The Irreplaceable Advantages of Glass Packaging

Visiongain, a business information consulting service company in London, UK, published a 231-page report on the development prospects of materials and uses in the cosmetics packaging market from 2016 to 2026. The report stated that the scale of the international cosmetics packaging market is expected to reach 32.4 billion US dollars this year. As the two main forms of cosmetic bottle packaging, what is the future development of plastic and glass packaging?

Generally speaking, the texture of cosmetics is divided into solid granular (powder), liquid and emulsion cosmetics, and cream cosmetics. This form makes bottle packaging more widely used in cosmetic packaging. At the same time, cosmetics do not have a distinctive appearance. They must pass through exquisite and unique packaging design to show their own characteristics.

Judging from the current situation, the advantages of plastic bottle packaging are significant. It is lightweight and inexpensive, and can be made into various sizes, transparent, and opaque. At the same time, the printing performance of plastic bottle packaging is very good, and the instructions, logos, and bar codes can be directly printed on the surface of the container by heat transfer, inkjet, printing and other methods. In recent years, PET resin has developed rapidly in the application of cosmetic containers, which has led to a major change in replacing glass bottles with plastics. Plastic products have occupied more than 80% of the packaging market for cosmetics and become the most important packaging container for cosmetics.

Compared with the proportion of plastic, the proportion of glass-based bottle packaging in cosmetic packaging is relatively small, no more than 8%. Glass still has irreplaceable advantages in this field. In the short term, it is still the material of choice for high-end cosmetics. The reasons for this situation are as follows.

Firstly, the texture of glass bottle packaging is better than that of plastic bottles. Elegance and elegance are the charm of glass bottles. It can be made into frosted or transparent. At the same time, the weight of glass bottles can double the trust of consumers and improve the quality of cosmetics. This is something plastic packaging cannot do. At present, most perfume packaging still uses glass bottles.

Secondly, the sealing of glass bottle packaging is better. For some cosmetics with whitening and nutritional effects, they contain a lot of nutrients like food, but they are easily oxidized. This requires their packaging to have excellent sealing properties to block the impact of oxygen on these cosmetics. In addition, volatile perfumes also have high requirements for high barrier properties of packaging. Glass bottles have strong barrier properties and are undoubtedly better than plastic bottles in protecting the contents. Therefore, some high-end cosmetics still use glass bottle packaging as their first choice.

At present, plastic bottle packaging occupies a large share in cosmetic packaging and has a wide range of applications, but glass bottle packaging also has its irreplaceable advantages. Glass-based cosmetic packaging should still take the high-end route in the future, while also increasing its technological content.