ANA ASCH

Before and after:

Product Line expansion and sustainability

Context:

FORMEL Skin has a straight forward approach to skin treatment. All you need is just three products for daily use: a cleanser, a moisturizer, and the customized medical formula.

As each skin is unique, aside from offering a customized formula it came the time to offer different cleansers or moisturizers for different skin types as well. But there were packaging issues that needed to be dealt with before launching new products.

Challenges:

The previous cleanser and moisturizer had the same airless dispenser despite being different quantities, which meant a waste of material. And they could be easily mistaken for each other in daily use, since the only difference between them was the small name and the pastel color square.

The Formula came in a metal tube that made dosage precision difficult, which was an issues for a treatment that should last precisely one month.

Together with the Product Team and Operations, I helped select the new packaging solutions and made improvements on the label, layout, and shipping box aiming not only to solve those issues but also to improve sustainability.

Improvements:

The new shipping box is made of FSC certified cardboard, with water-soluble ink, and the previous coating finish was removed, making it completely recyclable.

The Formula was move to an airless dispenser with a precise pump, so the dosage for daily use was clear. As a medical treatment, every Formula has the patient’s name hand written at the pharmacy. I took the opportunity of the packaging change to move the name placement to the front, highlighting how custom-made the product really is. This became a strong identifier for influencer marketing.

The moisturizer was moved to a smaller dispenser in order to be more easily distinguishable from the cleanser and reflect intuitively how much is needed on a daily basis. Two new formulas with variations of intensity (light and rich) covered the different needs for hydration.

Future Impact:

The most important change about the packaging was not the immedate improvements on appearance but what it allowed for in the future: a circular system for recycling.

Because of the airless dispenser, all the packaging was now monomaterial, so there’s no need to separate any parts for recycling. Since new products get shipped monthly, the empty dispensers can be shipped back in the same box the new ones arrive. And that’s when the different sizing allow for an automatic separation at a recycling facility. They can be cleaned in different ways depending on what was originally inside it, and then me recycled for use of the raw material.