PURPLE BLAB

Last I left you, I found the lab. That was the first hurdle (believe, there were plenty more to come…).Here’s how the process works:

1. You tell a chemist/lab about your “product profile,” what you want your claims to be, how you want to market the product, what it should feel like, what you don’t want it to be like (i.e. no parabens!), etc. The more details the better.

2. They send back a “paper formula,” which is a list of ingredients and actives that they feel would fit the bill. We discuss ingredients, blah blah blah.

3. They send a sample. I give feedback – it’s not thick enough, the color doesn’t “pay off” (industry jargon for “show up/stay on”) enough… etc.

4. They send new sample based on feedback until approved.
For that, there is usually a fee – a few thousand dollars, which will be put towards the eventual order of the full run.

In the beginning, doing this didn’t seem like it would be so expensive.

That was until I heard about minimum orders!

Will go there later.

The next step: Testing. Many kinds of testing.

1. R.I.P.T. test (repeat insult panel test, which is basically putting product on a panel of skin/body part the product is for repeatedly to make sure it does not irritate). That one is a few thousand dollars (forgot the exact amount right now).

2. If you want to make claims – say the product does something by a certain percent – you have to do clinicals, which are essentially scientific studies that prove the claims you’re making. They can be costly. Very costly. Too costly for Purple Lab’s blood at this time.

3. Stability. This tests how stable the formula is – and it involves using heat and simulating time so you can see if and how the formula would hold up over months, years, etc.

4. Compatibility. You have to make sure the formula works with the component it goes in (a component is the beauty biz term for whatever holds the formula – a squeezie tube, a jar, a container, etc.).

To do compatibility, you have to know what you’re putting the gloss in.

Yikes! I had no idea.

I knew that I wanted it to convey luxury and feel special in your hand. I didn’t know that there was a world of millions of components to choose from – and how I’d navigate it. Did you know that there are consultants whose sole job is to find components for beauty products for people? I didn’t. But I sure did meet a few. While it is great to have someone out there doing your dirty work, I didn’t have the budget to put one on retainer. I needed to fly solo.

More frantic calls.

What I found out is that components tend to come from China – they’re typically sent by boat, which takes 12 weeks by the time all is said and done. 12 weeks! There are two kinds of componentry: stock, which is what manufacturers have existing molds for and tons or brands use; custom, which requires building a mold which gets costly. Granted, you can amortize the cost of a mold over time and it’s not bad if you’re producing hundreds of thousands of pieces, but in a case like mine – new, small business on a tight financial diet – custom was out of the question.

Very sad. Because you know I wanted to do something custom and crazy! Hopefully we can do so in the future…

I was given the name of one of the largest manufacturers in the business through one of the component consultants I met who was nice enough to share her source. They sent me a handful of components to look at. I didn’t really like most of them – they all looked kind of cheap. (This part is free, FYI.)

The company sent me another set of components, these more upscale. What I learned I like is called “double wall,” components, which is when there is an inner cavity floating in the main component. It has such a clean, modern feel. The one that spoke to me the most was very similar to others I’ve seen out there in the luxury market – Lip Fusion comes to mind. It felt heavy, sturdy in the hand, like you’re actually getting something significant.

Meanwhile, the lab had sent me the sample and it only took three back and forths to nail it. By the time it was done, I was in love and obsessed with the formula. I had a few in little jars that I wore religiously, as did my mom and two friends who swiped them from my bag!

I sent the lab the sample component to do their battery of tests, which typically run for about three months.

If you’re doing the math here, this means we’re at 6 months before the product is even remotely ready to go. But there are always a million other delays, all of which I experienced! Get to those later.

After three months, we passed all tests and I was ready to order the components.

Enter “minimums,” which are minimum orders. It costs the factories tons of dough to run their machinery so they won’t even turn them on unless you’re buying at least 5,000 of each color. Minimums are usually 5,000 per color. I wanted six colors. So I suddenly found myself ordering 30,000 pieces – and writing a check for over $20,000

Where is that trust fund when you need it?

The scary thing is, I’m not in China to oversee the process, to make sure it’s all groovy. So I’m paying for these things and can’t see them to approve as they come off the factory line, though these companies have reps there and they assure me they have serious quality control.

In China, they also decorate the component.

OMG!

I didn’t even think of that part yet. I had to have a design on them, the brand.

Hold everything!

I needed a logo, a color scheme (it had to be purple, my favorite color, but which pantone shade exactly, I didn’t know), and… um… a trademark on the name, something I didn’t do until my eagle-eye lawyer of a brother, Jason, asked me about it.

J went to law school (Emory in case you’re wondering) with a guy named Danny who is now an IP attorney (IP = intellectual property) in D.C. Just the guy we needed. He works for a prestigious white hankie law firm (i.e. Disney is their client). They’re a fortune per hour. But J assures me he’s the best and it’s worth every dime – God forbid we make something and get sued or have to recall it later.

$500/hour and too many hours to count later, we got a green light to use the name “Huge Lips Skinny Hips.” Phew! But the original brand name I wanted to use was unavailable. I had my eyes on the moniker, SKINNY, and my thought was to give “the skinny,” some kind of insider tip for something relevant on each product.

Couldn’t get the name – someone owned it.

Back to the drawing board.

Name 2 I tried? Taken.

Name 3? Taken.

