Plastics’ New Purpose in Packaging Has Given Rise to New Formats and Options in Personal Care
From Substitute to Superstar
William Makely
The primary objective of cosmetic packaging—like poetry—is to astonish and delight. Carrying a product safely and securely to the marketplace is not the issue. Catching the eye, attracting the touch, inviting a sampling, projecting the user’s image—these are the higher goals. Packaging for personal care products has, in recent years, increasingly stressed convenience as its added value. You can see it in the explosion of dispensing closures, inverted bottles and tubes and squeeze bottles hitting the industry.
Consumers expect to see plastics serving the latter purpose, in plastic and plastic laminate tubes, shampoo bottles, and the like. Squeezable bottles became a necessity with the rise of the ultimate convenience feature, the dispensing closure. Bottles in the bathroom have to squeeze. Rising safety concerns also dictate that they have to be unbreakable.
Plastics filled the gap.
Where do we not expect to see plastics? In upscale fragrance and lotion packaging, where glass has always reigned. High design, crystal clarity and sheer weight reinforce the value of the contents and of the special role they play in consumers’ lives. But here, too, use of plastics in packaging is growing, made possible by technological advances in plastics chemistry and fueled by a combination of consumer concerns and economic influences.
Perhaps the most surprising use of plastics in cosmetic and personal care packaging has been the migration of flexible packaging from the food arena, adding package drama by being unexpected—even unnecessary—yet surprisingly appropriate.
Not too many decades ago, "plastic" was a pejorative term, because plastics were used almost exclusively to replace more expensive materials and were associated with a cheapening of the original. Today’s plastics are still often used as a replacement, primarily for glass. But technological advances have in almost every case made them better than the original, rather than a poor substitute. Full Article >>
William. "Makely." Packaging. 04. 2003. The Cosmetic Site. 23 03. 2004
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