Large baskets of nail polish can be found scattered around Brazil’s Ikesaki.

Cosmetic Circus

Brazil’s Ikesaki store thrills customers with an atmosphere and products far different than more traditional beauty retail venues.

Written by Gustavo Piqueira, Casa Rex

Following the acquisition of Sack’s (the biggest online retailer of fragrances, cosmetics and toiletries in the whole speciality distribution sector in Latin America), Sephora—the leading chain-store beauty retailer in the world—intends to open branches in Brazil. After all, this country has one of the world’s largest and fastest growing beauty markets, and has been attracting more and more foreign companies. But what is the organization going to find around here?

Most definitely Ikesaki Cosméticos, Brazil’s biggest cosmetics group, which sells to both end users and the wholesale market. With four outlets in greater São Paulo, its most famous store is in “Japan Town,” which is in the district of Liberdade, where more than 16,000 products are displayed in 2,000 square meters of space. It welcomes about 5,000 visitors on a typical Monday.

At first glance, Ikesaki and Sephora could be perceived as being very similar: Both offer a broad range of beauty items for the retail market. But a quick visit to each store is enough to make one realize that apart from the type of products they sell, there is little else that they have in common. While at Sephora we can see ample space with designated areas for brands, meticulously designed and illuminated, the look is very different at the Brazilian store. Very different indeed.

A Different Look

At Ikesaki, rather than being grouped by individual brands like at Sephora, diverse categories include traditional retail items (such as shampoos, conditioners, makeup, nail polish, face creams); electric accessories like hair strengtheners and hair dryers; and products for specialists and professionals (nail polish carts, aprons and furniture for beauty salons)—all arranged on generic shelves. Therefore, the merchandising and display of products at Ikesaki more closely resembles a supermarket than a cosmetics store.

So, rather than classify it as the “Brazilian Sephora,” isn’t it better to call it a “Cosmetics Walmart?”

In reality, Walmart (or any other supermarket) is a little more organized than Ikesaki. Chaos reigns supreme there: a mass of consumers intermingling with sales reps, professionals and technicians, all fighting and pushing about for space to get to the products. The store seems to have grown without any plans for expansion, seemingly improvising on a temporary basis. The aisles that connect the floors are narrow; the ceiling is low; the lighting is dark and the shelves are often a total mess.

‘Cosmetics Street Market’ Approach

So it is better to forget about the “Cosmetics Walmart” concept and to define it more as a large “Cosmetics Street Market” selling exclusively cosmetics, rather than the usual miscellaneous selection of goods on offer. After all, where else do you find large baskets of nail polish scattered around haphazardly, looking like discounted bulk sales of products, or a salesman walking about and singing out the promotions on a megaphone: “Buy six hair colorings and get a complete treatment on the spot! Just one half dozen! Don’t miss it, only today!”

Not to mention the exotic products—common in any typical street market. Although most of the goods are local, at first impression it seems that they are imported, since many labels display the names and variants in English. But when you get closer, you notice that the other information is written in Portuguese. “Hair Spray—Fixador de penteado,” “Hair Butter—Máscara de Hidratação” and “Almond Repair Intensity—Condicionador.”

Some of these items fool us twice with their packaging because, besides showing the name in another language, they also bear no resemblance to a cosmetic product. “DepilWax,” for example, is a granulated wax for hair removal, but it looks more like a pack of pasta. Or the “Soft Fix Gel Cola” hair gel, which resembles a large tube of white glue—just look at the red and black layout, which would be much more readily associated with office supplies by consumers when they go to the store in search of glue.

The “Retok Hair” range features packaging that is shaped like makeup such as lipgloss and lipstick, when in reality it is used to touch up grey hairs. However, the name of the manufacturer is more reminiscent of a B movie from Hollywood than from the universe of Cosmetics: it is called “Anaconda.”

Topping the list of bizarre products—limited in reality only due to the space constraints of this article, otherwise we could go on all day—we have “Ração Capilar” (Capillary Rations), which gives us the impression that we have just entered a pet shop. Or could it be that the consumers who generally buy this product want their hair to be as soft and silky as the fur of their pets?

Yes, we know the above descriptions may scare you initially. People pushing each other about, products that look like food, strange brand names, items that seem imported but aren’t, untidy shelves, sales reps with megaphones… But don’t be fooled: At Ikesaki you will undoubtedly find what you are looking for and you will certainly have much more fun than when visiting Sephora or any other of the more “traditional” cosmetic stores.

About the Author

Gustavo Piqueira heads up Casa Rex, a design agency with offices in Sao Paulo and London, which serves clients such as Unilever, to smaller organizations. Piqueira has won many Brazilian and international design awards. More info: www.casarex.com.br

Casa Rex Wins 19 Creativity Awards Casa Rex, a multi-award winning design consultancy with offices in São Paulo and London, recently received a number of awards in the 41st Print & Packaging Competition, promoted by Creativity International Awards. Chosen out of more than 1,100 submissions from 35 different countries, Casa Rex received 19 awards for diverse projects ranging from book covers to packaging design. One of the agency’s awards in packaging design was for Dove Dual Reconstructor.