Precious as gold
Premium cosmetics clad in luxurious attire
For the launch of its two new facial skin care lines, Polish premium brand Dr Irena Eris needed a secondary product packaging solution, that clearly displayed the brand’s ambition to offer the highest level of quality for its most innovative products. The only conclusive solution was to select Sappi’s paperboard Algro Design Nature to give the cosmetics lines “Authority” and “Art of Lifting” the most suitable cover. It perfectly reflects the brand’s demand for highest quality. The paperboard is the perfect match as it combines unrivalled consistency and shaping properties with a luxuriously soft and silky touch.
When only the best is good enough
Cosmetics brand Dr Irena Eris has evolved to be one of the most recognizable and popular brands in Poland since it was founded in 1983. Due to its commitment to values like the highest quality, as well as to continuous innovation in all of its activities, it was accepted into the prestigious French luxury brands’ association Comité Colbert in 2012. It is therefore not surprising that for the two facial skin care lines “Authority”, launched in 2018, and “Art of Lifting”, launched in 2019, the company looked for the most perfect high-end packaging support, to promote the ideas associated with luxury, beauty and exclusiveness.
“The challenge was, to have a luxury look – a packaging that would be in line with the exclusivity of the products inside”, remembers Magdalena Sobińska, Design Director at Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris: “We had to create a ‘million-dollar box’-look, realized on a substrate that could fulfill the requirements of an excellent board smoothness and a surface that supports the glossy or matt effect that we required”. As a result, both of the beauty care product lines appear in a subtle and elegant sparkling gold design. Due to a metallization effect on the paperboard, the packaging literally exudes luxury and exclusivity. This effect is enhanced by the brand’s rather lucid logo, unpretentiously embossed on the packaging’s topside – ready to deliver the consumer the exclusive product experience promised by the appearance.
The perfect substrate for elaborate forms and features
Very early the company identified the perfect supporting packaging in Sappi’s paperboard Algro Design Nature. “Algro Design family members had already been specified for former packaging solutions for different beauty care lines by Dr Irena Eris. Therefore, their design team knew the substrate, its processing characteristics, and its reliable application for premium packaging. They especially counted on the paperboard’s surface characteristics and its shapeability features”, comments Didem Tekbas, Brand Owner Manager Paperboard Packaging & Speciality Papers at Sappi Europe.
Specifically, for the professional beauty care series “Authority” Algro Design Nature was preferred in higher grammages 350 and 380 g/m² for increased rigidity, whereas for the Prosystem Home Care series “Art of Lifting” a slightly lighter grammage of 330 g/m² was chosen. This difference is due to the diverse application fields of the product lines: “Authority” is the brand’s most expensive range available on the market and as Magdalena Sobińska, Design Director at Laboratorium Kosmetyczne Dr Irena Eris puts it, “the crown of our knowledge and experience in cosmetics”. An attitude that had to be clearly visualized in the product’s exclusive packaging. The new Prosystem Home Care line “Art of Lifting” is available only in Dr Irena Eris Cosmetics Institutes and has a very limited distribution being prescribed to consumers only by professionals. Due to the exclusivity of the products and to give their customers a luxurious experience at the point of sale, the packaging had to clearly display these properties. The challenge was to find the perfect material for a very special and striking construction of folding boxes, giving customers an incomparable “wow”-effect: For each facial skincare lines, two different types of shape were needed: an interlocking folding box with a partly recessed line and secondly a triangularly shaped box. Especially the interlocking box was a challenge in its design itself: The lid of the box is shorter than the lid of the product, which creates a distinctive gap between the lid and the bottom part of the box. Further, the lid within is supported with a special support structure on the cap to keep it solid. Sappi’s Algro Design Nature was the perfect choice due to its exceptional shaping properties and the stiffness the paperboard gave the packaging structure, providing a good grip strength and conveying a feeling of value to the consumer.
Ideal finishing properties
Furthermore, Algro Design Nature turned out to be the perfect material thanks to its excellent smoothness and silky touch, providing a premium experience. This surface property also offered the perfect canvas for offset printing and the sophisticated finishing process. As Dr Irena Eris required both, optically glossy and matt effects for the product lines, the beauty care packaging boxes received distinctive treatments. The design team settled for UV lacquering – creating a sublime shimmering matt effect on the “Art of Lifting” line, produced at Edelmann Group in Poland. Due to the immaculate surface smoothness of Algro Design Nature the foil lamination of the “Authority” packaging – produced at Edelmann Group, too – led to a strong glossy effect. To add the final touch, both product lines received a sublime refinement by embossing the pearly cream shimmering logo and the matching brand name on the packaging’s design – creating a unique 3D effect and additional haptical experience.
The result perfectly matches the expectations of Design Director Magdalena Sobińska, who put emphasis on the envisioned effect: “We are very happy about the subtle and sophisticated packaging solution. The two packaging constructions are complementary in design, form and colour. The special box design, the brilliant colours and the alternate smoothness of the surface perfectly reflect the premium approach of Dr Irena Eris and respond to the tranquillity trend in the professional cosmetics world.”
About Algro Design Nature by Sappi
Algro Design Nature is one milestone in Sappi’s broad and innovative portfolio of premium packaging paperboard products. Known for its superior whiteness and beautifully silky touch, Algro Design Nature is the ultimate choice when it comes to setting standards for demanding graphic and premium packaging applications. The paperboard’s front side is double coated and shows an uncoated reverse side. High whiteness and UV light fastness are further properties of the Algro Design Nature product range, that is available in grammages from 180g/m² to 400g/m².
About Dr Irena Eris
Founded in 1983, the cosmetics brand and company Dr Irena Eris cosmetics since then has evolved to be one of the most recognizable and popular cosmetics brands in Poland. In 2012, as the only Polish brand, it was even accepted into the prestigious French luxury brands’ association Comité Colbert, which currently unites 84 companies of high-end luxury cosmetics. Dr Irena Eris as a brand has committed itself to values such as the highest quality as well as continuous innovation in all of its activities. Luxury cosmetics, the network of Dr Irena Eris Skin Care Institutes and three five-star SPA Hotels form the holistic world of the brand.
