Celebrity hair stylist Mitch Stone has lived for more than 25 years in Malibu, California, where he styles the hair of film stars and celebrities both on and off screen and has been part of an Academy Award-winning styling team. When he introduced his own brand of Mitch Stone Essentials professional styling products to the salon marketplace in 2012, he paid homage to the area he loves by decorating the packaging in what he calls “Malibu Sunset” –– an eye-catching rich red that blends smoothly into gold on the package surface.

On the aluminum cans of his collection’s Session Spray, Set in Stone Spray and Texture Spray, the image’s transition from red into gold is intended to be subtle and truly evocative of a California sunset. But when 456-Lustre Shampoo and 457-Lustre Conditioner were added to the line in the spring of 2013, replicating that subtle yet dynamic brand image on plastic tubes presented a challenge.

“Traditional silk screening on a plastic tube couldn’t capture the subtle changes within the image,” says Chris Pelt, CEO of Mitchell Stone Essentials. “So we sent TricorBraun on a mission to find a tube solution with a substrate that would allow Malibu Sunset to truly shine.”

TricorBraun selected Polyfoil tubes from Plastube. Polyfoil is an inner-seamed, over-extruded high-barrier tube that includes an aluminum substrate, providing the attractiveness of a seamless tube with a stiffness and a metallic surface showing through a natural polyethylene surface layer that allow the brand image to be offset printed to match the can image. 

“This was not an inexpensive choice,” says Pelt, “but a premium brand requires a premium brand image. The unique look that Malibu Sunset gives to the package had to shine.”

Mitch Stone 456-Lustre Shampoo and 457-Lustre Conditioner (the numbers are taken from the telephone prefixes for the Malibu area –– further homage to Malibu) are healthy hair products, according to the company. The shampoo is free of Paraben and sulphate and is color safe; the conditioner contains the protein keratin. Both also contain VcompS, a tropical cocktail of vitamins, minerals and papaya developed by Stone over his years of styling the hair of actors subjected to long hours under hot, drying lights.

The new Mitch Stone hair care products were introduced to the salon market in the fall of 2013, and Pelt reports that both the products and packaging have been well received by salon stylists across the country.