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SKIP THE PACKING PEANUTS: In this green age, Allure editor in chief Linda Wells is taking the cosmetics industry to task for its excessive product packaging. In her October editor's letter, Wells urges the industry to cut back in order to reduce waste. "The packaging of expensive beauty products has gotten out of control," she writes. "Some cosmetics companies seem to believe that all these layers create a sense of luxury, that they make the product look precious, like a Valentine's present from Harry Winston. But that idea is passé."
Wells' call to action is noteworthy considering the October issue is its Best of Beauty edition. The issue recognizes cosmetics and grooming aids for their effectiveness and innovation, and is filled with product samples. Beauty firms consider the awards a major fillip (evidenced by the advertising: the October issue is the largest in Allure's history with 209 ad pages). Wells said she'd been thinking about the packaging of products months before Best of Beauty was published, but thought the letter would have the most impact appearing in the awards issue. And while Wells tested "$200 firming creams, scrubs of every flavor on each limb and more perfumes than you'd find in an entire Moroccan souk," she found that, "by the time I'd unwrapped three products, my wastebasket was filled."
Wells believes the industry "has to move away from the Kimora Lee Simmons approach to luxury," she writes.
"I want to send a message to the industry that it's an old-fashioned idea of luxury," she told WWD while attending the shows in Milan. "It's like the elegance of a Kiehl's package or a Shu Uemura package. Those products have a sort of cool because they have little packaging. I don't think most consumers associate them with cheap quality. Those are relatively niche brands, they're an example of how it can be done." Wells said she hadn't heard any reaction from industry insiders so far.
— Stephanie D. Smith
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