How to write a puff spec that survives production
A puff brief that only says "soft, round, pink" gets quoted five different ways. Here is the short list of values that actually control what you receive.
Most puff briefs we receive describe a feeling: soft, dense, bouncy, like the one in the photo. Feeling is real information, but it cannot be measured at the end of a production line, so it gets translated differently by each supplier — and the sample you approve may sit nowhere near the batch you receive.
Four values do the work. First, geometry: draw the silhouette, give the height at the centre and the height at the edge, and state whether the top is domed or flat. A "teardrop" can mean a 40 mm or a 62 mm body, and the two behave differently on the face. Second, pore size: wet-use foam is usually specified in a range rather than a number, and the range decides how much water the puff holds and how quickly it releases. Third, firmness: for foam this is a compression value at a stated deflection, not a durometer reading borrowed from rubber. Ask how firmness is tested, then keep the same test. Fourth, colour: give a physical reference or a Pantone number and require a light-fastness check, because a pink that shifts after three washes reads as cheap.
Then add the two process values that decide whether the spec is repeatable: the mould number and the sample sheet revision. If your approved sample was made on a particular mould, say so in writing. When that mould is serviced or replaced, the release line changes slightly, and without a revision number nobody can tell whether the change was authorised.
Finally, write the packing before the price. A puff in a printed box with a window costs more than the same puff in a poly bag, and retail packing is where most of the surprise sits when a quote comes back lower than everyone else. Ask for the quote split into foam, converting, packing and testing. The split tells you what the supplier is actually optimising.
A short spec with these values takes half a page, and it removes almost every argument that happens after the third shipment.