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  • Discover Oil-Resistant Labels That Look Great
  • June 16, 2020

Wash, Reuse & Delight With Oil-Resistant LabelsEO Bandz closeup with bands on bottles

Essential oil fans are delighted, but could their solution apply to your business? Oil, fluids, food, and everyday environments can ruin labels, making it hard for customers to identify your products. But what if there were a better way? Would you want a label that wasn’t affected by oil, could be washed, reused, and looked great time and time again?

The Challenge

This struggle was all too common for essential oil enthusiasts Colleen Anthony and Dina Susich, Co-owners of EO Bandz. What started as a hobby, turned into a successful business filling an essential need. When Colleen began mixing her own essential oil blends, she labeled her bottles with stickers, like many other oil users.

The problem was that the stickers weren’t performing the way she needed. “It was extremely frustrating to spend money on precious oils only to throw the contents away because the stickers fell off,” she explained.

Even more important to Colleen was knowing the contents of her bottles for her family’s safety. “You need to know what’s in your containers for yourself and your kids. I just wanted something that told me what I was giving my daughter.” Colleen’s concerns led her on a search for an oil-resistant labeling method that she could share with other essential oil users.

“It just seemed like a simple solution to have labels that would last.”
—Colleen Anthony, Co-owner of EO Bandz

The Search for a Label

Colleen started by trying to optimize the most popular option for essential oil labels—stickers. She attempted every method from paper covered with packaging tape to custom-printed label sheets, but she kept ending up with the same issues. Labeling with stickers left bottles slippery and prone to smudged writing from the oils. Once the labels became unreadable or came off completely, she had to choose between wasting her carefully crafted oils and the risk of guessing the contents.

Labels that did stay in place still had to be scraped off empty bottles so they could be boiled for the next batch. “You can spend $1.75 for a vinyl sticker that’s printed in cursive, but it’s not reusable,” Colleen explained. “And if you use oils daily, the stickers maybe last a week.”

Bottom line: no solution was cost-effective. Every existing option left Colleen right back at square one, going through costly solutions that didn’t cover all of essential oil users’ needs.

The Fix

Having exhausted all conventional options, Colleen headed to the hardware store where she found something close to what she was looking for. It provided the durability and grip she wanted for her bottles along with being reusable. However, the parts didn’t have the customization options that she really needed to tell her bottles apart.

With their final goal in mind, a simple internet search led partners Colleen and Dina to Aero Rubber’s PromoStretch® Silicone Bands. Despite reaching out to a few companies, Aero Rubber was the only company to return their call. After chatting with a Sales Engineer, they found that Aero’s pricing was competitive and that our product could easily provide customization, a sure grip, and the reusability and durability they wanted for essential oil bottle labels. And there was an added bonus of tons of color choices.

The Benefits

Red paint palette icon Color Variety

EO Bandz essential oil bands with bottles and bag

For the duo, one of the most important things they were looking for with the bands was a wide color range. Aero Rubber’s PromoStretch® bands were able to offer approximate matches for any Pantone color. This allowed Colleen and Dina to take a more intuitive approach to choosing the colors of their bands.

“We think people kind of expect the color to represent the plant,” they said of their strategy. “We just went with what the word feels like.” Thus, peaceful labels like “Harmony” and “Tranquil” took on green tones straight from nature, and labels like “Stronger” and “Love” became vibrant reds. Thanks to the vast color range available in PromoStretch® bands, EO Bandz now has bands in over one hundred colors.

red pen icon  Printing Capabilities

By far, one of the biggest advantages to PromoStretch® bands was their ability to take on a print to differentiate each bottle’s contents beyond just the color. “You can buy plain silicone bands anywhere in the size we would use, but it defeats the purpose if there’s no label on it,” Colleen and Dina explained. “You can buy a bunch of green bands, but there are so many things that can be green that it makes no sense.”

With Aero’s silicone PromoStretch® bands, the silicone can be custom printed with words or images in any Pantone color.  EO Bandz are printed with crisp, clean capital letters in either black or white for a streamlined look. Aero’s ink is specially formulated for silicone and won’t rub off easily, so customers have labeling they can count on for multiple uses.

red recycling symbol icon  Reusability

For EO Bandz, reusability is the main reason for choosing PromoStretch® bands and their customers love it. Colleen and Dina have even taken reusability to the next level, offering customers a way to recycle their old bands through a silicone recycling company free of charge.

red icon of hand holding wrench  Added Durability & Grip

One bonus of the bands was the ease of transport for essential oil bottles. Colleen and Dina noted that most essential oil users carry multiple bottles together in a bag, which can sometimes chip the glass bottles. Using EO Bandz provides a buffer between the bottles so they can be carried more discreetly and safely. The silicone formula also translates into better grip for users, so even bottles that would normally be slippery stay safely in their hands during use.

Thanks to Aero Rubber’s PromoStretch® silicone bands, Colleen and Dina can offer their customers an option that checks all the right boxes—reusability, durability, and a broad range of customized printing and colors. “This makes life simple,” Colleen said of the bands. “It’s one of those things you think should be readily available in the market.” Now essential oil users from all over have access to bands that make holistic living quick, convenient, and affordable.

The Outcome

With their first order, the team launched their new business EO Bandz. They were hopeful the new bands would fill a need, but sales quickly rose above their expectations. When Colleen and Dina officially began selling, they sold one-quarter of their inventory in a six-month span without even a website.

Since launching their online business in the fall of 2019, Colleen and Dina have kept up the good momentum, selling the bands in the US, Canada, Australia, and Europe. “Our general orders are fairly steady and we’re looking to expand,” the partners elaborated.

The feedback so far has been extremely positive, but their favorite feedback came from the parents of special needs children. The parents praised EO Bandz’s wide color scheme and the silicone design’s superior grip as ideal for their children’s use. “They want to give them a responsibility to go get their oils and use them on their own,” Colleen explained. Knowing that their bands made a difference in the lives of these families “was really nice to see.”

Colleen and Dina are extremely proud of the work they’ve done. Their goal with EO Bandz is to be the go-to label option for all essential oil users. Whatever their next venture, we at Aero Rubber look forward to remaining a part of their journey.