Name 4? Taken.

I hated my lawyer! I felt like every time he called with news about why I couldn’t use a certain name, he was trying to hurt me.

It took me two months to conjure the right – and available – name, not to mention about 10k in legal fees. Ouch! I combed through French, Italian, and Sanskrit dictionaries (always love a foreign word). I read the thesaurus as if it were the bible. I was making up words, all of which were taken, taken, taken. TAKEN!

Frustrated beyond belief, I contemplated a leap off my roofdeck.

The thing about challenges like this – they push you to a point that is even better than where you started.

And that point was coming…

I was talking to a very creative artist friend about the brand name issue. He was asking me crazy questions like the name of my invisible friend when I was child, the street I live on, mom’s maiden name (ironically, it’s Moss, as in Kate!). It came up that I used to sleep with a stuffed hippo when I was a kid – and he said, kind of flippantly, “what if you did something out there and kooky like ‘Hippo Lab.’ It doesn’t mean anything but it gets people talking.’”

Hippo Lab?

Wasn’t feeling it.

He started drawing logos of very cute hippos though.

“Um. I don’t know,” I said. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings – he was spending hours helping. “What if we colored the hippo purple.”

PURPLE!

I love purple. I love everything about the color – the energy it has. It’s sexy. It’s chic. It’s glam. It’s fun. Exactly how I see this brand.

“Purple Lab,” I yelled. “Purple Lab!”

When I was in college, I was pre-med and en route to med school. When I decided to come to New York, the joke in my family was that I changed my “lab coat” for my “fab coat” (I may have mentioned this already). Purple Lab made total sense.

I prayed to the trademark gods that it be free!

And it was!

***

Now all I needed was a logo and design.

My friend JD owns the most amazing creative design shop called Calliope Studios. He’s done branding work and website design for Nars, John Varvatos, Kirna Zabete (my personal fashion Mecca – a.k.a. the drug den), amongst others. He also owns Yoya and Yoya Mart, the best baby stores you will ever see and the only place I buy baby gifts for friends. He is so inspiring.

His eye is slick, cool, sexy, and sharp. He totally gets my vibe and I knew he would be the best person to hire for our branding, website, collateral, everything…

But the man does not come cheap.

I went to his office with cupcakes and 6 years of friendship to back up my plight – please help me and don’t really charge me anything because I don’t have much money and I’m trying to make it big and when I do, you will be repaid!

That got me a little bit of love…

He gave me some time on the weekends and we went to town.

I showed him the things and sites that inspire me – Colette in Paris, Dita von Teese, Kate Moss, the artist Anselm Reyle (his purple foil piece sleighs me… FYI, it’s 600k!), the purple Nina Ricci dress Reese Witherspoon wore to the Oscars post-divorce. We poured through font books to see what stood out. A few days later, he came back with this:

OUR LOGO!

And…

OUR LIPGLOSS!

I was so in love, I actually printed the image, shrunk it and laminated it so I could carry it in my wallet!

The design went to the manufacturer so we could see a comp.
New trouble began.

The manufacturer went completely AWOL!

I mean, the business was still around but my contact stopped returning calls and emails. WTF!?!?!?!

That roofdeck leap was looking pretty good again!

My lab, meanwhile, kept asking me about the timing on things. Note: they wouldn’t really make any money until I placed a full order and I couldn’t place a full order until I had components coming. See the dilemma?

They referred me to another manufacturer, a very established and well known company based in New Jersey, home of many a lab and beauty manufacturers (not to mention the glamorous state in which I grew up). This company… I’ll call them X (no names right now – you’ll see why later… it didn’t turn out to be the best experience)… was able to manufacture the exact same component that I wanted.

Before I placed the order, they sent a comp with our “deco design” (that is the graphic on the component). It took a few weeks for it to arrive (remember, it was coming from China). In that time, I focused on packaging with JD.

Meanwhile, back to packaging. My main goal was to have a box that stood out, something that would pop in a sea of products. JD sketched an hourglass shaped number and came up with the idea of the gradient purple (like that Reese Witherspoon dress I was obsessed with). LOVE! But is it possible?

He fiddled and played and actually came up with a way to make it work.

Just needed to find a printer who could bring it to life on a large scale. Easier said than done. JD saw the panic on my face (I was like… ugh, back to frantic calls!). He promised he’d find someone to come to the rescue. “It just has to be affordable,” I warned. I have a habit of making things more expensive than they have to be! That’s another story – ask my accountant. Better yet, don’t!

JD wound up scoring me a guy who could whip up our box – a bit more than we were hoping for. Boxes in the beauty world tend to be around $0.10 to about $0.50 – we were a few dollars. The impression it makes was worth it to me – I would rather make less money and put something out there that gives women a fabulous emotional experience. I decided to go for it. Had to keep true to my “cut through the clutter” mantra.

Come back soon for the rest of the tale… there’s A LOT more! I’m talking creating colors, PR, marketing, getting retailers to sell it… and a little thing called money and the fact that we needed to raise some!

Chat soon!

Mwah!

Karen

Purple Lab Creatrix

Tags: Appetite Suppressant, Beauty, Cosmetics, Hoodia, huge lips skinny hips, Lip Plumper, Makeup, Purple Lab

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 2:56 am and is filed under Purple Lab Behind the Scenes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.