How to Label Aromatherapy Products for Success
By Kayla Fioravanti and Haleigh Fioravanti 

Raise your hand if you ever made a bad labeling decision. For those who cannot see me (Kayla), my hand is raised high. Oh boy, have I made some bad labeling decisions over the years! Some of those mistakes were from skimping on costs and other times from not speaking up when it just didn’t seem right. 

Back in 1998, when I first entered this industry, there were not the same kind of affordable options as today–especially on the waterproof and water-resistant front. Back then, you could find me carefully cutting a piece of packing tape over an inkjet printer label to “waterproof” it. This is a hack that I don’t suggest trying! As brands, our labels reflect our company, and they should invite your target customer to pick up the product. 

The impression that your packaging and labels make can make the difference between a new customer buying your product and not. Consumers make the decision to pick up your product based on appearance. You can have an amazing product, but if your label is lacking in the design department, you will probably miss out on that sale. Once a potential customer picks up your product, they will first read the label, and then smell the product if they like what they read. As aromatherapists, we want to lead the customer to the sniff test! Generally, the sniff test leads to a purchase.  

Luckily today you have so many choices that there is no excuse not to have a professional appearance. 

Label Design Options

• Before going to a professional designer, I highly recommend visiting Pinterest online and creating a brand board for your company. Get some inspiration and figure out what you like and what you don’t like. Hone in on your vision with Pinterest!
• Hire a professional graphic designer! I know that this can be expensive, but it will be worth it in the end once you have the logo and branding of your dreams. Share your Pinterest brand board with the designer so they have an idea of exactly what you are envisioning.
• If you just can’t afford a graphic designer right now, Canva is a wonderful online design program that offers on-trend templates and even a free logo maker! You can probably start out with the free version of this program online to fulfil your initial branding needs. Visit Canva for further information.
• If you are looking for something in-between doing it yourself on Canva and a professional designer head on over to Fiverr where you can find freelance designers for a variety of different budgets–even for those on a bootstrap budget. 

Printing Labels on a Budget
When we started Ology Essentials, we used Online Labels to design and print our labels. They offer the easiest, most efficient, and most cost-effective way to design labels for printing labels at home. Online Labels offers a variety of materials, and they offer both blank sheets and label rolls depending on the type of printer that you are using.

Small Run Print Label Companies 
If you don’t want to deal with printing your own labels, there are plenty of professional label companies out there. Below are a few that we have used that we like working with: 

• Lightning Labels 
• Sticker Mule
• Also, investigate a local printing company.

My company, Ology Essentials Labs, also offers in-house printing for our private label customers. This allows our customers the ability to use us as their one-stop-shop for everything! And it is especially convenient since our minimum order quantity is fifty units per Stock Keeping Unit (SKU). Even small-run print shops have a 250 minimum order quantity (MOQ). Early on, we made the decision to invest in a professional label printer because we understood exactly how important quality labels are for a brand. 

Big Picture Tips 
When you sit down to Pinterest, Canva, or with your graphic designer, you should really know who your target audience is. And by knowing your audience, I don’t mean have a general vague idea or overly broad target, I mean define them narrowly and know them intimately. You can’t come up with branding colors and an overall feel if your target audience is “women between the ages of twenty and seventy years of age.” You need to name her and get to know her. Here are some questions to think about:

• Does she wear makeup, dye her hair, or is she all-natural?
•  Does she like matte textures or glitter and glam?
• Does she shop at Whole Foods or Walmart for her groceries?
• Go to the store that she would shop at and look at the shelves. How do the products look that are on those shelves? Would your product fit in?

Don’t Make These Major Mistakes That I’ve Made: 

• Design a full color logo using every color out there. This makes it too expensive to have labels professionally printed. 
• Design and print shiny metallic labels on purple bottles for an ultra-natural skincare line.
• Skimp on graphic design. 
• Make the label font too small or unreadable.
• Not knowing the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) label laws (for the United States. Check out different country labeling requirements as well).

Food and Drug Administration Labeling Requirements (United States)
If you are unfamiliar with the rules surrounding labeling aromatherapy products in the United States, check out the full guidelines here:

• Overview of Aromatherapy
• Labeling Guidelines

Your company’s potential can be greatly stunted if you don’t define your target audience in detail and then design your brand to speak directly to that audience. You could end up at Natural Products Expo East trying to sell organically preserved luxurious skincare products in purple bottles with shiny metallic labels to the Whole Foods buyers. The buyers will tell you that your product would not work on their shelves unless you redesign. Ask me how I know! In short, not taking the time to get to know your target audience can be an expensive mistake. 

In the end, remember that your label is what speaks for you to the customer. When your product is on a store shelf it must project an impression that inspires your target customer to reach for it. Make it a siren song with colors, textures, and your logo. Now go out there and create some great labels for your brand!

About Kayla Fioravanti: 
Kayla Fioravanti is the co-founder of Ology Essentials and Ology Essential Labs. She is an award-winning author, certified aromatherapist and cosmetic formulator. She is the author of The Art, Science and Business of Aromatherapy and the co-author of the Amazon #1 New Release, The Unspoken Truth About Essential Oils. To learn more about Kayla, visit her website at: www.ologyessentials.com/ and www.ologyessentialslabs.com 

 About Haleigh Fioravanti:
Haleigh is a true Nashville Native—a unicorn as some would say. You can always find Haleigh bouncing from passion to passion, wholeheartedly diving into a subject and then moving on to the next (a true Aries at heart). Her background is in cultural anthropology and filmmaking, but she’s also found passion in health and sustainability. In fact, her interest in hemp was originally for its sustainability promises, but CBD came on the scene, and she hasn’t looked back! Haleigh is a co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at: www.ologyessentials.com/ and www.ologyessentialslabs.com