Building BOXBOX with the Aston Martin Aramco F1 Team

In Monza, I watched as Jak Crawford, the reserve driver for Aston Martin Aramco F1, walked away with the very first working BOXBOX prototype. We had just sat down together, walked him through the product, and talked about his current routine: how he travels, what he brings, and how he manages personal care on the road. It was in talking with Jak that we got our first true sense of the demands of the sport. His schedule was down to the minute. A few minutes with us, then he was swept off to a speaking appearance, then later off to the HQ for simulator time, then off to Spain for the next Grand Prix weekend. It is a grueling pace and he was excited about anything that would help him organize and streamline his world. 

After months of decisions about formulations, pumps, and materials, seeing the product leave with Jak to be lived and traveled with was a real milestone. When you’re building something, you see everything that could be better. I certainly did that day. We knew those prototypes had a long way to go, but there was only so much we could learn by continuing to use them ourselves. Talking with Jak was illuminating because it put our assumptions alongside someone else’s existing habits. Watching him leave with the kit meant we were finally going to learn what happened over time, when we weren’t there to explain anything.

That was the relationship we wanted when we began looking for a Formula One partner. BOXBOX grew out of frustrations my brother Chris and I shared with personal care while traveling: decanting products, checking for leaks, forgetting something, and organizing a bag around bottles that were never designed to work together. All of that on top of constantly navigating a barrage of skincare marketing while struggling to ever find products that worked for us. We wanted to build something where function was the measure of performance and luxury. To develop them properly, we needed people whose lives would challenge our decisions.

Formula One offered that environment. Across a season stretching from March through December, teams travel through more than twenty countries and five continents. The schedule is unrelenting. People are managing jet lag, new climates, unfamiliar hotels, and long working days while the expectation to perform stays constant. Their personal routines have to survive all of that, often with little time at home between trips.

There is also something about the culture of the sport that felt right for us as well. Formula One teams chase every possible marginal gain, and they understand that improvement requires systems and discipline. Our name comes from the “box, box” radio call bringing a driver into the pits. That brief stop depends on extraordinary preparation and a carefully coordinated effort. We wanted to bring that attention to detail into the everyday experience of using BOXBOX.

With Aston Martin Aramco, the connection became personal. In our conversations, we met people under real pressure, developing rapidly, and willing to make difficult decisions about what needed to change. We also felt a commitment to the long term. That combination resonated with us: urgency about improving today, alongside patience about what it takes to build something great. We came away feeling that our values were closely aligned and that this was the right team to help develop BOXBOX over the coming months.

I delivered three prototype systems to the team that day in Monza, each carrying sunscreen, moisturizer, and face and body wash. Our testing program is following use across successive race weekends through conversations and ongoing feedback. We’re learning about the formulations and the physical system together, including whether people keep packing and using them once the excitement of receiving something new wears off.

The first feedback confirmed some things we hoped would work. People liked having their essentials connected and in one place. The aluminum felt good, and the click when modules joined together was particularly satisfying. But weight and size quickly became priorities. A single module could feel substantial in the hand while several together felt too heavy in a bag. A few millimeters of depth also added up across a stack.

Travel exposed another issue: buttons could be pressed accidentally while the modules were packed together, releasing product. That gave us a concrete problem to solve. We needed to preserve comfortable dispensing during use while preventing it in transit, and in a way that required nothing extra of the user. 

Working with CALLUM, we translated those observations into the Austin spec prototypes. The chassis weight came down from 116 grams to 77 grams, and the revised configuration removes two millimeters of depth. We’re working toward a four-millimeter reduction as the pump develops further. A wider button and revised nozzle detailing address dispensing comfort and mess, while a mechanism to prevent accidental presses when modules are connected remains in development.

The next step is to put the revisions back into use and find out what we’ve improved and what still needs work. Over the coming months, that exchange with the Aston Martin Aramco team will keep shaping BOXBOX, with the aim of delivering on our brand promise of BE READY.