In this 2020 round-up, we’re featuring the biggest cosmetic packaging and design stories featuring contactless applications, new sustainability initiatives and more.
In this 2020 round-up, we’re featuring the biggest cosmetic packaging and design stories featuring contactless applications, new sustainability initiatives and more.
In June, CosmeticsDesign-Asia reported that skin care brands in India had an opportunity to create products in contactless application formats to help Indian consumers avoid touching their face during the COVID-19 pandemic.
With the outbreak of COVID-19, healthcare professionals were urging people not to touch their faces in order to prevent the spread of the disease.
Kshama Raj, consumer analyst at GlobalData believed the intense fear of the virus would make this a lasting habit even after the pandemic passes in India.
“A personal is most likely to change their habits when faced with intense emotions and the feat felt during the COVID-19 pandemic cannot be doubted,” said Raj.
In August, South Korean cosmetics conglomerate Amorepacific was actively working to extend its use of eco-packaging solutions across all its brands as part of its Less Plastics campaign.
The campaign is aligned with the United Nation’s (UN) 2030 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015.
“There is no doubt that plastic makes our lives easier but our reliance on single-use plastic is increasing and now it does more harm than good to us and our environment. Amorepacific felt responsible for plastic pollution and thus joined the global movement to reduce the consumption of single-use plastic,” said Amorepacific’s sustainability management team director Younggon Kim.
The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has marked the end of in-store cosmetic testers, but one firm doubted the abilities of augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and similar technology to completely replace them.
Steve Dodd, senior vice president of retail solutions at Meiyume told CosmeticsDesign-Asia in July that despite the impact of the health crisis on the brick-and-mortar retail sector, the beauty industry still needed a physical presence.
“You have to remember that beauty is still very much a touch-and-try business… People react differently based on their skin type and tone, they want to feel the texture of the product, how it feels on their skin. It takes a while to get the look right, it requires experimentation. You can’t do that online, even with the best virtual try-on software,” he told CosmeticsDesign-Asia.
Dodd highlighted that unlike fashion, beauty brands could not rely on pushing logos in the face of consumers.
As South Korea moved to regulate its plastic waste, experts were questioning if the new regulations would stifle creativity or push cosmetics brands to innovate packaging design in an eco-friendlier manner.
In bid to reduce its plastic waste production by half, and double recycling rates to 70% by 2030, South Korea has enforced regulations banning the usage of hard-to-recycle plastics such as PVC.
This Act is applicable to all products available in South Korea, including local and imported beauty brands.
The Act on the Promotion of Saving and Recycling of Resources was announced back in 2018 by the South Korean Ministry of Environment (MoE) following China’s announced an import ban on 24 types of plastic waste from January 2018.
In May, Singapore-based skin care brand Re:erth launched a new sustainability initiative to recycle used plastic cosmetic packaging into oil, and help consumers overcome hurdles to traditional recycling.
The lack of transparency and limitations of conventional recycling pushed the skin care company to seek a solution that would simplify the recycle process for itself and the consumer.
Founder and CEO Shinji Yamasaki believed the biggest obstacle to recycling is on the consumers’ side.
He noted that in order to recycle properly, they would need to clean out their plastics and separate it according to the type of plastic – information a majority of people would not have access to.
In April, the Kao Corporation announced plans to accelerate expansion of its environmentally friendly Smart Holders and eliminate its use of plastic stickers on products as part of its goals to reduce plastic waste.
The maker of Bioré, Curél and Kanebo rolled out the Smart Holders, beginning with Japan on April 11.
The Smart Holder was previously launched in 2017 and was sold mainly online. This roll-out would mark the full-scale launch of the eco-friendly container.
“By starting full-scale sale of Smart Holders in stores, we believe that we can make it easier for more consumers to access the Smart Holder and that its convenience will encourage even more widespread use of environmentally-friendly Raku-raku Eco Pack Refills,” said the company in a statement.
In our July episode of the Beauty Broadcast, Oasis Skincare and Quadpack discussed their different approaches towards zero-waste beauty, a movement that was gaining traction around the world and in the Asia Pacific region.
Hildra Gwee told CosmeticsDesign-Asia that many of the consumers that approach the Singapore-based brand were very aware about the environmental issues and are looking to make a positive impact by looking for products with less packaging.
The company offers a range of solid personal care products and skin care products that come in recyclable glass bottles that can be reused and refilled at its beauty kitchen located on the city fringes.
“The idea behind our skin care is that even though they come in glass bottles which are recyclable, at the same time what we are trying to encourage is for people not just to think about recycling it but to reuse the bottle,” said Gwee.
Japanese company Toppan Printing developed an NFC-enabled label and platform to enable beauty bands to communicate with their consumers through the product itself, it told CosmeticsDesign-Asia in September.
Toppan’s Secure ID Platform provides brands with a cloud-based turnkey solution to give physical products a digital identity and connect it to the Internet.
The company initially developed this technology to protect companies and consumers against adulterated products and product tampering.
The platform works in conjunction with an NFC tag contains a high-security chip that can detect if a product has been opened.
In September, New Zealand-based company The Better Packaging Co. said it was eyeing growth in the beauty industry as companies faced an acceleration in e-commerce — and plastic waste generation – in light of the COVID-19 crisis.
The Better Packaging Co. is a sustainable packaging company founded by Rebecca Percasky and Kate Bezar that helps companies reduce its reliance on plastic with its range of sustainable packaging.
The firm has two main product lines, the first is the comPOST range that is certified AS 5810-2010 for Home Composting.
This means the packaging can be broken down in a home compost within 180 days and is worm friendly.
