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Approaching product photography for your handmade skin care business for the first time…or…FINALLY admitting that you need help in this area?
It may seem intimidating if you’ve never done it on your own before (or with the results you want) – but if you already went the length to build your own brand from scratch, you can ABSOLUTELY shoot product photos that are website-worthy!
Just like any new recipe you follow for your skin care line, all you need to succeed is the right tools, a few tips to guide you, and some practice honing your skills.
And yes, it is 100% WORTH the practice time – intentional, consistent, attractive photos for your website are imperative to your traffic and overall success.
You have put in countless hours of work thus far to create your product line – make it all worth it with these 7 product photography tips that will showcase your handmade skincare business in its best light.
For our specific purposes, product photography is referring to the intentional, staged photos we take of our skin care products to display on our website sales pages and listings.
Quality product photography should communicate to your audience:
Product photography is a structured process that is the most successful when planned out in advance to clearly represent your company’s brand – composed, edited, and formatted with care.
The best photos highlight the product itself without unnecessary flair.
Photos should be well-lit, focused, and look similar to other product photos in your skin care line for continuity. Lighting needs to be the same, props and composition all very similar.
If you’ve never picked up a camera before with something as serious as your WEBSITE in mind, you may find yourself wondering if there’s a way to hire this out.
And there absolutely is.
Professional product photographers can easily be found locally or on a freelance service website, such as Fiverr.
Before you decide which approach is right for you and your skill set, consider the pros and cons of your options below:
If you are shooting on your own for the first time, you can expect to purchase some photography assets such as light boxes, props, a tripod, etc. Keep in mind that most of these are one-time costs.
Hiring out for a professional photo shoot can start at around $120 per product, plus the cost to ship the product to the photographer. Multiply that fee by each listing you’ll have.
As a handmade skin care business, you’re most likely making new products throughout the year. Sometimes this means adding seasonal listings or creating a special bundle for a sales event.
Taking your own photos and already having equipment and props on hand means that those last-minute listings can be up on your website in a matter of days.
On the flip side, one of the additional ‘costs’ of hiring a professional photographer is time:
You can expect an average of a 10-day turnaround time if you hire out, plus a bit extra if you request revisions. This requires advance planning so that you have your photos in plenty of time to create and schedule your seasonal launches or marketing campaigns.
Most handmade businesses are in charge of their own online marketing (i.e. social media content, Pinterest pins, email campaigns, etc).
Once you start to take your own product photos, you will most likely begin to develop a ‘style’ that naturally crosses over into the more off-the-cuff photos you take for your Instagram Stories or other social media posts.
While the similarity of ‘official’ product photos & social photos is not completely necessary, it does lead to greater brand recognition and continuity through all of your platforms.
If this quick ‘pros and cons’ list has you excited to D.I.Y., keep scrolling for 7 product photography tips to make your handmade skin care business stand out!
As with every other aspect of your branding, understanding your purpose and customer avatar is not only essential to slam-dunk product photos, but also makes your job easier.
The following two product photos are from the same organic lip balm recipe, yet branded and represented in different ways. While the choices in photography style are subtle, they communicate two separate nonverbal messages.
Photo number 1 has brighter, more vibrant colors and is shot from above (flat lay). Photo 2 is a bit more toned down with a more standard landscape shot.
Which would you and your customer prefer?
Time to get into some of the nitty-gritty details that can really make a difference in the outcome of your product photos, starting with your background.
Your mission and target market should help you easily decide on a background for your basic photo shoot:
If you want to keep it low-cost, scrapbook paper is an easily attainable choice that comes in a wide variety of colors and designs to keep you on-brand and to communicate a variety of moods – just make sure you choose something that doesn’t have a busy pattern to distract from your product or label details.
There are no rules that say you have to ‘keep it flat’ – consider using interesting textures such as flat wood planks, burlap, or bunched-up fabric as the background in your product photos.
Professional backgrounds, such as these photography duoboards, are also a great choice (and something that you only have to buy once) – they can easily wipe clean and provide a very finished look.
This is the option I am currently using – if you choose to go with the brands featured in the buttons below, make sure you order two, as it’s not entirely clear that the price is for just one double-sided board.
The most important tip is to make sure the background is a slightly different color or texture than the edges of your products.
Why? Because as you begin to edit your photos after the shoot, it will be important for your software to be able to see where your product ends and where the background begins.
I have used transparent tubes for my packaging in the past, but also preferred a clean white background. I had numerous editing issues before I stumbled upon a textured paper that gave enough contrast.
Thinking about composition and props is one of my favorite parts of product photography…but it can also get expensive.
As you consider your options, remember that you will most likely be recreating these photos for your entire product line (and for future products that you add) and they should look consistent.
Use the ideas below to keep your props simple while still providing a splash of texture and depth:
You’re a handmade skin care maker! You already have tons of ‘free’ props on hand!!!
Tip: Glass containers will allow you to see the ingredients without getting your surface waxy/oily and are absolutely beautiful when used with the correct lighting.
Think you’re just taking a simple photo of your latest lip balm? Guess again.
