Part of the magic of packaging is that it can make products worth more than the sum of their parts. Collect 25 beauty products together at a low price, and you can offer consumers a great deal that they’ll appreciate. But if you take those same 25 products and put them in a bespoke, engaging packaging solution, you can capture their imaginations in a way that they’ll never forget.
The UK’s NEXT Beauty teamed up with Hunter Luxury to produce their 2025 advent calendars: 25 Days of Beauty Advent – a hinged box inspired by chocolate boxes – and a snowglobe-inspired design for The Luxury Beauty Advent concept.
25 Days of Beauty Advent has a Christmas cookie theme. All 25 cartons are on the same level within the box, mimicking the look of a biscuit selection tray.
Using spot UV varnish, embossing and foiled typography, the entire box exterior is printed with a warm, festive pink, broken up by a pattern featuring stars of varying size and shape. Some of the stars are printed in yellow and finished with the spot UV varnish, while others are embossed in gold foil, creating visual and tactile intrigue in a relatively simple pattern.
Inside the box, the 25 mini cartons incorporated a wider colour palette ranging from deep purple through to a variety of pink and orange shades. The all-important numbers that consumers will hunt down every day throughout the festive period were picked out in gold foil alongside a colourful, printed cookie design – each one different from the remaining 24.
The strategic use of gold foil meant that the packaging is recyclable at end-of-life, although, like many Hunter Luxury designs, it is lavished with enough craftsmanship and attention to detail that consumers may want to retain it as a keepsake once the contents are gone. “We were very deliberate in keeping foil usage minimal so the boxes remain recyclable,” says Olivia Moss, Account Manager, NEXT.
In contrast to 25 Days of Beauty Advent’s pink look, The Luxury Beauty Advent leans heavily on inky blues and indigos. While it is printed with an all-over design and features yellow stars finished with spot UV varnish, the front also makes use of gold embossing to add extra visual appeal. “Only the front and back panels are foiled; the sides are left without,” Olivia explains. “Some stars are foiled, and others use spot gloss to maintain visual interest while supporting recyclability.”
The Luxury Beauty Advent is noticeably bigger than 25 Days of Beauty Advent, as it is the premium-priced offering of the pair. This extra size posed a further technical challenge. “The bottom fold area was difficult to get right, especially as the final product became larger and heavier,” she continues. “With customers opening and closing it daily over 25 days, we were concerned about the fold becoming weak. So, we added an additional board piece to the base to reinforce it. It still folds the same way, but now has added durability.”
More than a packaging supplier
The finished products prove that NEXT was right to trust Hunter Luxury with its flagship festive beauty line. “What’s really nice about this project is how clearly it shows our partnership with the client. That’s something that sets us apart. We don’t just act as a supplier. They tell us what they want, and we make it. It’s much more collaborative,” Olivia adds. “We see ourselves as a true partner. We do annual inspiration sessions, and we’re involved in their early ideation and theming. There’s always room for our suggestions, because customers trust our input.
“That trust and collaboration are what make projects like NEXT so rewarding. They’re great examples of what it means to work in real partnership with our clients.”
For Hunter Luxury, that trust is the greatest gift of all – albeit one that is hard-earned, not given. In return, clients get their own invaluable gift – peace of mind and knowledge that their business-critical projects are in the safest of hands.
Caption:
Two spectacular advent calendars – 25 Days of Beauty Advent and The Luxury Beauty Advent – will wow buyers this Christmas