Packaging Is the Next Frontier of Product Innovation

There’s a lot of chit chat in the beauty world about who did something first, who copied who, yadda yadda. A lot of the time, there’s a clear answer—we can trace the inception of a technique or product and see what happened after.

Other times, though? Multiple brilliant minds get to the same place at the same time. Earlier this month, Fenty Beauty, Huda Beauty, and Glow Recipe all came out with hydrogel eye masks that get sliced as you use them. It’s a super cool concept that we also previously saw this year from K-Beauty brand Wonder Bath.

Instead of pointing fingers, the brands let consumers in on what really happened: they all fell for the same packaging supplier.

And how could they not? We are all so informed about ingredients these days— and there are simply *so many* products out there—that brands are creating a lot of cool new packaging to get ahead of the curve. (Or simply stay in the conversation.)

Ahead, discover why packaging is the next frontier of beauty product innovation, plus some brands that are proving the concept.

The Trend

The makeup and skin care worlds are positively flooded with products. Great ones, too! So, how do we decide what to buy? In the last few months, a lot of the products people have been buzzing about have been selections with great packaging. With it’s rollerball dispenser that offers up the perfect amount of product, Too Faced’s new Peach Perfector Setting Powder is a great example. There’s also KJH.brand’s teeny tiny mascara wand that lets you get every last lash. Those eye masks.

“The magic happens when packaging goes beyond function and becomes part of the experience and identity of the product. Great packaging should be intuitive, beautiful, and instantly recognizable, but most importantly, it should create an emotional connection,” says Andrea Lisbona, founder of Touchland. “You should want to reach for it, carry it with you, display it, and even share it.”

Instead of premiering a brand new product format or ingredient (a tall order), there are many ways brands can innovate in the packaging world. They can make something beautiful, something functional, or something sustainable to hook consumers.

“Packaging innovation is so much easier to wrap your head, and hands, around. It’s quite literally tangible,” adds Kailey Bradt, CEO of Sonsie Skin. “The materials are straightforward and easy to identify when compared to their formulation counterparts. And for that reason, packaging innovation will take over the spotlight again in the coming months.”

How We Got Here

As the story went with the eye masks, so many of the packaging innovations we’re seeing in the US first popped up in the world of K-Beauty. Think a serum with a built-in gua sha tool as its cap (Anua and Medicube both have one), a twist-to-dispense-instead-of-digging-your-fingers-in-balm like Reale Actives now offers, or a dry shampoo powder topped with a puff for ease of application. Cooling metal applicators like Eadem’s lip balm has going on. Cute little compacts that double as key chains.

“At Touchland, we’ve always believed that everyday essentials deserve the same level of design and consideration as the products and objects we get excited about and choose because they represent something about who we are,” adds Lisbona. “When packaging can turn something purely functional into something desirable, expressive, and personal, that’s where I think it becomes truly powerful.”

Packaging and Brand Story

There’s also the question of brands finding new ways to showcase their values through packaging. Rare Beauty deserves a shoutout for their accessibility focus in packaging production—jus look at their hand-therapist designed perfume bottle. So does the ever-ergonomic Tilt Beauty (the whole brand is built around accessibility, and you can see it in every phase of unboxing).

Last year, cruelty-free and sustainable brand Sonsie unveiled their Adapt Cream and Cleansing Mousse Refills in completely decomposable, PHA-based tubs made of a material called Vivomer that was crafted by Shellworks. After you’re done with your product, you can throw the packaging in your at-home compost bin.

“I went to MakeUp in NY this year and told industry veterans in the packaging space all about it and the responses I received were ‘that’s impossible.’ ‘We tried that before years ago.’ ‘It doesn’t work.’ And they’re not completely wrong. PHA as a material itself has been around for quite some time, but didn’t receive commercial interest until the 1970s when oil prices spiked and industry needed an alternative,” Bradt explains. “And when it did, let’s just say it wasn’t the right time. Not enough resources were put into the development and lack of commercial demand led to a lack of research and development around the material.”

These days, though? It’s a new world.

“Where today gets exciting, is the demand to move away from plastics has spiked commercial interest and independent companies with the sole purpose of creating commercially-viable components from PHA now exist,” she adds. “After a decade in beauty, the greatest packaging innovation to date is upon us, and Sonsie was one of the first brands to use it. I’ve always believed in leading by example, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here. The next step however is for more brands to adopt this, drive down the cost of the material and make PHA more accessible.”

Liah Yoo, Founder and CEO of KraveBeauty, is equally passionate about sustainable product innovation. Her brand’s Mochi Berrier Moisture Cream uses a similar Vivomer tub.

“Mochi Berrier Moisture Cream is made from upcycled strawberry leaves and stems, the part of the plant that gets left on the field after every harvest and treated as agricultural waste. We took something that was destined to be discarded and turned it into the hero ingredient. And then we put it in a jar that’s designed to do the same thing when you’re done with it,” she explains. “Go back to the earth. Disappear without a trace. That was the whole point. For me, investing in something like Vivomer is the only way the product story is actually complete.”

Packages of Note

Drunk Elephant’s airless pumps were setting the baseline a decade ago—now similar offerings are everywhere. As mentioned, Touchland got everyone interested in hand sanitizer with their functional and mega-cute misters. All of a sudden the world was flush with dupes.

“Ultimately, the packaging became one of Touchland’s most recognizable brand codes because it wasn’t designed simply to contain the product. It was designed to change the relationship people had with the category,” notes Lisbona. “What was once something you hid in your bag became something you wanted to show, carry, and share. To me, that is the real power of design: not just making something look different, but making people feel and behave differently around it.”

These days, REFY is another great example of a brand who is utilizing their packaging to make us love using their products even more. Their Skin Base Skin Tint features a precision push pump with built-in palette that you can use with your favorite brush. Their primer features a built-in roller that lets you sculpt as you go. There’s also Mikayla Nogueira’s POV Whip It Moisturizer, which features a built-in spatula.

I also have a feeling we’re about to see a lot of funky, artsy makeup packaging as brands try to further differentiate themselves in coming months. Think everything Isamaya does or Aora México gorgeous, plastic-free lineup and K-Beauty brand Muzigae Mansion’s paint tube inspired Objet Liquid.

Related Stories

High-Tech Hairspray Is a Category With Sticking Power

Byrdie’s Fall Catalog Is Here

Form Over Function

There’s one thing to be aware of, though. Product packaging can’t just be cool/beautiful. It has to be functional, too.

“Packaging is having a moment, but a lot of suppliers get it wrong, which gets passed on to the brands. You go to any beauty trade show right now, and you’re inundated with suppliers offering novelty for the sake of novelty. Refillable jars are everywhere, which sound sustainable until you realize the outer wall has to be significantly heavier to accommodate the insert cartridge, which often makes the net environmental footprint worse than the original. It’s greenwashing with good intentions, which might be more frustrating,” says Yoo.

Some nice news? Extended producer responsibility legislation is starting to push brands to actually reckon with what their packaging leaves behind. Yoo thinks consumers are getting there, too.

“The fast beauty cycle is exhausting people. They’re buying less and thinking harder about what stays in their home and what ends up in landfill,” she says.

Oh, and one other thing. The product these packages are housing should be functional, too.

Amid the sliceable eye mask discourse, Dieux co-founder and beauty expert Charlotte Palermino hopped on Instagram to discuss how packaging innovation does not equal formula innovation. Just because there’s cool new packaging out there doesn’t mean we should start ignoring clinicals/stop listening to formulation stories.

“If you launch skincare it should work,” she said. And it’s true! We can (and should) have it all, and the race to get there is well underway.