How to write a puff spec that survives production
A puff brief that only says "soft, round, pink" gets quoted five different ways. These are the values that 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.