Supplier Side
High-End Glass Bottles Supplied at Low Minimums
Rafael Cruz (left), director of operations, and Charles Marchese (right), vice president of marketing and sales, show off ABA Packaging’s new glass bottles at the WestPack trade show, where the line debuted in January.
ABA Packaging Corp. (Holtsville, NY) can now provide luxurious fragrance bottles at low minimums. More than 24 stock bottle styles are available for fragrance and treatment products.
Bottle features include heavyweight glass, thick bases, and artistic shapes. Minimums are as low as 6000 pieces for 50-ml bottles and 3500 pieces for 100-ml bottles.
“If a company wants a high-end fragrance bottle but doesn’t want to spend $30,000 on tooling, it can use a bottle line like this,” says Charles Marchese, ABA Packaging’s vice president of marketing and sales. “It’s like having your own upscale private mold, without the cost.”
Larger brands looking to launch a package quickly may also be interested in the stock line. Marchese says that, thus far, the bottles have not been marketed in the United States.
European glass packaging manufacturer Saverglass produces the bottles, which are stocked in France. The bottles can typically be delivered in approximately six weeks, says Marchese. Previously, the bottles were primarily sold in Europe.
Container Keeps Lipstick Bullet in Shape
The classic, traditional lipstick container has endured for years, but has always presented one problem. Typically, a lipstick bullet tends to become flat at the top after repeated use. One inventor’s innovative design may solve this problem.
The package’s secret? The container’s mouth, from which the lipstick bullet emerges, is concave and teardrop-shaped. As the lipstick bullet is pressed against the user’s mouth, the shape of the container’s mouth molds the shape of the lipstick bullet.
The patented package was designed by Heinz Welschoff. Welschoff has also modified this design for eye liner and lip liner pencils. His pencil features a rectangular opening that ensures that a pencil’s tip stays rectangular. The rectangular pencil tip gives users the option of drawing both thin and thick lines, depending on which edge of the pencil they use.
Welschoff points out that his packages can be considered eco-friendly because they are refillable. The lipstick cartridge, which contains the lipstick bullet, slides out of the outer container and can be replaced with a new cartridge.
O. Berk Offers Fragrance Bottles
O. Berk Co. (Union, NJ) has formed the Designer Glass Packaging Group. This division will specialize in selling stock glass bottles for fragrances. The group’s first introduction is the Masterpieces Collection, which was showcased at the WestPack trade show in January.
“The purpose of this division is to offer exceptional luxury glass packaging to the fragrance, perfume, high-end giftable, and collectible markets,” says Marc Gaelen, O. Berk’s president and CEO. “This offering includes the bottle, closure, decorating or labeling, and carton, [for] complete, high-end luxury packaging.”
The heavyweight Masterpieces bottles are stocked at O. Berk’s New Jersey warehouse. They are offered with stopper-style closures in clear, black, or colored glass, in sizes ranging from 8 to 100 ml.
O. Berk’s new design division will also specialize in producing custom-designed glass fragrance bottles. The firm announced that glass bottle designer Pierre Dinand has agreed to design unique glass bottles for the division. Dinand’s first project for O. Berk is a line of factices called Grande Factice.
CSI/Cosmolab Develops Bioplastic Jar
Injection molder CSI/Cosmolab (Oxnard, CA) will soon offer a bioplastic cosmetics jar made partially from starch. According to Hiram Santana, the firm’s product development manager, 50% of the jar is composed of starch-based resins made from plants such as tapioca, wheat, corn, and potatoes. The remainder of the jar is polypropylene.
The starch-based resin is called Biopropylene. It is part of the Cereplast Hybrid Resins line offered by bioplastics supplier Cereplast. According to Cereplast, Biopropylene exhibits physical characteristics similar to traditional polypropylene.
CSI also offers other eco-friendly packaging options. Notably, the firm can create 100% PCR double-walled jars. To top the jars, CSI offers either a black 100% PCR cap or a silver non-PCR cap.
Thanks to their resin quality, the jars and caps feature smooth walls. Santana says that by mid-year, the firm should have many more colors available. n
Tools Added to Tube Concept
Bijan Hosseini, president of HandsFree Marketing Inc. (Huntington Beach, CA), has taken his award-winning HandsFree tube concept a step further. He has developed a range of tools which can be attached to the sealed end of the HandsFree tube.
The HandsFree tube features a foam-pad applicator welded to the tube head. The built-in applicator allows users to spread product on the skin without having to touch the product with their hands.
Hosseini first came up with the concept of tube attachments a few years ago when he first attached a razor blade to one end of the tube. Users could spread on shaving cream using the foam applicator and then turn the tube around and shave with the attached razor.
Since then, Hosseini has designed attachments such as nail files, emery boards, pumices, brushes, combs, and scrapers for hair-removal products.
These applicators can be interchangeable, says Hosseini. “We call it the Swiss Army Knife approach,” he says.
Packaging Keeps the Germs Away
M&H Plastics (Beccles, Suffolk, UK) has proposed a unique solution to keep cosmetic packaging germ-free. The supplier says that it can mold packaging with an antimicrobial surface, which the company says is effective against a wide range of bacteria, including MRSA and E. coli.
The supplier adds ionic silver to a package during molding. According to M&H Plastics, the silver ions kill bacteria cells by disrupting cell metabolism and inhibiting cell respiration, cell division, and reproduction.
M&H Plastics adds that ionic silver is accepted by the United Kingdom’s National Health Service as an effective antimicrobial additive.
Videojet Uses Greener Inks for Bar Codes
More brands have been asking for environmentally friendly inks for variable data marking, reports Videojet Technologies Inc. (Wood Dale, IL). Videojet says that greener inks have always been part of the firm’s portfolio. However, more clients have recently been seeking them out.
Green options include water-, ethanol-, and acetone-based inks. “We can provide low- and no-VOC inks and inks that do not contain certain raw materials a company might be concerned about,” says Scott Prochaska, Videojet’s product manager for fluids.
Prochaska says that the package often determines what type of ink can be used. For instance, he says, water-based inks are slower to dry and might be better suited to porous materials, such as paperboard.
“There has clearly been increased interest in green inks and green solutions,” says Prochaska.