From his early days interning at a major beauty company, Andy Rah has been passionate about hair care and over the years, he’s launched numerous major brands and product lines. At home, Rah indulges in cooking: creating meals for family and friends and tinkering with recipes.

When the time came for Rah to launch his own business, the food-themed beauty product trend was exploding, and it seemed only natural to marry these two passions. Sauce Beauty was born.

TricorBraun Serves Up a Stand-Out Package Design for Sauce Beauty, Bringing the Customer’s Vision to Life and Getting the Product to Market Quickly

Understanding the importance of packaging to a product’s success, and serving up his innovative line of haircare products inspired by iconic recipes from kitchens around the globe, Rah turned to packaging leader TricorBraun for custom-designed bottles. He had previously partnered with TricorBraun when working for other beauty companies and knew that not only could its designers and engineers bring his vision to life in a way that excited retailers, but also get it to market quickly.

The right packaging would also provide an imaginative way to draw attention to Rah’s “accessible luxury” products, selling for about $9.99, as opposed to the more expensive, high-end products he used to market through salon and prestige retail channels.

“It’s not like when I was at major beauty companies where you can launch a new brand and put $20 million of advertising behind it,” said Rah. “I really needed packaging that speaks to the consumer and makes her want to pick it up to see what it’s all about.”

Cooking Up Perfect Packaging

TricorBraun’s Design & Engineering team collaborated with Rah to cook up the perfect packaging for Sauce’s distinctive products. While Rah had a specific vision for the image he wanted his new brand to project, he also recognized the value of allowing the design team the freedom to flex its creative muscle.

Meeting with the TricorBraun team, Rah laid out the Sauce Beauty concept, then shared his desire that the packaging “look like something you would find in the grocery store.” Specifically, he envisioned something reminiscent of high-end olive oil or salad dressing bottles.

Industrial Designer Chelsea Baird began brainstorming ideas, building a story around each, and presented them to Rah. One particular design grabbed Rah’s attention: a vintage milk bottle-inspired look with a triangular profile.

The bottle design appealed to him because it immediately transported Rah to a grocery store aisle while providing the right style to go along with such lively product names such as Island Marinade, Creamy House Dressing, Chimichurri Mint Tingle and Tzatziki Taming Spray. The labeling was also key to sharing information about ingredients such as avocado, mint and jarrah honey, which do more than entice consumers with yummy-sounding names; these ingredients are also proven to nourish hair.

What’s more, the triangular profile allowed space for a large embossing of the Sauce name on one side. “High-end food and wine bottles have embossed logos, which makes them very recognizable and custom,” said Rah. “I wanted that same level of quality and customization.”

The design also appealed to Rah on a practical level because he believed the unique bottle shape would make the products “jump off the shelf” and into consumers’ shopping baskets.

With Rah’s approval, Baird collaborated with Product Design Engineer Jay Lee, who worked to ensure the bottle was manufacturable and adjusted the design to optimize filling and labeling efficiencies.

“Sometimes, the aesthetic of the package design requires major modifications for manufacturability during the engineering phase.” said Lee. “This time, we were able to keep the aesthetics as close as possible, which pleased the customer and allowed for a quick turnaround.”

One item in the Sauce Beauty line – the Guacamole Whip deep moisture mask – required a completely different type of packaging, simply because consumers need to dip their fingers in the product. The TricorBraun team identified a stock jar that met Rah’s expectations.

A Positive Reception

Since the original eight Sauce Beauty products launched in late 2018, there has been an overwhelmingly positive reception from consumers and the beauty industry alike. Rah’s products are now available through Sally Beauty, Amazon and SauceBeauty.com. Soon, Sauce Beauty will be available on The Army and Air Force Exchange Services (AAFES) online, Naturallycurly.com and UrbanOutfitters.com, and Rah is also in discussions to expand distribution to big box retailers and grocery stores. In late 2019, Sauce will launch in Asia, making its debut on the international stage.

Other 2019 plans include a full clean and accessible skincare line, targeted to millennial's. Rah has already started working with the TricorBraun team on packaging.

Meanwhile, Rah is back in the kitchen, developing a new multicultural curl line and experimenting with lip balms. Rah expects to adopt the same high-end, food-inspired approach to packaging that has helped garnered so much attention for the initial launch.

“In a mass retail setting where you don’t have a beauty consultant to sell you on something, packaging is what draws consumers in,” said Rah. “The TricorBraun team has been a wonderful resource by taking my ideas and quickly bringing them to life through custom packaging.”