A white and silver cylinder, topped by a silvery closure resembling a missile, carries New York City-based Avon Products past a field of more than 200 contenders for the Tube Council's Ted Klein Tube of the Year award for best overall package.

As so often happens in packaging, beauty is far more than skin deep for this 100-mL (3.4-oz) tube for Avon's Anew Clinical Spider Vein Therapy, a cream thought to be the first internationally branded product of its type in the marketplace.

The tube produced with its unique closure by World Wide Packaging (www.wwpinc.com) (WWP) has a silky feel that enables secure gripping without compromising its sleek look. With a 100-percent silk screen in white and satin silver, the tube is said to be an EVOH/MDPE coextrusion that draws down to an orifice approximately ¼-in. W.

The conforming outer shell of the closure is aluminum, hand-finished in 14 steps, WWP says, before it is glue-attached to the inner injection-molded PP closure that friction-fits the tube: and is molded with bayonet plug to deter leakage. The tube comes in a .025 SBS silvery carton from Cartem Wilco (www.gowilco.com).