Cosmetics Packaging: Trends for 2021

The cosmetics sector in Italy represents 13% of European consumption according to the Cosmetics Europe Activity Annual Reports, our demand for these types of products is second only to that of Germany, France and England.

Of this consumption , 75% concerns women's products, the remaining 25% men's.

The sales channels are multiple and above all very well-established, which indicates how the cosmetics business in Italy is very developed : through mail order, in herbalist's shops, e-commerce, perfumeries, beauty centres, at home, in pharmacies or with large-scale distribution, there is no Italian person who has not purchased products from these types of businesses.

Young people do it to always be up to date in terms of fashion, women for their psychophysical well-being, each age group has needs that these products compensate for.

But how aware are consumers when it comes to sustainability? More and more consumers, businesses and society as a whole need new approaches to consumption to reduce environmental impact.

Here packaging becomes a fundamental element in this path towards sustainability, due to its massive and indispensable use.

For this reason, the smartest companies are gradually adopting changes in their packaging in order to make it green. In this process, however, labels or materials are often an obstacle to the possibility of being 100% green in the pack.

If you want to know "How to make your packaging 100% Eco-sustainable " , we have written a Guide to delve deeper into the topic, for your convenience I'll leave it here .

Packaging, specifically in the world of cosmetics, can be structured and is in fact made up of:

• Primary Packaging , the main function is to contain the product and provide the mechanism to use it.

• Overpackaging , which is the packaging of the primary packaging, or of the product itself. It has a communicative function, through targeted and self-adhesive labeling, protection and storage.

• Shopping Bag , useful for transport purposes.

In order to be effective and useful for commercial purposes, packaging must necessarily have certain characteristics:

• In terms of performance and operation , a poorly preserved product or one with unclear instructions for use will be difficult for a marketing manager to market.

• From a purely strategic and marketing point of view, it must have a persuasive, identifying and evocative name. From a point of view more tied to legal authorities, the packaging must have, always in conjunction with the self-adhesive labels, information and instructions on use.

The trend that cosmetics packaging will follow in 2021 will focus on environmental requirements : this is possible by completely changing the approach and considering packaging as a system that includes: product, actors and territorial context.

In light of what has been stated so far, what should be the characteristics of an Eco-Design Packaging?

First of all, it must be functional: as regards weights and volumes, Overpackaging must reduce waste during transport and, at the same time, keep the product inside intact for as long as possible.

From the point of view of the materials used, where it is not possible to opt for single-materiality, it is necessary to ensure that the materials that compose it are compatible during the recycling phase, thus avoiding the use of inks that could compromise this fundamental factor.

If it is not possible to use materials of the same compound, it is necessary to ensure that the various materials that make up the product are easily decomposable and recyclable separately.

Another element that can really make a difference in terms of marketing is designing the "End of Life" of a package: to explain this point I take into consideration the famous Ecologic Cosmetics chain: the company's designers have designed a package that, once the cosmetic is finished, can be reused as bathroom furniture.

Packaging must take into account the communication aspect: it can also be flexible, therefore not created ad hoc for each single product but adaptable to multiple products, enclosed by a common underlying message.

The information that must be included in the product box is essential, and must be clear and intuitive even if we are talking about complex products.

Environmental, social and economic sustainability must be communicated to customers , in a period that as we have seen registers an increase in the interest of the average consumer towards compliance with environmental standards; a communication principle that we could therefore define as transparency.

To summarize what has been said so far, there is no precise algorithm to identify what will be the trend for 2021 in cosmetics, but what we have defined are the ideas, principles and values that are becoming increasingly important and that consumers expect to see in the products they purchase.

A market, a marketing area or anyone who has this delicate task in the company, can no longer believe that the principles of environmental respect are secondary to persuasive/sensorial communication and efficiency.

We need to think of a product that contains all these elements and enhances them in the same way, where the product is no longer intended as the single object marketed, but also the packaging and everything that orbits around it, as part of a single large ecosystem.