Albéa pumps up Reload project to meet market demand
It helps to meet the growing demand for sample-size packaging, once used as a way to entice consumers, but has now become a beauty offering segment of its own.
In Euromonitor’s Annual Survey on Personal Appearances, free samples was the fourth biggest influencer for purchasing beauty products across all four biggest beauty categories.
This has been driven by travel restrictions on beauty packaging sizes and consumer desire to continually try new products, making competition fierce.
Particularly with the holiday season fast approaching and the emergence of promotions such as beauty advent calendars, the Reload project is a new design concept for samples, travel size products, and other refillable perfume products.
The main advantages of the Reload product is that it is refillable, allowing for the portability of fragrance by using a refillable flask compatible with all vials; it offers the opportunity for fragrance brands to tap into the lucrative samples market; and it can be personalized by the use of customized interchangeable cases.
First of its kind
Made in France, Albéa claims it is the first mini-spray in the world to operate with a patented refill system for a quality experience.
Arcade Beauty, which is a leader in samples and travel size products filling, lent its expertise to help on project coordination and filling, while Axilone contributed on injection and on the flask cover. Flacopharm also helped on the 5 ml silk-screened vial.
Albéa’s contribution was the pump SP5K, which offers spray quality ‘creating an unforgettable sensory experience that will foster consumer loyalty.’
Launched in 1999, the SP5K was the first neutral, miniaturized pump, providing the protection and neutrality required for delicate formulas thanks to its glass ball and to the lack of contact between the fragrance and any metal parts.
According to Albéa figures, in the last 15 years, over 3 billion of these pumps have been sold, and it has already produced more than 10 billion samples at its Tréport site in Normandy, France, which is the company’s global centre of excellence in samples and travel size products.
