Product Packaging: How Cosmetics Brand Bare Hands Got a Pre-Launch Design Checkup

Packaging is to people perusing department store shelves what your personality is to networking event attendees: a “make-or-break” first impression. Just as you might agonize over how you came across to someone you just met, so too do packaging designers fuss and fret over the teensiest details of their boxes, pouches, perfume bottles, and beer cans.

Here, we’ll take a look at the importance of product packaging in marketing with an eye towards one of our case studies: Bare Hands’ at-home nail care products. At the time of this engagement, Bare Hands was an emerging beauty brand focused on giving its customers the best possible manicure experience in the comfort of their own homes.

From the applicator to the pouch to the outer box containing it all, Bare Hands’ packaging design was carefully crafted to get a certain brand story and message across. In fact, it was so intertwined with the product itself that it seemed like everything was conceived in one fell swoop. Pure genius — and fully validated by Highlight’s proprietary testing audience. 

A snapshot of the testing process that validated Bare Hands’ design

You too can create something masterful if you carefully consider everything that goes into how to package a product — so let’s unwrap this topic.

What are the elements of effective packaging design?

Consumer product packaging’s primary purpose is to protect your product from getting broken, losing its freshness, or spilling out everywhere. But if you ask a marketer “why is product packaging important?” they’ll tell you it’s about enhancing customer appeal by means of visual/tactile design, messaging, usability, and sustainability.

If you first catch someone’s eye with a good visual design, you can reel them in with messaging that tugs at their needs and desires. Once they’ve purchased your product, offering them a five-star usability experience will turn them into a repeat customer. (Since it’s the 2020s, there’s often something to be gained from making things extra entertaining for the unboxing influencers!)

And don’t forget sustainability. This is something people care about more and more — particularly in the beauty space. 

Make the most of what meets the eye with a standout visual design

What meets the eye needs to really count. “Don’t judge a book by its cover” doesn’t hold up when people are shopping (including in bookstores). And, of course, the beauty industry is all about people trying to create the best exterior version of themselves.

When packaging your product, make your visual and tactile design memorable while staying within the bounds of your target customer’s aesthetic. Are customers seeking something loud and proud, or do they prefer a more subdued aesthetic? Knowing your audience is a crucial step towards successful product packaging — particularly for emerging beauty brands under pressure to prove quality.

Bare Hands, for one, used the “clean girl” aesthetic masterfully, with a sleek and minimalist design reminiscent of the Clinique school of branding. Clinique’s packaging is known for evoking medical products with its bottle design, enhancing perceptions of scientifically proven results. As the next evolution of this, “clean girl” signals things like purity, natural ingredients, and a lack of unnecessary additives.

Keep in mind that there are some differences between designing for store shelves and designing for online shopping. In online shopping, visual appeal reigns first and foremost, but with in-person shopping, the texture and material of customer packaging can strongly influence what potential buyers think about product quality.

Either way, you want a standout design. Also, you want to have your messaging front and center, which brings us to…

Your product’s claim to fame: Packaging branding and messaging strategies

In a customer packaging design context, claims are the short, punchy messages that are intended to resonate with people looking to solve a specific problem (such as “50% wrinkle reduction in 50 days”).

To choose the right claims, and we repeat, you need to really understand your target customer. Is this a person who wants non-toxic products that promote skin health in the long term? If so, then your claims should be crafted to appeal to “better-for-you” beauty product users. If you have lots of possible benefits to highlight, claims testing can help you choose what to put front and center.

Related to (but not the same as) claims testing is the process of testing whether customers think your product lives up to their expectations based on the packaging. Highlight helped Bare Hands get proof that expectations and reality matched up well.

Packaging and usability: How do customers interact with your products?

Usability, or “packaging performance,” can include requirements such as keeping the product fresh/unbroken, helping mete out the right portions, and possibly staying tamper-proof (think child-proof pharmaceutical packaging or pet food packaging).

For beauty products, the packaging and the usage of the product itself are often tightly intertwined. Think of the many ways lipstick can be packaged, and how this impacts its usage: if you have the traditional stick, you’ll hold the base while rubbing it onto your lips; if you have a flat pallet, you’ll rub some on your finger and then transfer it to your lips; if you have a tube with a liquid, you’ll use an applicator to paint it on.

Creative packaging can even win you accessibility points. Skincare brand Drunk Elephant, whose unique pump-style moisturizers have inspired thousands of copycats, has been hailed as a prime example of one-handed accessibility in the beauty industry. 

Don’t forget the how-tos, if there could be any confusion around usage! Grouped alongside Bare Hands’ soft-to-the-touch, vegan leather case is a set of instructions on how to use the nail kits, and Highlight’s testing verified that these were easy to follow while people worked on their nails.

Meeting a growing desire for sustainability and non-toxicity

As environmental concerns continue to capture headlines, communicating sustainability on beauty product packaging has never been more important. In fact, 63% of respondents to CleanHub’s 2023 Clean Beauty Survey think safety and sustainability are extremely or very important in cosmetics, especially with regards to minimizing packaging waste.

Brands have gotten incredibly creative here. They’re designing packaging out of plant-based, biodegradable materials like mycelium (also known as “mushroom packaging”) or placing their products in reusable pouches made out of cotton or hemp. Some companies are even turning traditionally liquid products like shampoo into solids to drastically cut down the need for any packaging whatsoever.

Another big concern lies in the contents of the beauty products. The possible presence of microplastics and forever chemicals doesn’t jibe well with the thought of coating our skin, hair, nails, and particularly lips with a cosmetic substance. If you’re a brand that gets an A+ in the department of natural, non-toxic ingredients, be sure to spell this out on your packaging — because it sells. 

If you can demonstrate your product’s alignment with these values, you can charge a higher price point. In fact, many eco-conscious customers put a premium on “eco-luxury” cosmetics, in which a luxury look and feel is created because of — not in spite of — a brand’s commitment to environmental friendliness.

Testing your packaging with real customers

Getting authentic feedback on your new product packaging design from a representative testing audience is essential. For Bare Hands, Highlight sent 90 samples nationwide and gathered robust qualitative and quantitative data about the product and its packaging.

In addition to surveys, Highlight conducted multiple in-depth interviews that provided qualitative data around shoppers’ perception of taglines, product benefits (claims), and packaging look and feel. Complementing surveys with qualitative research adds color and depth that quantitative methods simply can’t capture.

Thanks to our proprietary testing audience, we were able to target people who are enthusiastic about better-for-you cosmetics and nail care products. Testers were chosen based on their past purchases and openness to trying new products in this particular makeup space.

From the very first day, Bare Hands got access to a live dashboard of results, including nuanced descriptions of testers’ impressions of the brand’s messaging and packaging. Full results came within 10 days, allowing the company to move quickly to their next steps with solid data to back up their choice of taglines and packaging design. 

Want to know how you’re coming across to your customers? We’ll help you.

Don’t let people’s true impressions of your branding and packaging remain a mystery. From visual design to the messaging that’s placed most prominently, every detail can influence sales. If your product were running for president, then whatever isn’t working with the packaging would be like a bad sound bite that gets played over, and over, and over in a smear campaign.  

So, when you’re thinking of how to package your product, make the design bulletproof. In fact, you should really think of the packaging as part of your product. It’s that important!