Why Eco Cosmetic Tubes

An eco-friendly alternative to plastic cosmetic tubes and jars

In the cosmetics and beauty world, brand owners have been seeking to avoid or at least reduce plastics in beauty product packaging. All kinds of cream, lotions, lipsticks, and lip balm are in plastic cosmetic tubes or jars. 
Luckily, more beauty brands switch to sustainable cosmetics packaging by choosing cosmetic tubes and jars.

What is an Eco Cosmetic Tube?

Judging from the name, eco cosmetic tubes, first of all, should be environmental-friendly and plastic-free. 

Like the regular paper tubes we commonly see in daily life, eco cosmetic tubes are spiral-wound by paperboard and cardboard. The difference is that we add liner inside the cardboard tubes to create an interior barrier between the cosmetic liquid/oil and the cardboard tube. By doing so, the eco cosmetic tubes are water-proof or oil-resistant. The cosmetic chemicals would not leak into the cardboard. The cosmetic jars/tubes are eco and functional like regular plastic cosmetic containers. 

Eco cosmetic tubes mainly fall into two styles: push-up style and non-push-up style

1) Push-up Cardboard Lip Balm Tubes

Eco cosmetic tube in push-up style is usually for lip balm, lipstick, and deodorant packaging. Traditionally, end customers twist plastic lipstick tubes to apply cosmetics. For lip balm packaged in eco cosmetic tubes, customers would push the movable bottom disc to release the lip balm or deodorant before using it.

2) Non-push-up Eco Cosmetic Jars

Sustainable cosmetic tube in non-push-up hatbox style is usually for cream and lotion packaging. More frequently, it is called an eco cosmetic jar. With an extra thick inner and additional liner, the eco cardboard jars work equally as those plastic cosmetic jars but are fully compostable and recyclable.

What Are Good in Eco-friendly Cosmetic Tubes

1) Eco-friendly and recyclable

Plastics waste is the real pain for the cosmetic business. Customers are aware of the problems caused by plastic waste. So, more cosmetics and beauty brands are seeking eco cosmetic packaging. 

Biodegradable cosmetic containers are plastics-free, environmental-friendly, and biodegradable as the raw material is only paperboard and cardboard. 

Eco beauty packaging would help cosmetics brands facilitate the efforts in reducing plastic footprint and create a green cosmetics brand image.

2) Customized cosmetic packaging 

Stock empty plastic tubes and jars are dull and harm branding. With custom cosmetic packaging, beauty and makeup brands can decide packaging capacity, pick up whatever graphics elements, and apply various coatings to create rustic cosmetic packaging, luxury beauty packaging, minimalist makeup packaging, etc. 

Brand owners have complete control over every detail of their cosmetic packaging. Customized beauty packaging is helpful and constructive in brand building and marketing.

With compostable cosmetic tubes, you share all the good points in custom skincare packaging, as the paper is very flexible in terms of customization. Dimension, printing, and coating are all customizable to create a brand beauty packaging that matches their overall brand image and positioning. 

What Are Not Good in Eco Cardboard Cosmetic Tubing

1) Slower turnaround

There are a lot of stock plastic tubes and jars in the cosmetic packaging world. The stock beauty packaging lends flexibility to manufacturers and brands, especially for start-ups or those planning for a new product line or a trial run. They can get the ball rolling very quickly. Compared to this stock cosmetic packaging, custom beauty packaging projects usually take over a month, as the customization process involves tooling, custom printing, manual work, and shipping from overseas.

2) High order minimum

There is no minimum order quantity if buying stock plastic cosmetic tubes and jars. You can buy 50pcs, 100 pcs, or 200 pcs. But, if using custom eco-friendly cosmetic packaging, the order minimum is usually as high as 3,000 pcs or above. The high MOQ could be a pullback for cosmetics and beauty brands if they are just in the cosmetics business.

3) Higher unit packaging cost

Plastic tubes, plastic jars, and other cosmetic containers are tried-and-true packaging solutions in cosmetic and beauty packaging. The production is highly mechanized and involves little manual work. All these bring a much lower unit packaging cost. However, recyclable cosmetic cylinders are highly manual-work involved, which means their production costs could be much higher.

What’s worse, the Covid-19 pandemic has added so much to shipping costs. So if you buy from overseas, the shipping cost could be another problem when you make a packaging decision. 

What to Pay Attention to in Eco Cosmetic Containers

1) Capacity/size

Firstly, specify the diameter and height you need for a specific packaging capacity.

Different measurement combinations may create the same packaging capacity. For eco lip balm tube packaging, the common sizes are 0.15oz, 0.2oz, 0.3oz, 0.5oz, 1oz, etc. For eco cosmetic jars for body scrub, moisturizers, and conditioner packaging, the sizes could be larger to be 2oz, 4oz, 8oz, 9.5oz, etc. 

2) Lining material

Pay special attention to the lining material used. 
Wax paper and lamination are two lining materials commonly used. The liner creates a barrier against cosmetics oil/liquid leakage. Wax paper is fully compostable, but the lamination still involves a few plastics in production. 
Usually, wax paper is more recommended for small-capacity packaging. So, in most cases, cardboard lip balm tubes use wax paper as a lining option. On the contrary, large-capacity paper cosmetic jars use lamination as a lining material.

3) Tube style

Make sure you pick up the right cardboard tube style. 
As mentioned, biodegradable cosmetics tubes fall into two main types: 2-piece hatbox style and 3-piece telescoping style. 
Large-volume eco jars are mostly in 2-piece hatbox style. Small-volume eco lip balm tubes are, in most cases, in 3-piece telescoping tube style.

4) Paper stock

Paper stock matters. The paper stock is one of the significant aspects of creating a successful eco cosmetic tube.
Though paperboard beauty tubes are spirally-wound by paper, there are varieties of paper stock. We strongly recommend using white cardboard as the paper stock for the tube body. 
For the printing base for the artwork, either coated art paper (C2S) or uncoated paper (white kraft paper) is workable/applicable. 

A heads up is that brown kraft paper is NOT recommended as a printing base, as there would be oil stain issues during usage, causing the tubes to be ugly-looking.

The above is a brief introduction to the increasingly popular environmental-friendly cosmetic tube packaging. If you are also interested in switching to a more eco-friendly and compostable cosmetics packaging for your body scrub, foot conditioner, lip balm, and deodorant lines, please feel free to get in touch for more details via [email protected] or [email protected]. WhatsApp us at +86 181 3828 7678 or hop on a call to discuss and start your own green cosmetics packaging today.