Deco Processes Add to Tubes’ Appeal

According to a new market report from the Freedonia Group, the demand for tube and related stick-type packaging in the U.S. is projected to advance 4% per year, reaching an estimated $2.1 billion by 2018. In addition to post-recession advancements in the manufacturing sector, the research firm also attributed growth projections to the improved outputs of cosmetic and toiletry and pharmaceutical products–which account for more than 75% of overall tube and stick packaging demands.

Squeeze tubes are by far the largest tube and stick packaging product type, and represented three-fifths of demand in 2013. Freedonia forecasts the demand for squeeze tubes to increase 3.8% annually to $1.3 billion in 2018. Beyond improved output in key markets, the firms expected gains to be bolstered by the greater use of value-added decorative processes and advanced delivery systems designed to protect and/or extend the shelf life of oxygen-sensitive contents. 

Single dose tubes, also known as unit dose or unit-of-use tubes, offer convenient product amounts for sample, promotional or travel-sized cosmetics and toiletries. Freedonia projected that single use tubes would experience “above average growth” in the coming years.

Laminate tubes, a mainstay for toothpaste products, were also expected to gain ground in cosmetic and toiletry applications, and in pharmaceuticals, at the expense of plastic and collapsible metal tubes.

The chief influencing factors set to impact the tube market in the near future include the maturity and commodity nature of toothpaste tubes, and marginal growth for collapsible metal tubes. There’s also increased import competition from manufacturers in nations such as China and India, which offer smaller-sized extruded plastic tubes at low-cost production.

Why Tubes?

There are many reasons why tubes continue to be one of the most popular forms of packaging for cosmetic and personal care products. Chiefly, tubes are just plain convenient to use. They are easy to hold with one hand, and give quick product access especially when they’re fitted with a flip-top dispensing cap. Consumers can also confidently store their tubed products on a vanity table, in a humid bathroom or in their handbag or carry-on without the worry of mess or compromising the integrity of the product inside.

Vinay Upasani, president, Global Packaging Inc., La Habra, CA, believes tubes offer many advantages over other forms of packaging. “Tubes allow almost 95% product evacuation and are a very hygienic option of packaging, with practically no contamination,” he says.

Upasani also points to the proliferation of tube sizes and decorative options that accommodate a variety of needs. “Tubes come in round, oval and super flat oval shapes, and can be made as small as 0.25 oz. to as large as 12 oz. capacity and can be fitted with a variety of closures,” he says. “Tubes can also be decorated using multiple methods like offset printing, silk screen printing, hot stamping, wrap around printing, labeling, etcetera. Thus any look and effect desired by the marketer can be created on tubes.”

Shanna Johns, sales manager, Express Tubes, Kent, WA, offers two functional reasons why tubes continue to be an excellent option for cosmetic and personal care formulas. “They are 100% customizable so you can always get the exact color, shape, size, finish, head style and cap that will best suit each individual product,” she comments. “Tubes [also] allow for diversity and dimension within product lines where bottles and jars often hinder creativity and customization.” 

Upasani adds that laminate tubes are another way of providing a cost effective packaging option that at the same time, delivers a high end look and feel to the tube thanks to the aluminum layer. Laminate tubes are also excellent vehicles for gravure or flexographic printing in multiple colors.

Jim Farley, vice president of global business development, World Wide Packaging Inc. (WWP), Florham Park, NJ, says the increased graphic capabilities related to tube customization continue to improve and evolve. “With more advanced extrusion and color blending/flood printing capabilities, we are able to easily coordinate a tube package into a line of other components,” he says. “In the past, offset decoration as the primary format for tube decoration limited this ability. Currently, we are adapting more sophisticated printing platforms that can, in some cases, replicate label printing.”  

The spectrum of available tube sizes is another aspect, especially as it relates to incorporating a cosmetic or personal care product into a product line that might consist of other packaging mediums. “Because tubes come in such a wide variety of sizes from 13 – 60mm, they truly can house any product that is as small as a one-time use dose all the way up to a 13-oz retail or economy size component,” Johns says. “With the ability to customize everything from the tube color and art to the orifice and closure option, tubes allow product lines to be diverse while still maintain brand recognition and the ‘family’ look within their beauty brand and category.” 

