August 29, 2022
Case Mason and Rosebud Perfume Co. have a history that spans over four decades, all the way back to the 1970s. We’ve enjoyed building and growing our business relationship over the last 40+ years and can’t thank the Rosebud team enough for entrusting us with Dr. Smith’s products. The synergy between our two family-owned and operated businesses and the close proximity of our facilities has made for a near perfect, longstanding business relationship.
Rosebud has been a cult classic in the health & beauty category for over 100 years, but only recently, within the last 15 years, have their many lip balms and salves been sold in major national and international retailers. Now being sold in over 25 countries, the demand for Rosebud balms and salves has never been higher. Consumers can find Rosebud products in-store and online at retailers like Sephora, ULTA, Anthropologie, and many more. Their products have been featured in health & beauty publications, such as InStyle, and are routinely named by celebrities and makeup artists as one of their favorite health & beauty products. You can find Rosebud products all around the world, from Vietnam to New Zealand and the U.S. to Russia. With that kind of distribution network comes the need to produce higher volumes of product in order to maintain inventory levels and meet consumer demand. This is where Case Mason comes into the picture.
Since the 1970s, Case Mason has been Rosebud’s filling and packaging partner. We handle all of the supply chain and production details, including sourcing raw materials, compounding the liquid formulas, filling, cooling, capping, packaging, and then distributing the finished goods to retailers around the globe. When Rosebud began to expand their distribution network, they came to us to develop a plan that would enable them to fill the growing number of orders in a timely and cost-effective manner.
Meeting the growing demand for Rosebud products meant that we would have to abandon our manual filling, cooling, and capping process that had been in place for decades. In order to keep up with the volume of new orders flowing in by the day, we knew that an automated process would be needed. Since we were transitioning from a strictly manual process to a fully automated one, a large capital investment in new machinery was needed. Our mechanics and engineers developed a plan and set out to buy new pieces of equipment that would fully automate the Rosebud filling process.
To become fully automated, we invested in a Filamatic volumetric filler, a 20 ft. conveyor line, and a high-end alpine machine. Our mechanics also used their skills and creativity to build an automated capper from scratch. Those equipment purchases and ingenuity from our mechanical team allow the entire process of filling, cooling, and capping to be completed on one highly efficient line, as opposed to the multiple stations used during the manual process. The balms and salves are a hot fill, meaning that the tins are filled with a hot liquid that then cools and sets as a solid. Each tin is filled at 168°F and then cools while traveling on the conveyor and alpine. The slow-moving alpine allows the liquid to form into a solid, as well as producing the perfectly smooth top layer that Rosebud is famous for. From filling to capping, the process spans just about 30 minutes. The video below gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the filling process, from start to finish.
One of the newer offerings from Rosebud is lip balm and lip salve tubes, as opposed to their traditional tins. The tubes are perfect for people who use Rosebud products on the go and prefer not to apply the balms and salves using their fingers. Together, Rosebud and Case Mason finalized the tube design and graphics printing that would showcase the classic Rosebud logo just as it appears on the tins. In regard to the formulations, a few modifications had to be made so that the balms and salves would flow through the tubes with ease and the coloring wouldn’t show through the tubes. Once those modifications were made, we were able to start producing and distributing Rosebud tubes all over the world. We’ve now been producing Rosebud tubes for nearly eight years.
In addition to blending and filling Rosebud products, Case Mason is also heavily involved in the formulation stage. When Rosebud wants to create a new lip balm flavor, they come to us with the rough idea and we work together to create the finished product that will be sold all over the world. Two of the most recent flavors that we’ve formulated and brought to fruition are Tropical Ambrosia and Rose & Mandarin. The process starts out with Rosebud coming to us with a rough idea for a new flavor. They supply us with a few color shade examples, possibly from existing nail polish or lipstick shades, and a raw scent. It is then our job to experiment with different concentrations of the colors and scent in order to come up with 10 different sample options, each made up of different color and scent concentrations. It takes about a day to create a small batch of each unique formulation because the colors and scent have to settle before being presented. This process is repeated as many times as necessary until Rosebud approves one of the formulations for production and eventual distribution to retailers. We love being involved in every step of the process and take an enormous amount of pride in supporting all aspects of Rosebud’s business.
A lot has changed since Case Mason started filling Rosebud products in the 1970s, but our two companies have worked together seamlessly to overcome the changes and challenges along the way. We’ve remained steadfast in our commitment to ensuring that the quality of all Rosebud products that leave our facility are just as Dr. Smith would have produced, himself.