What you have in front of you is the potential to be a ‘lotsa-things-in-one’ shot:
This trick to making ALL of these things possible is to know ahead of time so that you leave plenty of distance between the camera and your main product…
…while still keeping the tiny details on the label in focus if possible.
This will ensure that any way you crop or zoom, the main text will still be legible.
The easiest way to have a similar distance and angle is for your camera to be in the same exact position throughout the shoot. And for that, you need a tripod.
You don’t need anything super fancy or expensive, just the right type of tripod for your camera.
Each of the tripods below is compatible with a DSLR and cell phone and shoots at multiple angles, options that will cover a wide range of your photography needs:
Confession.
When I started my skin care line back in 2012 and was taking my first product photos, I had heard that ‘natural light’ in photos was best.
I took that phrase very literally, assuming this applied to ALL types of photography, and placed my items by a window when it was sunny outside and snapped away (see my ‘not-so-lovely-or-professional’ example below).
(Sidenote: This photo features my long-lost beloved little plant, Kinny, who was VERY accidentally abandoned during a leg-stretch break in our cross-country move…WE MISS YOU and hope you’re enjoying your own adventure!!! 😭)
Well, the whole ‘use actual sunlight’ idea is absolutely fine and BEAUTIFUL for ‘Golden Hour’ portraits, advertisements, or social media Stories that will stand completely on their own.
This is NOT absolutely fine for product photos that will be on a website, one right next to the other…right next to the other…right next to the other.
The problem is that the color of sunlight itself is ALWAYS changing, based on the time of DAY, time of YEAR, clouds, environmental factors…everything is a variable.
If you are going to have consistent photos, you have to control as much as you can (meaning you have to take away the forever-changing-sunlight-variable).
Enter: Diffused Lighting.
Diffused light is light that has been softened (scattered) so that it creates very minimal, gentle shadows.
For product photo shoots, diffused light can be created with either light boxes or softbox lighting.
I have used both versions of diffused lighting in my business journey, and they each resulted in professionally lit photos that worked well for my product listings, Pinterest pins, social media posts, and other website uses.
Let’s break down these two diffused lighting choices below.
A light box, also known as a photo studio box or photo tent, is an economical and small-footprint method of product photography.
Light boxes come in a variety of sizes, colors, and setups.
I used light boxes at the beginning of my journey due to space and budget reasons, and you can see my very first setup below.
I used a 24″ softbox tent and lights I had received from a photographer friend. If I were to do this setup again, I would use smaller, less intense tabletop fluorescents instead.
Softbox lights have a thin fabric over the light itself to diffuse the light and are another popular choice for product photography, and have their own list of pros/cons:
I currently use softbox lighting because we have a bit more space and it is much easier to work without the constraint of a box. It also allowed me to start using the Photography Duoboards mentioned in Background Tip #2.
This first example of our latest shoot is our background and softbox lighting setup for studio shots (done completely at nighttime so there wasn’t a chance of interference from any other light source).
This second example uses the same duo boards and softbox lights, but at a different angle to capture flatlay shots (also done at nighttime).
(❤️ Featuring my hunka-burning-love photo shoot date ❤️)
Pro Tip: Even though diffused lighting doesn’t use ‘actual sunlight’, you can still replicate the color and brightness you want by simply choosing a bulb of your lighting preference (if you need a reference point, I usually shoot my photos between 5400-5600 Kelvin):
Most website builders (such as Shopify) and marketplace sites (such as Etsy) allow up to ten photos or more per individual product listing.
While you don’t want to use an INFINITE amount of pictures (too many will really slow down your website), you do want to have enough to answer all the questions your audience may have about your product.
Tip: Most website visitors don’t actually read the written description of a product before deciding to purchase or not. Answer everything you can through your photos for the most clarity.
Aim to include at least the six suggested product photos below in each listing on your website for the highest conversion rates:
Even if your photos end up needing some work (you will ALWAYS be working on your photography skills!), your shop as a whole will look TEN TIMES BETTER if your photos at least MATCH one another.
You don’t want your storefront to look like a community garage sale that multiple people contributed to.
Every camera and every environment is different, so it isn’t possible to provide camera settings as a standard starting point to you in this tip list. The variables are simply too vast:
Your best bet is to decide on what camera you’ll consistently use for your product photography and find a basic tutorial online for your exact equipment.
And then…experiment, experiment, experiment!!!
When you find the look and combination that screams ‘THAT’S IT!!!’ for your particular product line, WRITE DOWN EVERYTHING so that you can recreate the same look repeatedly every shoot:
Mastering these product photography tips for your handmade skin care business can take some practice, but you can have a great time doing it!
(Psst…throw in some music and a buddy and you’ve got a unique date night on the books 🤗)
The best part is, there is no RIGHT answer – you will continue to take and tweak pictures throughout the life of your business.
But also…no one wants to build a business by themselves! That’s doing it the hard way!
With the Skincare Business Branding Guide, you get step-by-step guidance to help you create the BEST branding for YOUR target market!
Christine Glaser, C.A.
Christine is a certified aromatherapist, essential oil specialist, and organic skin care formulator. She loves empowering others with tools to make healthy changes and understand where natural options can be woven into the fabric of everyday routines.