And tubes are terrific for different formulations, from thin liquids to viscous gels. “We have a customer who recently converted several of their beauty brands into tubes because they received consumer feedback stating that some of their more viscous product lines were difficult to get out of the pump bottles,” says Wendi Caraballo, marketing manager, Essel Propack America, Dabville, VA. “We helped them convert two of their lines into tubes and now they have a branded line of beauty products in both bottles and tubes.” 

Upasani feels that airless packaging components represent one of the latest breakthroughs influencing the cosmetic packaging tube segment. “These packages protect the products from exposure to air, offer precise and repeatable dosing, allow almost 100% product evacuation rate, and contain no metal parts that touch the product while dispensing,” he says, noting that a sleek airless package design effectively bridges the gap between high tech and high end luxury.

Global Packaging offers a variety of airless componentry including airless tubes. “The airless pumps used in airless tubes are either screw-on pump or snap-fit pump,” Upasani explains. “In the case of a screw on pump, the pump can be unscrewed by the customer allowing the air to go in and the pump can stop dispensing the product. In the case of a snap-fit pump, the assembly cannot be guaranteed to be 100% leak proof.”

To overcome both of these problems, Global Packaging designed a tube with a ratchet on the head of the tube, and a corresponding ratchet on the pump. “This unique design—we are unaware of any other manufacturer providing this—not only ensures a perfect leak proof assembly by applying the pre-determined torque, but also provides protection against accidental opening of the pump by the user,” Upasani says.

Tube Innovations at Retail

Maggie McClanahan, global market development manager for personal care, Berry Plastics, Lancaster, PA, says it’s no wonder that the beauty and personal care market enjoys the largest share of squeezable plastic tubes of any industry.  “According to Euromonitor International, tubes make up 12% of the total Beauty and Personal Care market,” she comments. “Largely due to the nature of the products dispensed in BPC, tubes are a great fit for this market due to their ability to dispense all of the often thick product from the package, their slim profile, their ease of use, and their large billboard for graphics and other information.”
Berry Plastics created an innovative tube for Procter & Gamble’s Gillette Body, which was named runner-up for Tube of the Year. “P&G was launching a new body shaving gel and knew they would have to differentiate it from their existing facial shaving gels,” she recalls. “They were looking for unique design features on the package that could help provide this.”

Berry Plastics delivered a metallic tube that features a clear, see-through panel to give consumers a glimpse of the bubbly blue gel product inside. “The final tube was created with a silver, cold foil base, followed by 10 flexographic colors and one rotary screen,” she says, adding that the substrate is a translucent laminate sheet with an EVOH barrier layer to give the tube extra stability. “The tube features a black background that is solid at the top of the tube and gradually fades out near the middle of the product leading to the clear window.”

The design also features a natural shoulder and sleek black flip-top cap for effortless dispensing. 

Viva Healthcare Packaging, Toronto, ON, supplied an award-winning tube to It’s a 10, which garnered a 2015 Ameristar honor. “It’s a 10 wanted to replace a labeled tube where the coverage of the label was not 100% with an overlap,” says Bruno Lebeault, Viva’s North American marketing director. “They also wanted to speed up the lead time which was way too long with three different suppliers (tube, cap, cap hot stamping) and a complicated supply chain.”

Viva provided an injection-molded tube with an in-mold label that incorporated componentry that was all manufactured and printed under one roof. “The in-mold label is extruded, laminated to a foil label to get a metallic background, and then printed on a ten-station hybrid press,” says Lebeault.

After cutting, the in-mold label is inserted in an injection mold where polypropylene (PP) is injected inside the PP in-mold label. “The tube is formed and decorated in a few seconds,” he says. “A colored cap, molded and hot stamped in the same plant is then assembled onto the tube, which is then ready to ship.”

The result is a graphically unique and sustainable tube turned around in a short lead-time.

Viva’s in-mold labeling also features its recently launched, injection-molded Diamond Hologram tube. Lebeault says the in-mold-labeling process embeds a holographic substrate into the tube decoration. Although the tube is currently displayed with a diamond holographic pattern, different patterns are available to help brands stand out on shelf with a premium look. 

