Client: Sophisticated Rebel
Assignment: Build a machine that can refill Forever Lipstick Blades. Since these machines will be in retail stores they should be durable and simple to use. The design should be sexy and exciting.
Challenges: Creating a durable device for a store environment that was sexy enough to draw a crowd and also make it cheap enough to be produced in large quanities.
The Sophisticated Rebel Forever Blade is a refillable lipstick applicator. It uses a small cartridge that is filled with premium lipstick product. I had done a few versions of this filler before so I had the mechanical aspects worked out pretty well. Those units I machined on a small manual mill and cutting any kind of smooth curve was a total pain in the butt.
I knew I needed a computer controlled mill and so I built a CNC machine of my design – called it the Mean Green CNC cause I loved that Lime Green I was seeing everywhere.
Now that I had the CNC, I needed to learn how to use it – really break it and me in, so I used this filler as the guinea pig. I’ve always said that you can’t really learn to use a new tool unless you have a real tough project to use it on. So I decided to make it really tough and threw out every straight line in the old design. I think you can see I went nuts with the curves. My first batch was 5 units for the Scottsdale Arizona area.
Naturally the red one was the crowd favorite.
