Minelli Magazine - Packaging

How eco-friendly cosmetic packaging can boost sensorial experience

Written by Edoardo Cavagnetto | August 06 2020

In the perfume and cosmetics field, a sensorial experience is important. Consumers don’t just look for a product. They want to sense it too. Packaging is the first way to create an intense emotional experience for consumers, as it is the first thing they see when they decide whether or not to buy a particular item. Wood can help boost this experience. We talk about this topic in the following article.

Eco-friendly cosmetic packaging: how to build a multisensory experience

We essentially base our lives on emotions even when we buy something. We mostly rely on how we feel when we see and touch a product as well as our satisfaction with the purchase. By appealing to different senses when creating cosmetic packaging, you can boost this emotional experience for consumers.

How can you achieve this goal?

In the beauty packaging market, competition is very intense today, and brands must strive to distinguish themselves. The only way to do that is by connecting with consumers through the senses. Eco-friendly cosmetic packaging can be a great solution, as wood can deliver a tactile and sensorial experience that is unthinkable with other materials. Wood is alive, and people really love the sense of purity, elegance, and warmth that it conveys. Eco-friendly cosmetic packaging can engage consumers and convince them to buy for two reasons:

  • aesthetic: as wood is beautiful, prestigious, and elegant and can be enhanced in many ways if you find the right supplier
  • ethical: as wood is naturally present in nature and doesn’t damage our environment if collected following the guidelines imposed by environmental associations

Considering these two factors, eco-friendly cosmetic packaging can be an effective way to make people feel something special about the product they see.

To truly achieve this objective, however, companies must find ways to communicate with people through their cosmetic and perfume packaging, trying to involve all our senses in the customer experience.

An introduction to multisensory eco-friendly cosmetic packaging

A multisensory packaging experience is a popular trend today, as it is considered an effective way to create a sense of loyalty between the company and its consumers, leading to repeated purchases. 

Creating multisensory packaging means getting your product to stimulate different senses so that people can enjoy multiple sensory impressions from it. This emotional experience can be created through different elements: visual enhancers, olfactory elements, tactile experiences, and other packaging aspects.

Consider the following factors for eco-friendly cosmetic packaging:

Visual Elements

The first thing a person does when buying a cosmetic product is evaluate how it looks. Visual elements are the first aspect that create a connection with consumers, so they are a key principle of multisensory packaging. Shapes and colours can create a positive first impression and encourage impulsive buying. Eco-friendly cosmetic packaging has a great advantage if made with wood. This precious material is flexible and malleable and can be used to create unique and unusual shapes. What’s most important is for your supplier to have the right experience as well as innovative tools and machines to create such complicated shapes. Wood is not easy to manage and treat correctly if the manufacturer doesn’t have a deep knowledge of the raw material. Especially in the cosmetic and perfume packaging field, respecting tolerances is important to avoid discrepancies and defects.

Your supplier must also have access to a wide range of finishing options to let you customize your product and make it visually appealing. Glowing finishes, glitter and pearlescent coatings, enamels, dipping, and special varnishes are great ways to catch consumers’ attention

Tactile experiences

After seeing the product,  people determine if it’s worth buying by touching it. This moment must be exploited, as it is crucial to convince a consumer to make the purchase. You must make sure that people enjoy a positive and attractive tactile experience. Your product must seem unique in their hands, which can be done through different coatings, effects, and finishing options. If your supplier has cutting-edge technologies, he will be able to offer special features, for example:

  • soft-touch finishes
  • polymer coatings
  • multilevel embossing
  • laser engravings

All these techniques can be used to provide an exclusive tactile experience, inviting consumers to engage with the product once they take it from the shelf.

Olfactory elements

The olfactory experience has more to do with the content rather than the eco-friendly cosmetic packaging, but the raw material is also important. It is undeniable that the scent of cosmetics and perfumes is key to drive the final purchasing decision, but the smell of wood packaging is part of the olfactory experience too. Many people love the special scent of wood. That is why many “green” brands prefer leaving wood rough when creating their eco-friendly cosmetic packaging, and it is also why many woods, e.g., sandalwood, rosewood, and cedarwood, are popular ingredients used in perfumery.

Creating multisensorial wood packaging is not easy: it requires competencies, know-how, and a deep knowledge of the raw material to find the right balance of all the senses. Effective packaging, though, can really create a connection with consumers and boost sales.

The Minelli Group has been working with wood for more than eighty years and has gained the necessary experience to advise its clients about the best solution for them. If you are looking for innovative, perfect, and glamorous products to offer in your catalogue, contact us: click here!