Cosmetic Business 2024: Albéa highlights its Ecofusion top for a lighter cosmetic solution

14 Jun 2024 --- Albéa showcases its packaging solutions for beauty products at Cosmetic Business in Munich, Germany, aiming to reduce industry waste.

Personal Care Insights speaks to Margot Doll, product manager for Albéa, about the company’s custom designs and manufacturing for fragrance caps and skin care and highlights its Ecofusion Top, which reduces packaging weight. The cap solution is “ultra-light,” ready to be recycled, and suitable for online distribution. 

“On the tubes, you have three components: the sleeve or body, the head and the cap. With the Ecofusion Top, we removed one component, so you only have two components: the sleeve and the Eco Top solution. It is a great way to reduce the plastic weight in the tubes because the cap part is directly sealed to the body,” explains Doll. 

User-friendly design
The Ecofusion Top is made entirely with PE, making it a monomaterial tube for recyclability and ready for the high-density PE recycling stream. Doll tells us that besides the sustainability credentials of the cap solution, the packaging solution was designed to be user-friendly.

“It doesn’t change the habits of the consumer. It is a standard flipped-up cap. You just open it with your finger, so it’s user-friendly. Another advantage is that it is made to have better restitution rates for the product in the tubes,” she says.

Watch the video with Albéa on the tradeshow floor.The Eco Top technology can be applied to any design. In fact, it was recently adapted for L’Occitane’s popular hand cream, which has an octagon-shaped lid.

“We can develop different kinds of designs. With L’Occitane, we created what we call the Octo Top. It’s basically the same as you have now: the body and the Eco Top solution on it. We designed it to have the shape of the standard octagonal, and so the brand was really happy because it’s their iconic shape for their end cream,” comments Doll.

“Everything is possible with the Eco Top solution. The customer can develop the design that they want, and we can make the mold and have a sustainable solution for them.”

Sustainability focus
Doll believes one of the most significant industry trends is brands demanding sustainability while matching their design image. 

“Today, sustainability is the big challenge. Brands want sustainable products, but they also want products that show the image of their brands. So we need to find a good balance between eco-design, sustainable solutions, and offering offers that correspond to their brand.”

“We are trying our best to go in the CSR direction.”

“Every new innovation, every new project, is designed with the CSR topic in mind. The three main pillars that we are trying to address are reduction, recyclability and PCR. We are always trying to have one of these pillars in our innovation, and most of the time, it is all of them at the same time.”

Ecofusion allows customers to choose which sleeve they want. Brands can pick a paper option or a 50% or 75% PCR sleeve.

“We are the backstage development of cosmetic products, and it’s amazing to see how the brands are thinking about their product, how we have to answer them, and how we have the final customer in mind. We have to see the big picture of the cosmetic industry, not only packaging, in order to offer good solutions to the customers.”

By Sabine Waldeck with live reporting from Anita Sharma at Cosmetic Business