CEW held its wildly popular annual Product Demo on the evening of March 1, and as always, the industry’s biggest celebration of innovation and creativity in Beauty drew huge crowds. The entry line began in front of the venue, The Metropolitan Pavilion on 18th Street in Manhattan, and stretched down the street and around the corner.

No wonder—it was the chance to see perhaps the greatest assortment of cosmetic items in one spot—termed “the largest beauty counter in the world.” This year, more than 820 products from more than 350 brands within 40 different categories were demonstrated…making it the largest Product Demo to date.

New Categories for 2018 included Packaging Innovation, Indie Hair, Nutricosmetic Product, Niche Fragrance and Formula Innovation.

An estimated 2,000 CEW members (many of whom were in attendance) will now vote on their favorite products. These Finalists will be announced in late March, and then will be voted on by CEW’s Board of Governors, as well as by select industry experts. 

Winners will be announced May 18 at the 2018 CEW Beauty Awards luncheon at the New York Hilton Midtown. Ballots for both the Finalists and Winners are cast electronically and tabulated by Ernst & Young LLP.

Packaging Themes

Themes spotted among this year’s packaging included propel/repel sticks in tubes—for easy, convenient, leak-proof applications on-the-go.

See-through packaging for lipsticks remains a popular feature for detecting the right shade at a glance. Palettes with a wide range of color choices serve day to night needs in a compact package—and often come with detailed instructions for achieving multiple looks.

Shapes and sizes—from mini to maxi, fragrance to body, attract second looks, as do knockout decorative effects and metallized components (especially in rose gold).

Click Over to the Slideshow

See this Slideshow: CEW Product Demo at a Glance

It offers a collection of packages, including Too-Faced, Fenty Beauty, Milk Makeup, and more, which all caught Beauty Packaging’s attention at this year’s Product Demo. We’ve also included a number of “friendly industry faces” we spotted along the way. Please let us know what your favorite products/packages were — email Jamie Matusow.

Photo above: Jamie Matusow, editor, Beauty Packaging, with Carlotta Jacobson, president, CEW.