A Happy Start to 2012

Welcome to Beauty Packaging’s first issue of 2012—and our annual announcement of the company chosen by our more than 25,000* unique online readers as Beauty Company of the Year: Excellence in Packaging. As you can tell by our cover, this year’s winner is Elizabeth Arden, Inc., a dynamic company that beat the odds of a rocky economic period with knockout products that produced record sales.

Arden is a two-pronged company, holding its growing namesake brand as well as an impressive array of licensees in fragrance. In my report on Arden, I think you’ll particularly enjoy vice president of creative Paul McLaughlin’s thoughts on packaging for a global market and creating packaging “that changes the consumer experience” despite the bumps in design and manufacturing that can hinder the process along the way.

Fragrance stats, in general, were up at the end of 2011—with sales of Arden brands such as Taylor Swift’s Wonderstruck—and others, such as Justin Bieber’s Someday, setting new records. For 2012, we better get ready to hold onto our hats as Coty launches eagerly anticipated fragrances by celebrity icons Lady Gaga and Madonna. Not to mention the upcoming Louis Vuitton fragrance—the first in decades.

Technology, too, plays an increasing role in fragrance design and delivery, so Beauty Packaging’s Associate Editor Lisa Samalonis looks at the latest advancements in componentry used in fragrance packaging.

This issue also profiles innovators in Label Technology and Nail Polish Packaging, and features a special section entitled Predictions 2012, which reveals statistics and best guesses from three leading industry authorities: Judy Galloway, Karen Grant and Victoria Gustafson.

And as always, don’t forget to check out nitesh_bp.rodpub.com for News, Online Exclusives, Experts’Views, Top 20 Companies, Archives and so much more.

It all adds up to the start of an exciting year—for the industry, as well as for Beauty Packaging, where publisher Jay Gorga and I both wish you a very happy and profitable year ahead.

Jamie Matusow
[email protected]

*Publisher’s own data provided by Google Analytics for the month of November 2011 (27,442 absolute unique visitors)