HELENA-REET ENNET

Helena-Reet: Elisheva & Shoshana product design – producing soap, labels, recipes

September 29, 2018

NordenBladet – The entire last week I have been actively involved in the product design of our cosmetics brand Elisheva & Shoshana – I have been furnishing the website (ElishevaShoshana.com), producing soap and designing the etiquettes, also I have been concluding the documents so that everything would be in line with the National Health Board and the requirements of the European Union. There has been quite a lot of work and engagement with it.

I am rather glad that we live in the countryside – unpolluted nature and clean environment is something that can be valued more and more in the hasty lives that we lead. Also in the process of brand design I aim to bring country life and the power of unpolluted nature closer to people. The more we connect to nature the more there is happiness and contentment in our mind. Every single article of soap, shampoo and bath foam that has been produced from pure ingredients, contributes to this welfare-chain. The healthier and more natural our choices, the more our bodies and minds thrive.

The process of preparing splendid soap is time-consuming. Already in springtime we were growing, gathering and collecting from our own home fields as well as from the clean forests of Estonia herbs, leaves, roots, stems, inflorescences, we dried them for herbal tea as well as for the ingredients of cosmetics – as natural dye and fragrance ingredients. Most of the ingredients that go in our soap can hit our mouths – I have been trying to work on the recipes with our pharmacists taking into account that whenever a cosmetics or treatment product can be dyed, decorated, scented naturally than that is how we will perform it. The smell of coffee or the creamy mocha shade stems from coffee, the yellow tone comes from the native dandelions, etc. Every product is handmade – prepared carefully one after another with own hands, machinery is not involved in the production and naturally we do not test our products on animals. Currently we have refined three magnificent recipes for soap and three wonderful bath salts – product design process proceeds with shower gels, shampoos and body lotions. Besides developing the recipes, testing and preparing the products one must consider that soap must still ripen after preparation in order to attain the optimal pH level and to give best results upon use. Therefore, molded today, lain to dry tomorrow, the soap matures to be packed and consumed during the period of two months.

A significant proportion of the production process comprises the look – for years we have had and used the logo, yet the labels for bottles, jars, boxes are still undergoing styling and this actually is an important part of the working process – I do want everything to look just stunning and to represent our products just as they deserve to be represented. Thus a lot of weight lies in the right packaging and wrapping, the right design. I would wish to use in packaging only the materials that can be recycled – cardboard, PET, etc. Yesterday I have designed the etiquette samples for Coffee-Argan oil soap… what is your opinion on what is the best solution – what should be added/ lost/ modified? 🙂 I fully design the packaging myself (I am quite so excited about the process!!), then I send the samples to the artist and further to print. All of you who have good ideas on what-how could be done in a cool way, what packaging you would like and in what kind of wrapping of the products would urge you to purchase them — drop me a line! For all the good ideas or hints that find a way into our product design the authors of the ides will receive a prize of beautiful and valuable SPA-set gift!