Rigid plastic beauty packaging comprises many different products and technologies: lipstick shells and mechanisms, mascara bottles and brushes, skin care jars and bottles, fragrance caps, compacts, powder boxes and much more.
They are highly desirable. Some designs are custom-made, other mass-produced. And because most come in small sizes and in multiple materials, they are seldom recyclable, let alone recycled.
Yet suppliers such as Albéa and leading cosmetic brands have committed to making all their packaging recyclable or reusable by 2025 – not ‘only’ their standard-design tubes or bottles, where innovation has been impressive, but also their complex colour and care ones, where uptake has been markedly slower.
Transforming rigid cosmetic packaging requires rare technical capabilities and a crystal-clear roadmap. It’s about exploring new materials including PCR and bioplastics, adapting injection and decoration processes, reducing overall material use. It’s about launching new responsible generic solutions and collaborating with customers for breakthrough custom products.
At Albéa, we know that responsible packaging should be safe, circular, and with minimal environmental impact. That’s why innovation in materials is critical.
Our priorities are to find alternatives to resins that are not recycled or where regulations are evolving (such as much-used styrenics), focusing on the leading trio of PP, PE and PET; aiming for mono-material packs, even when made of multiple parts; and accelerating the use of Post-Consumer Recycled (PCR) or bio-based resins.
Our 14 rigid cosmetic packaging industrial sites are now organized in a global network of injection experts, sharing best practices, ideas, successes and failures, new sources of supply.
In particular, they are making headway in chemical PCR such as coPET for virgin-like aesthetics, as well as in mechanical PCR such as r-PET for high-quality packs.
Today four sites are ISCC-certified (International Sustainability & Carbon certification, or mass balance) – three sites in China, and prestige-skin care specialist Simandre in France! Bertrand de la Tour, vice president, Marketing and Innovation for Albéa CRP (Cosmetic Rigid Packaging), explains: " As brands accelerate the transformation of their “standard design” tubes and bottles, we need to kick-start that of their complex, strategic fragrance, skin care and cosmetics packs.
"We provide proactive guidance to customers seeking to transition their current packaging portfolio, whether through material switch or plastic reduction, custom developments, and new, recycled or recycling-ready solutions invented by our marketing teams.”