Shu Uemura

Shu Uemura

Worldwide

Brilliant colors reveal themselves in the world’s first totally clear lipstick case. Product design for Japan’s makeup master, Shu Uemura.

Tsao & McKown presented four concepts for lipstick covers to the Shu Uemura creative team. Each was meant to explore and reinterpret what a lipstick cover could be, beyond the constraints of typical appearance and formal function.

Bubbles: Formed in cast glass or acrylic with bubbles captured in it. Allows for transparency and the use of a smooth dynamic material with texture, shape and light.

Crystals: Rendered in a textured skin of embedded crystals, evoking a very distinctive materiality that lends itself to the sensation of touch while drawing attention to its sparkling composition.

Rubberized Fiber: Combines grip with soft translucency, allowing the lipstick to be seen through a web of threads. Allows for randomized compositions and multiple options for being rendered in color.

Organic Metal: Cast in polished metal, rendered with the ergonomic and aesthetic attributes of an organic form contoured for gripping, opening, twisting.