up on it and launch their own.”

Sexy Hair Concepts has grown at a compound annual growth rate of 70% a year for the past three years, and now offers a line of more than 70 products sold through distributors to approximately 60,000 salons, according to Federici. The product is also sold through chain salons: 900 J.C. Penney spas, 800 Super Cuts, 700 Trade Secrets and 400 Smart Salons.

Hairstylist Michael O’Rourke founded the company, formerly called Ecoly International, in 1992. O’Rourke now serves as chief executive of Sexy Hair Concepts. The name Ecoly was changed in 2000 after the company introduced a number of successful hair care lines under the Sexy Hair Concepts theme, according to Federici. The first Big Sexy Hair product was launched in 1999. It’s been followed by Curly Sexy Hair, Healthy Sexy Hair, Short Sexy Hair, Silky Sexy Hair, Straight Sexy Hair and Wild Sexy Hair.

The packaging, the design of which is done in-house, reflects a bold, fun-filled attitude. Federici noted, “Our great advantage is that Michael O’Rourke and Douglas Little, our creative director, are both hair dressers. They provide a practical viewpoint of what the true needs are in terms of products and how the packaging should function.”

Federici draws on a marketing background and a consciousness of what’s going on in the market to make a product that appeals to stylists and consumers. “In today’s world, quality is a given and we strive for ’emotional’ branding by taking our products and packaging 10 steps further to engage the consumer; to draw them in visually first and then have distinctive fragrances too,” she said.

Commenting on its choice of names, Federici added, “Today’s consumers can be overwhelmed with too many things. The product’s message should be clear, simple, easy to understand.”

A much gentler, subdued message is sent by the packaging for Soy Milk Moisture Shampoo, part of the Healthy Sexy Hair line. It comes in a white milk bottle-shaped plastic container. Even the closure is reminiscent of a milk bottle cap, but it conveniently dispenses through a one-handed flip cap. “It’s designed to be held by a woman’s hand,” Federici said.

Root Pump Plus Humidity Resistant Volumizing Spray Mousse has an actuator that allows the product to get to the roots of hair easily, according to Federici. The dispenser was supplied by SeaquistPerfect and is the first hair care product to use that dispenser.

“We are constantly trying to bring something new to the industry. Before the bright red and black packaging of Big Sexy Hair, most product was white and taupe,” Federici added.

Other suppliers involved in packaging the brand are Roberts Container, Chatsworth, CA, and CCL Container, which manufactures the aluminum cans.

Brocato recently added Liquid Latex and Shimmer to its American line of hair care products.

Beautopia’s Brocato Has Sophisticated Styling
Sam Brocato, a hair stylist, started Beautopia, a company that markets salon products, five years ago in Minneapolis, MN, according to Marne Zafar, director of creative for the company.

The company markets Brocato, Anasazi, and Kadus, a German salon line of products. Under the Brocato brand there are four sub-brands for specific hair types: America (for everyone), Blond, Red and Latina.

“Packaging depends on product formula and use,” said Zafar, who shares packaging decision-making with Angela Quade, purchasing director. The different lines are each packaged in a distinct color palette. Brocato America uses navy blue, deep red and white; Blond is in pale yellow; Red is packaged in deep pink; Latina is in natural containers that show off colorful contents, contrasted with caps in bright orange.

Brocato is introducing Liquid Latex and Shimmer in the America line. Both are packaged in plastic, a jar and bottle, respectively, with caps and labels in deep magenta. The bottle has a slight taper from top to bottom for an interesting silhouette and is capped by a translucent magenta cap that reveals the dispenser.

Brocato’s Blonde Bombshell is equipped with an unusual dispenser.

“We are using more vendors to source packaging these days,” said Zafar. The company generally orders packaging in volumes of about 25,000 to sell through professional salons. Wiko in Germany supplies some injection-molded components while TricorBraun has been involved in projects for design and sourcing.

Brocato brought TricorBraun a glass bottle that it wanted to use as a model for the Shimmer products. “They liked the shape but wanted it in plastic and smaller. We custom colored one of the stock caps we have and built a custom bottle under it to have the right shape, size and material,” said David Kirch, general manager for TricorBraun’s Minneapolis offices.

Most recently, TricorBraun worked with Brocato on the Latina launch. The bottles are natural plastic, an opaque white that allows the bright colors (the shampoo is blue and the conditioner is yellow) to show through, according to Kirch.

Zafar stressed that Brocato is always looking for unique packaging. The company chose a container that had originally been designed to dispense toothpaste for its Blond Swell product. “It (Blond Swell) uses a Calmar high-viscosity dispenser,” said Kirch. “Now Redken and Graham Webb are using that dispenser too.”

Another Blond product comes in a Tubed Products’ tube and is dispensed through a spout that was originally used for a gear lube product. It stands on its head and is dispensed through a spout, explained Kirch, who added, “Since then it (the dispenser) has been picked up for other personal care products.

Ethnic Hair Color Speaks the Right Language   Combe Inc. has begun national distribution of a new Hispanic shade of Just For Men Haircolor in Spanish-language packaging. It will be carried in the mass retail, drug and grocery stores in the country, including Albertsons, Kmart, Longs, Publix, Ralphs, Safeway and Walgreens. La Agencia de Orcí & Asociados, Los Angeles, CA, one of the largest independently owned Hispanic marketing agencies in the country, worked with Combe to create the packaging and the advertising campaign. “Hispanics respond well to packaging in Spanish, especially when marketing national U.S. brands,” stated Jaime Ramírez, vice president - director of client services for La Agencia de Orcí & Asociados. Ramírez noted, “When addressing the Latino consumer, it is very important to be clear on the instructions for use and on the packaging, especially for the health and beauty category, since you may be educating a new consumer.”