Perfect Packaging

I’ve been meaning to write about packaging for a while now and seeing as we are so close to Christmas, it actually seems a more apt time than any other bearing in mind the abundance of packaging that we are all no doubt about to receive!

I have a confession to make, I am a packaging addict! I love beautifully crafted, elegant boxes, tissue paper, bespoke bags and coordinating ribbon, and having spent so much time over the last year or so researching packaging, I know good box when I see one and I can estimate its cost (even allowing for huge volumes of scale). And it’s this cost, in terms of hard currency, the human labour and welfare and the carbon footprint elements that bother me. Lubylu packaging is designed to be functional, a little bit elegant and stylish but most of all, not ‘resentful’. Let me explain what I mean….

On Christmas morning (or any other special occasion) you receive a beautifully wrapped gift. You see it there in a well constructed, elegantly printed paper carrier bag with a hand tied grosgrain bow on it. You know from that instant that it’s special, the quality of the packaging tells you so. The tissue paper at the top of the bag is nice and thick and a bespoke colour to the store in which the gift was purchased and wrapped. You gently remove the bow, making sure not to damage the ribbon so you can keep it for later, it might come in useful, the same for the tissue paper – carefully remove this, flatten it out and then fold it neatly. Next you spy the box, it’s one of those luxurious hardboard, two piece boxes in total affirmation that the gift inside and indeed you, are so very special. At this point the gift can be pretty much anything as the wrapping and packaging are so elegant and amazing that who actually needs a gift? You gently remove the box from the bag and again, in case it might come in useful later, you carefully refold the bag flat so it can be stored away for future use.

Finally you get to the gift! You open the box, more high quality, thick tissue paper envelopes a stunning and thoughtful gift inside. Whether it’s cosmetics, underwear, jewellery, perfume or toothpaste, the next stages of the packaging giving process are crucial to defining ‘resentful packaging’. After all the thank you’s have been completed you can relax in the knowledge that not only have you received a wonderful gift but you are now the proud owner of some lovely ribbon, some gorgeous tissue paper, a new high quality and therefore aspirational gift bag and the holy grail of gift wrapping, a two piece lidded box in hardboard constructed in such a way that it will probably out survive your plastic storage boxes in terms of useful longevity. With all this in mind you go to put away your newly acquired wrapping and packaging items amongst your current ‘stash’, don’t try and pretend that there isn’t an existing collection of paper bags, tissue paper, boxes and ribbon because we all know there is. There may even be some old wrapping paper in there that has been flattened out because it was ‘too nice to just throw away’.

That’s when it hits you, you realise that you already have a whole load of wrapping and packaging items that you have previously held onto because they were ‘too nice to just throw away’ so you stored them. Some of them have proved ‘too nice to use’ so they will remain in the hoard of bags, boxes and ribbon forever unless you find an alternative use for them… I know, you could use the box to store your makeup in in your drawer, then you realise you already have one of those from the last cosmetic gift set you received so you think again. Maybe my daughter needs a box to keep hair bobbles and clips in to help keep things tidy (this is actually my thought train here), nope, she already has one from the other time a beautiful two piece box was received and here comes the final blow, you don’t need the box, you can’t store any more boxes, you have no need for any more boxes so logic dictates that you should throw it into the recycling. You don’t want to do that because it’s ‘too nice’ and so, you resent having to throw it away. This is resentful packaging!

You want it, you love it, it’s beautiful but it’s just too nice to throw away yet there is only so much you can store so you must throw it away thus causing resentment. Lubylu packaging is designed to eliminate this dilemma by being functional and elegant yet not so nice that you mind popping it in the recycling. My boxes for the candles and reed diffusers can be either recycled or folded flat and whilst they protect your product, they are not so thick and highly engineered that you feel the need to save them.

I still love packaging and if storage were no issue I think I’d have warehouses full of pretty, shiny boxes, bags and ribbons but that’s simply not possible, hence the time and effort that has gone into the very deliberate design and creation on Lubylu’s ‘non resentful packaging’!

Enjoy your festivities and I hope you find a use for all the pretty boxes…