Dispensing Systems: Dispensers That Make a Difference
Emsar’s travel-friendly Portable Pump.Sometimes a dispenser’s performance makes the product.
By Christina ElstonA beauty product is only as good as its path out of the container. Who wants a foundation that won’t dispense, a sunscreen that squirts instead of sprays, or a shaving cream that leaks in your gym bag? And who wants a high-end product in less-than-chic packaging? Luckily, a number of innovative dispensing options are here to save the day.
The Where, When, and Who
Putting consumers in control of how and where they’d like to apply products has been the design of several dispensers from Emsar (Stratford, CT). These dispensers’ 360-degree spray feature—used for body care, insect repellent, feminine hygiene, and foot care products—will spray product correctly no matter how the container is positioned, according to global marketing director Des McEttrick.
For times when consumers desire that a pump shouldn’t spray—for instance, in transit—Emsar offers its travel-friendly Portable Pump. “One of our customers is using it on an insect repellent that it launched last year,” McEttrick says.
And when an Emsar client with a first-aid spray containing lidocaine wanted a dispenser with child resistance, it chose Emsar’s CRC Pump, according to McEttrick. The pump cannot be removed from the bottle and has a locking feature that allows a parent to keep the product from spraying with a simple twist.
Made for Men
The aMENity men’s skin care line features Kaufman Container’s Star Dispenser. Part of the supplier’s Keltec line, the Star Dispenser has a wide dispensing head that suits men’s larger hands.
Men’s skin care company aMENity’s initial packaging for its aftershave and face moisturizer missed the mark. “The company was using glass apothecary packaging and realized it had misread the market. Instead, it needed more-sophisticated, high-performance packaging to meet men’s needs,” says Jeff Gross, vice president of sales and marketing at Kaufman Container (Cleveland).
Kaufman Container’s airless Keltec dispenser.
Kaufman supplied an alternative—the 100-ml Star Dispenser from its Keltec dispenser line. The system’s metered-dose feature meant men got exactly the amount of product they needed. The dispenser was also airless to maintain a longer product shelf life and was tough enough to stand up to travel. “The top never came off compared with many other things aMENity looked at. The company also felt the item seemed to be perfectly made for men, with its large dispensing head sized for a man’s finger,” Gross adds.
Cospack of America (Edison, NJ) has launched a product with similar sensibilities. The Roma airless dispenser for men has a wider surface area to cater to men’s larger hands, according to marketing director David Hou.
A High-End Look Plus Traditional Filling
A Continental Packaging Solutions (Chicago) customer launching a new high-end men’s skin cream needed to strike a balance. The chemical makeup of its product dictated traditional filling, while the company’s high-end image required dosed, airless dispensing. “It was interesting that the company had to go in both directions,” says Continental business development manager Robb Zurek.
The solution was the Continental Airless Pump System, which can be easily filled using conventional equipment. The airless pump can be actuated with a fingertip and offers a standard product output. “The pump enforced the image the company was trying to build as a brand,” says Zurek. “This is part of the image that they’ve crafted very carefully.” The system also includes a friction-free overcap closure, which was necessary because the product’s relatively small container can be difficult to grip.
A Little Extra Wow
M&H Plastics’ X-Press dispensing cap features a self-cleaning orifice.
M&H Plastics (Winchester, VA) had no smooth-walled disc-top dispenser in its closures portfolio, so its designers decided to create a new closure that would offer advantages over conventional disc-top closures. Used in the same applications as standard disc-top closures, the X-Press dispensing closure operates vertically. The user presses down on one part of the cap, and the other part pops up. A plastic bridge situated between the two parts—which is broken on first use by the consumer—helps to protect the product during shipping.
The round cap comes in 24-410 and 50-mm sizes. The 2-in. size, says Alex Piagnarelli, vice president of sales and marketing for M&H Plastics, creates a high-end “flush cylinder” look. But it’s the opening and closing feature that is getting the attention at present. “You always get the ‘wow’ when the closure is opened,” Piagnarelli says. “Everyone’s looking for a unique hook to catch the attention of the customer.”
Cost-Effective Customization
MeadWestvaco Calmar’s Aria dispenser engine can be customized with custom heads and shrouds.
Customizing dispensers to achieve product differentiation is often too costly for smaller brands. MeadWestvaco Calmar (City of Industry, CA) offers a solution.
The company has found a cost-effective way to customize its most-recent low-output dispenser, the Aria, built on the ‘engine’ concept. “An engine is basically the internal components of the dispenser,” explains director of marketing Mark Frey. “Custom heads and shrouds can be added to the engine.”
Additional dispensers built on the engine concept range in outputs from 0.17 to 2.0 cm3, according to Frey. “Calmar is very excited to offer marketers this valuable advantage,” he says.
Now You See It…
High-end fragrance companies want consumers to see the product, not the internal workings of the dispenser. So Calmar found a way to hide these unattractive elements. Its Melodie pump has a low-profile, nearly hidden tank.
The next logical step was the company’s NoC dip tube. “When primed, the dip tube is not visible to the eye,” MeadWestvaco Calmar’s John Eureyecko says. A refraction index within the tube’s material reflects the formula surrounding it, rendering it invisible. “It’s an innovative packaging solution to a marketing problem that has existed for a long time.”
