Supplier Side
MeadWestvaco Realigns Company
MeadWestvaco has combined two of its business units, AGI/Klearfold and MeadWestvaco Healthcare Packaging. The two companies will now be known as MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging (New York City).
The two companies will be able to offer more innovative packaging options by sharing resources and a broader portfolio, explains Pat McGee, director of marketing for MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging.
AGI/Klearfold specializes in secondary packaging and other beauty packaging. MeadWestvaco Healthcare Packaging caters to the clinical trial, physician sample, over-the-counter, and medical device markets.
At the HBA Global Expo trade show in New York City in September, MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging will make its official debut. The company will share a booth with its sister division, MeadWestvaco Calmar, a global supplier of dispensing systems. McGee says that MeadWestvaco Calmar’s position in cosmetic, personal care, and pharmaceutical packaging complements MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging’s capabilities.
In order to reinforce the collaboration between MeadWestvaco Health & Beauty Packaging and MeadWestvaco Calmar, as well as to serve the Chinese market, McGee says that the company is adding printing and converting capabilities for folding cartons to a recently expanded MeadWestvaco Calmar facility in Wuxi, in the Jiangsu Province of the People’s Republic of China.
Qualipac Gives One Compact Different Looks
One of Qualipac America’s (Wayne, NJ) newer decorating techniques, which the firm calls advanced heat transfer, is making it possible for cosmetic brands to cost-efficiently create very different looks for the same compact component.
As a decorating process, heat transfer has always been an ideal way to decorate a large surface area on a component because it is essentially a decal that is applied with heat. Qualipac says that its advanced heat transfer technique can achieve sharper, photograph-quality graphics than standard heat transfer can. “Regular heat transfer doesn’t offer the nuances that advanced heat transfer does,” says Eric Vanin, vice president of sales for Qualipac. “Ours gives you a degree of detail and a contrast of colors that you could never get before. It’s like comparing regular television with high-definition television.”
Both Lancôme and Elizabeth Arden have used Qualipac’s heat transfer process to give compacts a “makeover” for new seasonal launches. “By just updating the graphics, you can extend the life of a compact, without having to invest in new tooling,” says Vanin. Both beauty brands have featured the technique on numerous limited-edition compacts, and Lancôme continues to introduce new compacts using it.
“It’s a great way to create flankers for color cosmetics,” adds Vanin. He says that in terms of speed to market, the technique is also very good. “You can change the look of a compact in a matter of a few weeks.”
South Korean Innovations at Cosmoprof North America
At the Cosmoprof North America trade show held in Las Vegas in July, two innovative packaging concepts from South Korean suppliers caught the eyes of CPC Packaging’s editors.
The first is a new type of dual-chambered dispenser that is designed to keep two product parts separate until the time of use. The dispenser features an upper and a lower compartment. One chamber can house liquid and one chamber can house powder, or both chambers can house liquid. The dispenser would be well suited for a product that must be mixed with a powder such as Vitamin C, which is most efficacious when kept dry until the moment of use.
A gate partition located on the bottom of the upper compartment stays closed to keep the two products separated. When users rotate the dispenser’s shoulder in a counterclockwise direction, the gate opens, allowing powder or liquid to spill into the lower chamber and mix with the formula in the lower chamber. The upper chamber is designed to hold 7 ml of product, while the lower chamber holds 8 ml of product.
The dispenser is marketed by South Korean supplier, Minjin Dispensing System Expert (Suwon, South Korea). Jina Lee, the firm’s overseas sales manager, says that the technology is patented in Japan and Taiwan and is patent-pending in Europe and the United States.
Another attention-getting package was a new lipstick innovation from Hana Company, Ltd. (Kyeonggi-do, South Korea). Unlike a traditional lipstick container, Hana Company’s container doesn’t have an overcap. Instead, when the user rotates the container’s base, the lipstick bullet starts to elevate and a door on the container’s top automatically starts to open. The lipstick bullet rises through the open door.
The container’s biggest benefit is its ability to be operated using one hand, says Brian Chung, Hana Company’s head manager of overseas sales. The container is offered with two types of automatic-opening doors. One is a hinged lid, and the other is a sliding door.
The container itself is available in a range of looks, including gold and silver metal, and colored and metallized plastic.
Lumson Opens New Jersey Office
Italian packaging supplier Lumson (Capergnanica, Italy) has opened its first U.S. sales office in Paulsboro, NJ. The facility will allow Lumson to quickly serve customers in the United States. The site includes a 3000-sq-ft commercial site and a showroom.
Lumson offers more than 20 cosmetic packaging lines, which, in addition to primary containers, include dispensers, overcaps, jar covers, and screw caps. The firm also provides numerous decorating services such as screen printing, hot stamping, tampo printing, lacquering, and metallizing.
Lumson is now also highlighting two recently launched bottle lines, called Alexandra and Victoria. The plastic Victoria bottles are available in sizes ranging from 100 to 250 ml and can be provided with a soft-touch finish. A pump and an overcap are available for the bottles, and the overcap’s silhouette is flush with the bottle. A range of decorating effects is available, including effects for the overcap. The line’s plastic bottles can be produced with Lumson’s innovative “3-D” effect, which is created using two separate plastic layers glued together. Both the outer and inner layers can be decorated to give graphics a “shadow” effect.
The Alexandra collection features square contours. The line includes 100- and 200-ml plastic bottles, 30- and 50-ml glass bottles, and a 50-ml glass jar. The 3-D effect is also available for this line.
Sampling Dimensions Gets New Name
To brand itself in the international market, sample packaging supplier Sampling Dimensions LLC (Wayne, NJ) has renamed itself SD International LLC.
“Our company has created several strategic alliances with worldwide leaders of bulk manufacturing and contract filling in the United States, Asia, and Europe,” says Dominick Montano, the firm’s vice president of sales and marketing.