As you can see by this issue’s cover, Beauty Packaging’s online readers voted Laura Mercier 2012’s Beauty Company of the Year: Excellence in Packaging. In many ways, Laura Mercier, the flagship brand of Gurwitch Products, epitomizes what consumers are drawn to in a highly competitive global market: chic and stylish—but simple—packaging that highlights attractive, efficacious products and makes them easy to use. Skin care, compacts and kits, for instance, that are straightforward and highly functional, but also a pleasure to carry in a purse or display on a vanity. And it’s all conceived and overseen by Laura Mercier, the makeup artist herself, for an authentic and personal touch.

Brands such as Laura Mercier, which excel at giving the consumer what she wants, are responsible for the continuous surge in prestige cosmetics sales, which Karen Grant, vice president and senior global industry analyst, The NPD Group—and a member of Beauty Packaging’s Board of Advisors, predicts will remain on an upswing in 2013.

Karen Young, CEO, The Young Group, also shares her views on packaging trends in the beauty industry in 2013 (page 68). While bottles, cartons, dispensers and decorative techniques can drive prestige beauty to new heights, Young and Grant both note that mass market items are also gaining in consumer appeal—many in part due to their packaging.

Fragrance is always a good market indicator and this issue’s feature on Fragrance Packaging (and a special Online Exclusive report at nitesh_bp.rodpub.com) reveals lots of new launches in the year ahead, many of which rely on new advances in packaging to sway consumer decision making.

But no beauty category seems sharper than Nails, as it continues to display remarkable growth. In the feature story—and in a special Online Exclusive from Mintel at nitesh_bp.rodpub.com—we’ll take you on a tour of some of the latest shapes and sizes, caps and cartons currently vying for consumers’ attention.

We hope that you enjoy this issue and that all of the innovative packaging showcased here is a telling prediction of a highly creative and profitable year ahead.

Publisher Jay Gorga and I wish you much peace and happiness in the New Year!

Jamie Matusow, Editor
[email protected]