Custom Solutions
For the new Tilt fragrance from Pacific Sunwear of California, Rexam Dispensing Systems color-matched a bronze low-profile pump and cap. The cap was debossed and embossed with a flower design.
Sometimes unique products require custom solutions, such as those from Rexam Dispensing Systems (Purchase, NY). One example was a high-end fragrance from a customer with a strikingly contoured bottle. “Rexam Dispensing Systems is often challenged to engineer custom spray mechanisms that must fit and preserve the integrity of a product’s unique design, but also be reliable and dependable,” says vice president of sales Tony Cecchinato.
To help a customer bring a lotion product to a higher-end niche market, Rexam offered an innovative dual pump, which allows two lotion formulas in separate bottles to be dispensed and mixed with a single stroke.
And for fragrance customers eager to promote their latest products, Rexam Dispensing offers its Sof’flag mini sample sprayer. “Customers like the sampler because it satisfies every graphic requirement for an effective sampler and closely resembles the regular retail product,” says Cecchinato.
Ready for Spring
Foundation doesn’t function unless you can get it out of the bottle. “We have a client that has a liquid foundation. Due to the thickness of the product’s formula, the first few pumps are fine, but after a while the product gets stuck,” says Cospack’s Hou, who is also director of product development for Han Hean USA. To solve this problem, Han Hean is introducing its new OS Treatment Dispenser.
The patented outer-spring pump design keeps the spring out of the fluid channel so the pump remains functional when used with viscous products. “Typically with an inner spring, the spring gets stuck to the formula and the pump loses functionality,” says Hou. The pump is currently available in GCMI 18-415, 20-410, and 20-415 neck sizes. “This is the next frontier for treatment dispensers,” says Hou.
Sun Care Spray
A nudge from a retailer was enough to send a Berlin Packaging (Chicago) customer looking for a continuous-spray solution for its sunscreen product, according to packaging consultant Todd Wilson. “Our customer was told by Wal-Mart last year that if the product wasn’t in this package, it would be making a big mistake,” Wilson says.
The sun care industry has moved through a number of dispensing trends in recent years. “Continuous-spray dispensers have been a huge success because the consumer does not have to rub the product on,” says Wilson. “Consumers love the application, so it sells very well.” Thus, a dispensing system that was considered a boutique segment just three years ago is booming today, says Wilson. “It really did exceed the expectations of the industry.”
Favorable Outlook
As suppliers and marketers work together, a number of new dispensing options are exceeding, and will continue to exceed, the expectations of consumers. Because, as always, the goal in cosmetics and personal care packaging is to achieve a product that works in a package that wows.
Burning Rubber
Power Container (Somerset, NJ) is speeding its aerosol-dispensing technology forward with air, not rubber. The firm’s environmentally friendly ATMOS system, which has been around for the past 18 years, has traditionally used mechanical pressure from an expanded rubber sleeve rather than ozone-depleting propellants to dispense aerosols. In this time-tested design, a thin-walled PET container with an integrated valve is inserted into the rubber sleeve, and then the sleeve-covered PET container is placed into an outer container. “The pressure builds up from the rubber’s expansion around the inner container as it is being filled,” explains Bob Flaherty, director of operations for Power Container. “When the actuator is pushed to open the valve, product is released with the rubber sleeve’s natural tendency to return to its original size.”
For its newest innovation, which is a technology that evolved from the ATMOS, called the Power Pouch, Power Container has removed the rubber sleeve from the PET pouch and crimped an industry-standard 1-in. mounting cup directly to the rigid neck of the PET pouch to create the new bag-on-valve, compressed-gas system. This new design allows the firm to rely on compressed air or nitrogen to drive aerosols, rather than rubber or potentially harmful propellants. It is easily handled by most automatic valve-placing equipment found in aerosol filling plants, Flaherty claims. “By removing the rubber energy sleeve and using compressed gas, we have given the marketplace what it has asked for: retention of the PET inner pouch, [which allows brands to maintain an] environmentally friendly image and which provides higher pressure to accommodate a wide variety of product categories,” says Flaherty.
Flaherty describes the inner container as “a thin, flexible, yet extremely strong mono-film PET pouch fluted with pleats that expand back to their original shape when filled. The stretch-blow-molding process used in its manufacture provides the thin-walled material tremendous strength that enables the inner pouch to withstand high pressure.”
The empty bag-on-valve system is dropped into the aerosol can, and compressed gas is injected into the can from under the mounting cup at a predetermined pressure. This process is immediately followed by the sealing of the mounting cup to the can. At that point, the pouch-within-the-can is ready for filling through the built-in valve. When filled with product, the inner pouch expands further, compressing the prefilled gas while simultaneously squeezing the pouch. The filled package is fitted with an actuator. When the actuator is pressed to open the valve, the compressed gas squeezing the pouch forces the product to flow out of the package. When consumers press the actuator, the can continuously dispenses product, at any angle.
Typical aluminum aerosol cans work with the Power Pouch, Flaherty adds. The only restriction for product manufacturers is that the can’s shape cannot interfere with the inner pouch.
Flaherty reports that commercial products will be launched in the Power Pouch in the next six months.