Late last year, Bath & Body Works switched to a holographic decoration on its line of mid-priced cosmetics to better attract teen buyers. The use of holography is one of the first in its category, according to the New York-based company.
"We wanted something that was more current and in line with the market," says Lucy Savo, marketing manager at Gryphon Development, the parent company of Bath & Body Works. "We wanted something we thought was futuristic and interesting and gave our product a great look."
Color Drops started as a line of nail polishes with silver hot-stamping on the cap. In December 1998, a couple of years after its market introduction and several product additions, B&BW made the change to holographics. "We took the silver motif that was constant throughout the packaging and replaced that with a holographic decoration," says Savo. "It is what [we think] is hot now."
The line currently includes 16 nail polishes and an ever-changing line-up of lip products, eye liners, eye shadows and mascaras. Henlopen Manufacturing Co. (Melville, NY) supplies the container and hot-stamps the holographic foil to the mascara container. The decoration and the text is hot-stamped directly onto the polyvinyl chloride container that holds 1/4-oz of product. The aluminum closure is screen-printed in white with some of the stars and the words 'Bath & Body Works' knocked out, allowing the cap material to show through.
Henlopen says working with small containers such as these was a challenge.
"You've got to make sure you have clean container walls," says Bob Huff, director of domestic sales at Henlopen. Huff says if the container isn't clean, the hot-stamping won't adhere.
This sentiment is corroborated by Nu-World (Carteret, NJ), the company that decorates the bottle and cap for the nail polishes. The converter takes a custom 1/2-oz glass bottle from New High Glass (Miami Beach, FL) and screen-prints it in white. The injection-molded polypropylene cap is decorated with holographic hot-stamping around the base.
Nu-World also sources caps from New High Glass. In the hot-stamping process, caps are trapped between two rollers and the holographic foil. As the rollers move, the cap spins, and the cap is moved across the holographic foil. The cap rolls over the foil, and a die stamps out the words 'Bath & Body Works' and decorative stars.
B&BW's Savo notes that holographic hot-stamping is slightly more expensive than the silver hot-stamping, but the new decoration hasn't increased the retail price of the nationally available products, which range in price from $5 to $6.50. Although Savo won't discuss the specifics of the economics, she does say that sales have been good. She states that even after B&BW slimmed down the number of nail polishes in the line and added the more costly hot-stamping, sales are increasing for the remaining SKUs, resulting in a consistent net profit for the nail polishes.
