The Only (Beauty You Need)
Ketana Anekar
If every beauty product claims to work, why do we feel the need for more? The beauty industry thrives on the illusion of newness, where the same products are repackaged, renamed, and resold, driven by manufactured need and the pressure to conform.
The Only (Beauty You Need) is a project that critiques this system through the lens of need-based marketing, product repetition, and "clean girl" aesthetic conformity. Using unconventional packaging, the project explores how form and surface design can communicate and challenge meaning within the beauty space.
The project features three product lines to form a narrative about the beauty space and its hold on consumer culture. The Only Skincare presents a routine in which each package is understood when placed together, reinforcing the idea that every step is required to achieve "perfect" skin. The Only Gummies examines the pressure to fit into "clean girl" ideals, using interlocking packaging and speculative products that exaggerate the pursuit of specific features. The Only Balm Glaze focuses on product over-saturation, where repeated, nearly identical products are expressed through increasingly distorted packaging, reflecting how duplication erodes originality.
The process of creating The Only mirrors the industry it critiques. Through relentless iterations of packaging forms and surfaces, the work echoes cycles of superficial production, replication, and excess.
The project reveals how the beauty industry not only responds to consumer desire but actively shapes it. It ultimately questions how the industry constructs need and influences consumers, offering a perspective that reframes what is truly necessary.