The Dermapolish System from Prescriptives has styling with a medical influence.

Back in the OTC cosmeceutical industry’s pioneer days—the early 1990s—the range of beauty products claiming to have medical or therapeutic benefit was pretty much limited to anti-aging preparations containing alpha-hydroxy acids (AHAs).

Since then, “cosmeceutical” has come to mean any cosmetic, skin care, hair care, body care, foot care or other product that treats or prevents a medical condition, even as it beautifies. That means SPF lipsticks and vitamin-enriched moisturizers can be included—what famed New York-based beauty consultant Wendy Lewis calls “cosmeceuticals light.” And, in respect of the connection between mental stress and appearance, some observers also dub any product that soothes—bath salts from the Dead Sea, shampoo with botanicals such as lavender or mint—as cosmeceutical, too.

The Cosmeceutical Category
Marketers have nimbly responded with brand-images and package designs that may be traditional, trendy, jazzy, hip, fun, elegant, but most fundamentally of all, clinical or quasi-medical. The translucence or transparency of containers is another common denominator of recent designs.

Such diversity is encouraged by the rise of Sephora, The Body Shop, Origins and other “pop prestige” retailers that sell stunningly packaged HBC; indeed, along with the aging baby boomer, such product personality must be viewed as a key sales driver. According to a Packaged Facts report published by MarketResearch.com, the cosmeceuticals category (spanning skin and hair care) was valued at $5.4 billion at retail in 2003, accounting for 8.7% of the total $61.8 billion yielded by all HBC in 2003. Cosmeceuticals’ annual advances have been in the 5%-10% range, well ahead of growth rates in the overall HBC context.
Will this progress continue? Elyse Pellman, senior vice president at San Francisco-based think tank Age Wave, said, “Yes. An unprecedented demographic of 76 million is getting older, and that’s where the wealth is, within the boomer population. At the same time, there’s a shrinking 18-34 population. And, based on medical and scientific breakthroughs, there’s a real impetus for boomers to maintain vitality and fight aging.” Supporting this view are the facts that cosmetic surgeries have skyrocketed to 5.6 million operations annually, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons; and that Botox injections could soon net Irvine, CA-based Allergan $1 billion annually. But if boomers are going to the extremes of knife and needle, they are also finding out all they can about self-care.

Thus marketers and analysts agree that medical cachet, however it may be dressed, remains the best keystone of any cosmeceutical package design. Yet, when asked if that is because aging baby boomers, now 40 to 58, are still the prime targets, Wendy Lewis replied, “Absolutely, but not exclusively. Now everybody’s interested in cosmeceuticals. It’s not just boomers, but younger than boomers, those who don’t necessarily want to reverse aging, but who don’t want to get wrinkled like their parents.” For most marketers, that stretches the target bracket down to about age 25. Lewis added that the trend is global, though Europe, for once, is lagging behind the U.S.

Clinical But Elegant
One of the queens of prestige is Estée Lauder’s Prescriptives brand. Jeanne Chinard, senior vice president at the company’s Specialty Group, noted that Estée Lauder’s corporate policy is to avoid use of the word “cosmeceutical,” but agreed that medical cachet must be conveyed to the consumer. “From the beginning, Prescriptives launched a skin care line with well-designed, straightforward packaging. It’s clean. Even the famous Px resembles the idea of ‘made for you.’ In fact, we do have a high-end custom-blend made-for-you department, but (even for the shopper of ready-made product) the Px logo makes it all about the individual.”

Medical positioning is taken a step further in a new Prescriptives extension, Px Custom Concentrates, for which the slogan is “Doctor-designed skin care.” Chinard says, “It’s a return almost to the anti-design thing, like a lab sticker.” The line was developed with dermatologist Karen Grossman and is organized around specific skin needs or problems. Chinard added that, “To spotlight this collection, we use silver and red in the design, so it jumps out right away from the rest of the Prescriptives line. It’s like going into Dr. Grossman’s office and getting a hand-applied doctor’s label. And in the same way that Px calls up the idea of individual prescriptions, the red calls up the idea of the Red Cross. I also like that two jars have droppers with accordion squeezer tops, like one of our most popular regular skin care items, Line Prevention.”

Chinard’s silver and red on Px Custom Concentrates Skin Renewal Cream, for example, is subtle, yet striking. The product’s stand-on-end plastic tube is silver, with spare, small-typeface labeling in English and French. The red of the thin-lined Px logo thus “pops.” Chinard also noted the frequent use of silver for Prescriptives’ other extensions, which buttresses medical cachet with elegance and the idea of upscale quality. Caps, lids, lettering—including the Px logo—are often in silver.

