THAT ROCKS

Minimalist, stone-inspired packaging is beauty’s new obsession, says Zoe Walker Ahwa.

For years the beauty space has been obsessed with all things marble and terrazzo, a reflection of the wider trend that permeated interiors, accessories and more – from marble print notebooks to terrazzo pots. If you were on Instagram or Pinterest over the past three years, you will have seen countless images of beautifully curated beauty products and selfies against a backdrop of marble or terrazzo. But there’s a new stone in town that’s grey-tinged and minimalist, drawing inspiration from raw rock formations and concrete slabs – and turning them into covetable beauty items.

A colleague called it “Flintstones chic”, and while these bottles are less cartoonish, there are certainly echoes of the family’s home with its organic architecture. These are products designed to speak to discrete luxury, and the industry’s move to “clean” beauty.

Kim Kardashian’s skincare line is the most high-profile example. The packaging for SKKN was designed by influential studio Perron-Roettinger with geometric shapes and colours that drew on the texture of stone, clay and sand. In the campaign, Kardashian is sprawled across slabs of concrete (the brand’s refillable but not really refillable packaging has been criticised as greenwashing).

“We like how it feels to hold a ceramic mug, and the natural colour of a clay pot, and what it feels like to run your hand through sand and all the different shades and textures of a limestone quarry,” Brian Roettinger explained to design website It’s Nice That.

New Zealand-based beauty brand Raaie, which launched in May before Kardashian’s line, features two core products packaged in beautiful off-white circular bottles: a Yellow Moonbeam Retinal Elixir and Morning Dew Vitamin C Serum in what feel like smooth pebbles found riverside. The brand’s founder Katey Mandy says the idea was to create something clean, minimal and complementary to any decor. “The design is inspired by pebbles and organic shapes that represent the earth from which our ingredients are derived,” she says.

CurioNoir has also embraced earthy packaging since its beginnings, with its candles packaged in handmade vessels using uku (clay) sourced from Waiheke Island and the South Island – akin to sculptural works of art.

While (genuinely) refillable and recyclable packaging is the most important shift in beauty aesthetics – and one that will only grow – this stone “trend” is a trickle down effect of that sustainable and “clean beauty” focus. There are other nature-inspired microtrends feeding into this too: Pinterest Predicts 2022 listed “Hellenistic revival” as a buzzword, taking inspiration from Ancient Greece with a rise in searches for Greek statue art and Corinthian columns, while Gen Z’s obsession with crystals has yet to reach fever pitch.