More than just a pretty case

With more than 95-percent natural ingredients, including extracts from fruits and flowers, ALMAY pure blends™ is a makeup line that espouses petal soft textures and weightless formulas. With the help of Anthem Worldwide, a Schawk Strategic Design Co., Revlon, which owns the ALMAY brand, brought this light touch to the pure blends packaging design. Soft blushes of color are layered on clean white containers that are made from an average of 44 percent recycled materials.

Basing its comparison on a new packaging process that eliminates traditional blister card packaging, uses clear film instead of chipboard, and uses smaller shippers, Revlon projects that 1 million units of ALMAY pure blends loose finishing powder saves 52.5 tons of paperboard, 890 trees, 215,570 KWh energy, 368,060 gallons of water, 173.5 cubic yards of landfill and 3,150 lbs of air pollution. On the pure blends website, the co. makes similar boasts for the packaging used for its other ALMAY pure blends products such as its eye shadows, blushes/bronzers, liquid foundations and lip glosses.

Revlon, which has worked with Anthem on packaging projects dating back as far as 2006, began working with Anthem Worldwide's New York office on the pure blends design in January 2008. When Revlon approached Anthem, it had already decided on the packaging "canvas,” which is white paperboard containers. "We knew we had a white box, a white paperboard carton, and a compact to design on," remarks Nicole Kantanas, account director of Anthem Worldwide's NYC office. "So [the challenge became] how do we decorate these items in such a way that still makes them appear fresh and believable and conveys the message of naturalness. Almay's brand position is that of more naturally grounded products and even their models are more naturally made up."

Anthem Worldwide were inspired by the "natural look" of Almay models and designed the packaging with transparent overlays of color. "[The design] is a little soft, a little more quiet," Kantanas notes. "We let the green come forward and deliver the message [of the eco-friendly aspects of the makeup line] and let the pink be in the background as a feminine message of beauty."

The packaging concept is expected to be extended to other ALMAY pure blends products as the makeup line is expanded.