Prescriptives’ most hardcore medical design may be that for its year-old Dermapolish System, which combines a standard white jar of Lipid Barrier Cream, a white tube of Dermapolish Treatment Cream, a white pumper of Post Treatment Soothing Mist and a digital treatment timer—all in a glossy, peach-colored overbox.

Perhaps in imitation of Prescriptives and other prestige marques, Johnson & Johnson’s mass-retailed Neutrogena brand has been made over with silver accents on many packs (though for Neutrogena Visibly Firm night creams, copper is the packaging accent, reflecting the featured ingredient).

Murad’s packaging seeks to balance elements that are clean, simple, elegant, but also clinical.

Murad Redesigns for Broader Appeal
The Murad brand of skin care products was introduced by Dr. Howard Murad in 1989. In recent years, the line has grown to include approximately 75 cosmeceutical products that are rapidly finding broader distribution through Sephora, Nordstrom, Robinson’s, a catalog, spas and salons, a website (www.murad.com), and, for the acne-fighting SKUs, 30-minute infomercials. In October of 2003, Dr. Murad touted his brand as a guest on ABC’s The View—a marketing triumph. A packaging makeover two years ago has also helped enormously.

Hilarie Murad, vice president of marketing and creative services, commented on the brand’s look, “Oh, it’s changed drastically. The packaging had hardly evolved until two years ago. It was just solid black containers—everything in the line—with gold bands. Creams were in jars, liquids in pumps, no stand-on-end tubes yet. Then we made it all over to retain the ‘doctor’ feel, but adding an elegant touch.” One wonders if black had been Dr. Murad’s own, very male choice.

The new designs seem to better address the core Murad customer, which is a woman aged 35 to 55, though Murad qualifies, “We skew both older and younger, because we’re treatment-oriented. The packaging is now clean, simple, elegant, but also clinical. We try not to deviate from the science, but at the same time, we don’t want to intimidate, we want to seem really approachable.”

Murad acne-fighters are meant to appeal to women undergoing the change of life, as well as to twenty-somethings, if not teens. “We try to bring in a younger audience,” explains Murad, “marrying info about the product and its science, with the experiential. Through the package design, and color, we convey the impression that the product is working, but also nice to look at.”

The new Murad containers include a lot of translucent or transparent stand-on-end tubes, jars, airless pumps and, in one case, a unique dual-delivery system. Murad noted, “With something like Moisture Silk Eye Gel, we do something really different, with a dual packaging that includes a liquid swirling around a gel, and the two are dispensed together to interact. It’s very innovative, revolutionary, and we’re excited that it’s a real (sales) winner.”

Murad agreed that there is more elegance today in cosmeceutical package design, but of the inspiration for Murad’s look, she explained, “It comes from who we are and who we want to be. Our packaging says we’re cutting-edge technology, doctor products, and ‘Look good today and look good into the future.’”

Bliss mixes up its packaging. It presents its Lemon+Sage Body Butter (above, left) in brightly-colored convenient tubes, but goes with a more medical look for Sleeping Peel Serum.

Clinical But Fun
BlissLabs, once owned by luxe marketer LVMH but acquired in January by Starwood Hotels & Resorts, is unafraid to stretch the cosmeceutical definition and position its skin care and bath and body items on everything from medical benefit to good old stress-relieving fun.

“Our packaging,” says Christine Yu, assistant manager, packaging development, “attracts a smart, urban woman who is not necessarily trendy, but who is aware of what’s going on. She is witty and appreciates the sense of humor that we convey in our copy and packaging.” The broader aesthetic appeal is justified by Bliss’ distribution not only through Sephora, Bloomingdale’s, Neiman Marcus, Saks and others, but also through a catalog sent to more than five million homes each month. On the medical side, there are Bliss SKUs like Sleeping Peel Serum, in a white pump, or the new Steep Clean deep cleansing mask in an unusual dual-delivery stand-on-end tube. Each bears a tiny rendering of the Bliss logo, the name of the product, and a subhead explaining its exact cosmeceutical use. All type is lower-case.

