Get Creative with Custom Cosmetic Tube Packaging

There is a lot of competition in the cosmetic industry these days. Consumers are more interested in buying products that are good for them and the planet, so established manufacturers are reformulating their products and redesigning their cosmetic tube packaging to appeal to the latest preferences. 

At the same time, new manufacturers are emerging with new products specifically created to address the push towards a healthier lifestyle. These products are often formulated to have all-natural ingredients or a special ingredient rarely found and available only in the manufacturer's product. 

Walk into a pharmacy or supermarket these days, and you'll encounter a bewildering array of creams, oils, lotions, ointments, sunscreens, and essences that all claim to be the best thing for your skin. 

Getting the Customer’s Attention

Retailers tend to group products together by category to make them easier to find. It's a logical system for retail merchandising, but it can make the manufacturer's job more difficult. Your natural sunscreen packaging has to stand out from all the other sunscreens on the shelf to have a chance of being purchased.   

Cosmetic companies are hiring creative design studios and talented graphic artists to design unique packaging that sets their products apart from their competitors’ products. For manufacturers that believe in their products and want to make a difference in the market, the first challenge is to get the customer’s attention. And the more competition you have the more first impressions matter.

These designers and graphic artists work within the packaging size constraints to create the perfect eye-catching design, one that says something about the product within and has a visually attractive design that sets it apart from other similar products on the shelf.

The Value of Experience in Plastic Tube Printing

But investing tons of money, time, and creative effort to create unique packaging for your product is just a waste of energy if it can’t be reproduced on the tubes you use to package your products. And that’s where an experienced cosmetic tube packaging supplier may be crucial to your brand’s success when launching a new product in a crowded marketplace. 

Laminated plastic tubes have been around for years in the packaging industry, and in that time they’ve undergone several evolutions with regards to how the labels are applied. 

In the very early days, direct printing wasn't used at all. Plastic tubes were created that had a uniform colour of the client's choosing. The labels were printed on paper separately as a secondary process. Then these tubes had to undergo a third process where the labels had glue applied and were stuck to the side of the tubes. It was an expensive and time-consuming operation. 

Printing Directly on the Tubes

Some engineers began to play around with the idea of printing directly on the plastic tubes, and soon printing on tubes became an added step in the manufacturing process. This streamlined the production process. It became faster and less expensive to manufacture the tubes. But there were still drawbacks to the printing process.

The printing process used in the beginning was called Letterpress. This is an ancient method of printing (it was the method used to print the Guttenberg Bible). A raised surface of the image to be printed was covered in ink and applied to the surface of the tube. The ink had to be reapplied again and again. And changing over to a new design took a long time. There were also stretching issues with printing on the freshly created and still warm plastic tubes.

Experienced packaging manufacturers, like Victor Packaging in Thailand, took note of this issue and kept working on a solution. Laminated tubes presented the most serious challenges, as they were made of different materials and cooled at different speeds.

Entering the Digital Age of Plastic Tube Printing

 The packaging industry has now turned to computers to deal with the stretching of the plastic tubes so they can apply the same distortions to the design that will be applied to the tube. For instance, PBL is a material that's used extensively in the packaging industry. It's also extremely sensitive to heat changes. By studying the stretching characteristics of PBL and keeping track of the heat level of the material at the time of printing, they could imitate the same level of stretching and apply it to the design template. Once the printed PBL tube cooled down sufficiently, the printing on the tube appeared as designed. 

They take other measures as needed to stabilise tubes enough to accept the bold designs and bright colours that many of today’s products use. Some plastic tubes are exposed to chill drums, which help get them to the right temperature before they’re printed. UV lamps are used to cure some laminated tubes as different layers use different materials. By using UV lamps and chill drums, the tubes can be kept at a lower temperature, and stretching is less of an issue. 

Cosmetic Tube Packaging Manufacturers Serve Their Customers

 The design and printing needs of the cosmetics industry have led to countless innovations in the packaging industry over the years. These innovations have resulted in a better understanding of the packaging suppliers' products. 

As their experience increases, these packaging suppliers become more valuable to the cosmetics industry and to the consumers who use their products. Besides their printing innovations, they can better protect the products within the packaging by developing stronger materials, and also help to design lighter materials that reduce shipping costs. 

Victor Packaging is a leading plastic packaging supplier located in Thailand. Contact them to learn more about what they can offer your company.