Global Packaging has worked extensively with Los Angeles-based International Beauty Haus LLC, supplying many high-end tubes. One of their most recent packaging needs called for oval shaped tubes to package a line of personal care products under the Pierre’s Estheticians Formula brand name. The products comprised a foot balm, facial peel, moisturizing cleanser and Dead Sea mineral face mask. Global delivered a line of brightly colored oval tubes with similarly themed decorative accents.

“Oval shape tubes give a wider area for decoration,” says Global’s Upasani. “The uniqueness of this tube is that it is a custom color tube which is further enhanced by gradient printing in the same color.”

Each of the tubes is decorated with colorful hot stamps, silk screen printing and offset printing, and all are capped off with a stand-up, flip-top cap in matching custom colors. “Overall, this tube sports a high complexity of decoration and stands out brilliantly on the retail shelves in comparison to the competing products,” Upasani says.

WWP amped up the visual appeal of the tube closure it provided for Astral Brands’ Pur CC Crème. The company’s Farley says the cap is a two-piece custom design with a PETG outer layer that conveys a high-end, almost glass-like look. An eye-catching vacuum metallized inner aspect of the tube takes the design to an elegant level.

Alexandria Potter, vice president of purchasing and planning at Astral Health & Beauty, along with her team, challenged and collaborated with WWP to ensure that a specific criteria was applied to the creation of a custom designed cap. The end product is no mere standard stock threaded closure; instead it’s tall, narrow and elegant.

Essel Propack America recently created a tube package for its customer Morinda’s premium anti-aging A.G.E. Therapy Gel. The effort earned a Tube of the Year award.

The tube’s look pops thanks to a specialized decoration process executed during the varnish coating step. “Using a combination of gloss and matte varnish, we were able to achieve a ‘checkerboard’ look on the entire 360 [degree] surface of this tube,” says Essel Propack’s Caraballo. “This can be extremely difficult to accomplish because setup has to be precise so there is no miss-registration during this process, otherwise it will make the artwork looked smudged and won’t provide the sharp, square edges.
“The technique of using both gloss and matte gives the tube a tactile, or slightly raised surface, that adds a unique and appealing feel in the hands of consumers,” she continues. “We’re seeing more and more customers take interest in the different varnish and tactile decoration options, and we’re continuing to enhance these techniques for our customers.”

Express Tubes has been busy in the cosmetic, personal care and skin care markets. Johns talked to Beauty Packaging about three recent applications her company had a hand in, beginning with tubes recently supplied to Tula Life LLC for its Probiotic Skincare line. Tula’s Dan Reich selected a calming and revitalizing look when they designed their Cleanser & Eye Cream tubes, opting for a clean, matte finished tube in the brand’s signature teal color. The tube is capped off with a custom colored silver flip top cap for ease of dispensing. “Since Tula is the first thing our consumers use in the morning and the last thing they use before going to sleep at night, we wanted our users to feel good whenever they saw the Tula products on their vanities and by their sinks,” Reich says.

Shadow Creek Products tapped Express Tubes’ new Air-backless Flip Top Cap Bladder orifice for its new Men’s Driball product. “We desired a rugged, masculine looking tube that could house our unique product in a stable environment and allow easy mess-free dispensing,” says Shadow Creek’s Amber Barth. “We chose their 50mm black matte LDPE five-layer tubes with the EVOH protective barrier for our 4 oz. fill and their new Matte Black Flip Top Cap with the bladder orifice so our product would have minimal exposure to air and allow the consumer the ability to dispense product one-handed if needed.”

The Shadow Creek tubes feature white silkscreen printing that convey both a ruggedly vintage feel and connect to the brand’s full vision for the new men’s product.

Trish Stack, spokesperson for Epionce, a brand that’s taken its custom packaging needs to Express Tubes for nearly a decade, aptly summarized the importance of tubes—not just for her company, but for the beauty industry as a whole, commenting, “Tube packaging for the beauty and skin care markets helps create consistent brand identity while combining superior formula protection and ease of use for the consumer in regard to the advantages tubes offer when designing a fill line or ‘family’ of products.”