On the fun side, some Bliss SKUs, like Hot Salt Scrub in its squat, 19.5-ounce jar, or Lemon + Sage Body Butter in a hefty 8.5-ounce stand-on-end tube, are labeled mainly in aqua with accents in yellow, blue or other colors. Typefaces are straightforward to make the products seem friendly and fun to use. (Perhaps inspired by Bliss, the True Blue Spa brand, available at Bath & Body Works (BBW) stores, features a similar sense of humor and aqua-based design. For example, the BBW brand’s Firming Body Lotion is called Bringing Up the Rear; a moisturizer with shea nut butter is called Shea It Isn’t So.)

Yu characterized Bliss’ battle plan: “Our packaging is usually standard,” referring to workaday jars, tubes, “because we, as a brand, like to focus on the graphics, copy and, of course, the product itself. The design is one of the most important visual elements for Bliss along with the copy. The visual is what attracts you to the product, the witty copy is what hooks you in. The varying label designs flatter and call attention to individual SKUs, making the consumer really study the line. All of these elements work in conjunction to make Bliss differentiated in a market saturated with similar type products.”

Take Me to the Lab
Through his New York and Miami practices, Dr. Fredric Brandt is said to be the largest user of Botox and collagen in the world. For seven years, his offices have also sold his Dr. Brandt skin care products. Since late 2001, the line has rolled out in prestige outlets such as Neiman Marcus, Bloomie’s and Nordstrom. The new Crease Release SKU, available only since January, is already one of the top 10 selling products among 10,000 SKUs at Sephora.

Arin Maercks, vice president, Dr. Brandt Skin care, observed that the line’s packaging is elegant, and yet intriguingly like lab equipment. Dr. Brandt has had much input on design, according to Maercks. “So he came up with packs that look like the beakers, mixing dishes and lab equipment that he was used to,” Maercks said. Lineless Gel Cleanser, for example, is in a beaker-shaped 8-ounce pump of clear plastic. “Lineless Eye Cream comes in a pump bottle with an intriguing test tube inside—the consumer can actually unscrew the cap and pull out the tube,” Maercks added. The Microdermabrasion in a Jar SKU is packed in a low jar that resembles a lab dish, apropos of the fact that the product allows the consumer to replicate a clinical procedure at home.

All Dr. Brandt packages are oriented to skin types and concerns, rather than targeted age brackets. And they are plastic, utilizing 100% recycled materials, whenever possible.

Dr. Brandt Skincare’s packaging is elegant, and yet intriguingly like lab equipment.

Color It Cosmeceutical
Just as elegant container shapes and labeling are jazzing up many clinically-positioned products, creative use of color is also adding excitement. Whether Px Custom Concentrate’s red accents that shout “Red Cross,” Bliss’ aqua background for its more lighthearted products, or Dr. Brandt’s see-through beakers that reveal formulas naturally tinted with green tea, color strategy can change how medical cachet is portrayed, for color associates with what Hilarie Murad calls the experiential. Indeed, the right colors may reinforce consumers’ trust that certain products will work.

Translucent and transparent plastic or glass show off the potion inside, while intimating its power. Thus the color of the liquid, cream or gel is integral to the package design. Murad color codes its products carefully. The firm’s Acne Body Wash is blue in color—like a clear sky—inside a translucent stand-on-ender. Other acne-fighters in the line may be different hues, but their tubes or pumps are each collared with a blue stripe. Murad’s Resurgence collection of hormonal aging items is keyed to green; Environmental Aging items, to orange; other anti-agers, to silver; and the Energy collection, which incorporates healing pomegranate essences, is purple.

Clear should be considered a viable choice, too. Not only does clear convey the purity and perhaps hydrating quality of the potion, it attracts eco-aware consumers who avoid artificial color. New clear cosmeceuticals include L’Oreal’s De-Crease eyeshadow base, in an equally clear jar; and Murad’s Day Reform Treatment, in a clear jar with clear lid.

The Future: Docs’ Endorsements, New Audiences
Everyone interviewed agreed that cosmeceutical packages must convey medical or therapeutic value, even as they become more elegant or fun. Maercks stated, “Even though it’s medical, it still has to be simple.
(Companies) are going to go with easy-to-use, consumer-friendly packaging. Everybody’s going to be cleaner, clinical. The message is in the bottle and the bottle has a message.”

Chinard and Murad predict more doctor endorsement, and Wendy Lewis noted that corporate clients are asking her to conduct searches for likely dermatologist-spokespersons.

Cosmeceutical designs should also be modified for new audiences. According to Lewis, the baby boomers’ example of self care is already being heeded by Gens X and Y.