Below60
Launching an elevated home fragrance brand with clean ingredients from ground up.
Below60 is a Los Angeles–based home fragrance brand dedicated to elevating everyday experiences in our most sacred spaces through all-natural essential oils and ingredients. Founded by serial entrepreneur Brian Lee—co-founder of The Honest Company—and represented by Hilary Duff, Below60 officially launched in Winter 2023. The brand and product line were the result of a two-year collaboration, thoughtfully built from the ground up to deliver purity, intention, and sensory impact.
Design a new elevated fragrance brand for homes from ground up.
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Plug-in fragrance device
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Cohesive brand visual identity across customer touch points
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Package design
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Online store customer flow and UX
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Below60 successfully launched in 2023 winter and is profitable.
Brian, Jeff, Mark, Pete, Hilary, Thomas, Karina, Chris and many more.
Winter 2023
Through a series of design programs and sprints, we built a cohesive design system for Below60, with Hilary Duff serving as its face and inspiration.
Programs
Over the course of a year, we designed Below60’s first plug-in fragrance diffuser—from defining the market and target consumers to establishing the design direction and prioritizing key features. The work culminated in a collaboration with an Italian diffuser manufacturer, leading industrial design to ensure our insights carried through to the final product and production.
For an online-first fragrance brand, we developed a naming strategy that helps consumers connect with Below60’s scents before even smelling them. The work also clarified the nuances of “all natural,” ensuring the brand communicates its use of clean, natural ingredients with authenticity and clarity.
In a six-week design sprint, we built Below60’s visual brand system. Guided by the founding team’s clear vision, we created the logo system, typeface, imagery, and implementation guidelines to ensure consistency across production and partners.
We designed a cohesive system for packing, shipping, and presenting Below60 products—tailored for an online-first brand and a thoughtful unboxing experience. The packaging extended the visual brand language while reducing SKUs, allowing flexibility for future variations. This work also revealed the need for a starter kit to help new consumers discover the brand through online channels.
Plug in fragrance diffuser industrial design
A physical design language that blends in with the rest of the house and is genre-appropriate. We needed to ensure it is easy to control scent-intensity and effortlessly replace refill cartridges.
User Insights—To learn about the people we were designing for, we spoke with 15 fragrance enthusiasts and experts, including those from Le Labo.
To understand our users and market, we conducted two rounds of interviews with 15 fragrance enthusiasts. Through 60-minute sessions, we explored how they manage scents at home, their reactions to early concepts, and which ideas they felt were worth developing further.
Insight 1
People are mindful of how the device looks and would blend in with the rest of their home—It is more about how it would look with the rest of their home rather than one thing looking good. People perceive plug-ins as something cheesy, cheap and ugly; they are not motivated nor product to showcase the product. People are seeking for products that are able to blend in or be used as a display piece.
Jaslin: "Something more genre appropriate..." Mira: “Airwicks don't fit in everyone's home; you want something that's going to be multi-dimensional for whoever, whatever style your homes have.”
Insight 2
People have built a perception that plug-ins are used to cover up odors, not to make the surroundings more pleasant—within the realm of home fragrance devices, people have built negative connotation with plug-in devices. People responded scented candles or essential oils make their homes more pleasant and elevate the quality of their lives whereas plug-ins are used to cover up odors.
Jaslin: "I don’t really love the scent of it. I have it there because I was having issues with the pipes." Joni: “Mostly what I've enjoyed it for us, like in the room where I feed my dog and I don't like Scent with my dog food. So I'm keeping it in there to cover it up.”
Insight 3
Plug-in fragrances and scents are inappropriate, artificial, commercial and fake—plug-in scents have negative connotation as cleaning products and oftentimes feel fake and over the head. Plug-ins are tools; they are used to get the job done.
Jillian: “It’s more of a commercial scent to me, and in my living spaces, I prefer having a candle. Making it feel more homey rather than artificial.” Chacha: “I originally got it for my mother’s retirement home and it seemed to work until everyone caught onto it and the scents are so bad.”
Insight 4
Scents and fragrances are a form of self-expression and it is a personal statement; like music—Smelling a scent is an emotional experience and is abstract form of expression and statement. Once people discover a scent or a type that they like, they will stick to it.
Jillian: “Scents are kind of in a way like music because they are more of an emotional experience.” Brendan: “the home textures are really about mindset. I would say, at home and almost like a force field. So if you know how you feel when you go home and take off his shoes and start twinkling the toes, and your shag carpet, that's still in the feeling relaxed, you know, the scent are to actually draw out those types of emotions.“
Insight 5
Candles and diffusers are the safest choices to gift but devices or machines make it hard to gift—there is a tension between what is giftable and what is not. We noticed a strong culture built around giving and receiving candles as hostess, housewarming or secret santa gifts. Candles are broad, give out good vibe and energy, and are not so personal or specific.
Jillian: “...a candle, even your cheapest candle is never necessarily an eyesore, but some sort of electronic devices are” Jaslin: "I would lean towards an aesthetic a little more, like genre appropriate."
The aesthetics should not be genre-specific and should blend in with the surrounding—It’s not about how a product looks, but about how it would look with rest of the house. Form and aesthetics should consider for a wide range of styles. Smelling scent is an emotional and nostalgic experience should be timeless.
Hardware should be simple and not feel like another layer of clutter—people are conscious of the space and real estate an object or a belonging takes up. There is a desire to declutter; hardware should be simple and be mindful of where it lives and the space it takes up.
The device should allow users to decide what is right for them and provide a sense of control—scents are personal and people have strong preferences. The device should accommodate and allow users to decide what is right for them.
