Packaging Tips for Skincare and Beauty Brands

If it feels like a new brand is popping up daily and everyone’s competing for attention… that’s because they are. So, how can you ensure your own incredible skincare or beauty brand successfully stands out while also remaining memorable?

Our favorite way: through strategic and intentional product packaging.

Packaging can be a divisive subject: some believe in cutting costs where possible due to the fact that packaging has a seemingly short lifespan. Others believe in the power that packaging has to stop your ideal customer mid-stroll (or scroll) down the aisle. And if we’re quite honest, we fall into the latter group: we have the tendency to buy and try brands because of their packaging.

If you’ve never dealt with skincare packaging before, you might be feeling a little lost about where to even start. So, we’re sharing a few successful strategies we’ve used for our own skincare and beauty clients!

4 Proven Ways to Achieve Modern and Memorable Packaging

01 / Consistent branding

Cohesive logos, brand colors and fonts will help your packaging not only achieve a more elevated aesthetic, but a recognizable one, too - especially if you have multiple products.

For our skincare and beauty branding clients, we always recommend featuring at least two logo variations, 4-5 brand colors and 2-3 fonts on product packaging. For more advice, check out our 5 Branding Basics that Every Business Needs!

02 / Legible Text

This one might sound like common sense, but it plays an EXTREMELY important role in your product packaging’s success (or lack thereof).

In the US, the FDA has requirements for type size, depending on how large the label surface is. For example, the minimum text size allowed on cosmetic products with labels less than 5 square inches is 1/16th of an inch. (Source: FDA Cosmetic Labeling Regulations)

Our pro tip? Print things out every time you make a change to your label design. This’ll help ensure that your copy can always be easily read!

03 / Clear Information Hierarchy

What makes a product label easy to visually scan when shopping online or in-store? Information hierarchy! This is when different types of content on a product’s label are given contrasting font sizes or treatments to clearly separate them.

Featuring the content on a product’s label in a hierarchical way will allow customers to skim the label quickly, and get a more effective snapshot of important information like:

The brand’s name
The product title
What the product does
The product’s claims and benefits

Information hierarchy also determines the order in which a customer will read and digest label information. Think carefully about what you want your customers to read or notice first!

04 / Strategic Use of Color

Sure, color makes things more appealing to look at - but it can also be used to communicate tangible and intangible things about a product. Color can be used as a representation of the ingredients, the personality of the brand, the price point, the environment where the product can and should be used, or simply the intended feeling and experience.

Depending on your brand’s values, mission, offer and audience, you’ll need to think strategically about how you might use color to help build connection in your product packaging. If you have multiple products, you might choose to utilize color as a helpful way to differentiate between the types of products! For example, a skincare brand might have products that are intended to be used at different times of the day - like a morning face oil, and a nighttime face mask. A lighter color could be used to represent morning, and a darker color to represent night.

Try to pay attention to the colors that your competitors are using. In some industries, a single color can become overused, which makes all products using that same color blend in on a shelf. So, be mindful of any common color trends, and whether there is an opportunity for you to stand out by going in a different direction.

We could talk about color all day! For more color advice, check out this blog post.