Quality. The build and interaction of the device should provide elevated experience that is differentiated from the market—people have built a negative connotation with plug-in air fragrance device and the interaction should prove the opposite.
Industrial Designer Treatment
Treatment that is slim and sleek as possible and disappears to the background—decluttering what is visible by moving the interaction points to the rear.
Intensity Control
Initially, people want to control what is right for them but once they do, the control is almost never touched again—Set the right intensity and forget.
Subtle Communication
Seamless and magical interactions like magnetic snaps will a differentiator—existing products require force for assembly and disassembly. This degrades the experience.
Emphasis on Scent
Designing for the experience people will have while removing the cap and inserting the bottle to the device is key—People will be purchasing the fragrance bottles more often than the plug-ins.
Naming convention and information granularity
Fragrance names that paint a picture for a online first brand. Resist bold statements on "All Natural Ingredients".
Learnings and Insights
We building a naming convention the resonate with consumers, we set out to understand three key areas:
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how people perceive and respond to the word “natural” in fragrance communication.
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what information they seek when purchasing and unboxing fragrances.
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how we might describe fragrances in ways that create stronger emotional connections with consumers.
Fragrance Naming Directions
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What are people’s expectation on fragrance naming?
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How do they go about connecting the dots between the name and scents?
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What are things that we should be mindful of when it comes to alternative/creatives ways to name fragrances?
Content & Description on the Package
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What types of information are people looking for when purchasing fragrances and scents?
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What kind of granularity are people looking for?
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How should the word "natural" be used?
Presentation & Unboxing Experience
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Preferences and experiences around unboxing small packages. What makes it easier/more pleasant?
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How does material/color have impact on impressions or expectations for a brand?
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People are skeptical of brands already. Keep the natural message simple and concise.
People are unsure what “natural” really means, and many feel skeptical toward brands that use the term. While mentioning “natural” can add appeal, overexplaining it often invites doubt and further questioning.
Alex: When you say it’s derived from something it feels like you’re concealing something. I don’t know maybe plant based sounds more relatable. Now I’m not sure, I might be overthinking now. And sea salt is not a plant. maybe the plant thing is risky if you’re trying to use a blanket statement. Gordon: Oils from... makes it sound like the scent is made from ingredients listed on the box, but when I think ingredients, I’m thinking is there actually other chemicals that are in here? I don’t if there are preservatives in here.
Being 100% all natural is a nice but not a deal breaker.
Most people view natural products as “nice to have” and generally better than non-natural ones, but this rarely drives their purchasing decisions or brand loyalty. Ultimately, the brand and scent matter more than the “all-natural” claim.
Jillian: I have a lot of Diptyque’s hourglass diffusers. I like those. Those one are definitely not natural. It smells really good and looks really pretty. Mira: With Diptyque, it’s already a known that they use there are pretty harmful toxic chemicals in it but it’s one of those things that is so good that I bypass.
People admit they rarely read ingredient lists but still expect them to be available and transparent.
Users don’t usually check ingredients when buying fragrances, but they appreciate seeing a few highlighted in an accessible way. They expect transparency and the option to explore details if they choose to.
Mira: I think having the detailed breakdown of the ingredients add transparency to the product. I think most people do read ingredients now. But again when I buy products, did I actually read into that? Did I have the time to read into that? It’s just an added bonus. Christina: I just don’t like looking at some label or buzz word applied on the package without going a level deeper to see what exactly is in this and I want the answers. Even if I don’t know the words, it gives me a certain level of confidence that ok, it is natural as it says it is.
Scents are personal and emotional in nature. Paint the scene for people to imagine and mean something to them.
Fragrances are deeply personal and emotional. People look for meaningful names that help them imagine the scent, and listing key notes reinforces and supports that mental picture.
Alex: This is kind of interesting. I kind of love how this paints a little picture for you. This is something that many people can relate to. The name together with the scent do a nice job of telling a story of what it is. I feel like scents are so emotional and evoke an emotional experience. Mira: Lemon tree by the sea. This is really nice and clear. It makes me happy when I see these names. These are all very positive names and I think scents should bring positive feelings.
Visual element is user’s first experience with the brand, not the fragrance.
Fragrance isn’t the first factor that draws users in—it’s the visual experience. Design and presentation act as the gateway, guiding people to try the scent in the first place.
Dogan: With Aesop products, I’ve never looked at what is in it, but they present themselves as a very honest brand. Jillian: For makeup and face products for instance, if the package looks nice, I’ll click on it on Instagram, 100%.
Use the term "essential oil made from all natural ingredients"
Consumers don’t clearly understand what “natural” means and tend to question brands that use it. While the word conveys a positive message, it also triggers skepticism and doubts about honesty.
Keep ingredients description on the package simple and easy to understand.
Exclude ingredients list from the package itself but provide transparency on where they can find the information if they are curious to learn more.
Paint the scene for users with notes in the names.
Shift away from practical naming approach to something that can mean more just a name for users. Creating a scene helps users have a better idea of what the fragrances may smell like before purchasing the product.
Establish information hierarchy and appropriately deliver key information on different medium.
Keep information relevant to stages. Website(Brand) / Starter Kit(Product) / Cartridge box(Fragrance)
Visual branding and system
Below 60 degrees latitude is known to have the cleanest air on Earth. Brand Below60 is on a mission to bring the cleanest air to your special homes with natural essential oil.
Packaging design and unboxing experience
Cohesively presenting the products and fragrance cartridges with the granularity of information consumers are looking for. We introduced a starter kit for an online-first fragrance brand featuring 3 of Below60's most beloved fragrances.
