Among cosmetic packaging, plastic containers have obvious advantages, basically occupying 80% of the market. However, glass packaging still has irreplaceable advantages in this field.
The material of glass
Glass is formed by fusing silica and other chemicals together (such as soda ash, limestone, quartz). It forms a continuous network structure during melting, and gradually increases in viscosity and hardens during cooling, resulting in the crystallization of silicate non-metallic materials. The chemical composition of ordinary glass is Na2SiO3, CaSiO3, SiO2, or Na2O-CaO6SiO2, etc. The main component is silicate compound salt, which is an amorphous solid with no regular structure.
Different kinds of glass
According to the material, glass can be divided into ordinary white, high white (super white), and crystal white, different materials can directly affect the transparency and brittleness of the final product, the better the raw materials produced the better the quality, the price of different material also varies.
The most common white glass bottles are made of recycled materials (commonly known as broken glass), so there are miscellaneous colors, phantoms, or deformations, the transmittance is about 82%. The high white glass needs to choose fewer impurities, high density of fine materials, and quartz sand, transmittance can reach 92%. The crystal white is basically processed with quartzite as the main material and silica as auxiliary materials.
Glass containers for cosmetics are mainly made of high-white material, and high-grade products also use crystal white material, such as perfume bottles.
The pros of glass containers
Glass containers as cosmetic packaging have the following irreplaceable advantages.
- Glass material is lead-free and harmless, with good barrier performance, good corrosion and acid resistance, which can well stop the oxidation and erosion of various gases to the contents, and at the same time can effectively stop the volatile components from volatilizing.
- The glass is transparent, make sure the contents are clearly visible, so the “value + effect” conveys a senior feeling to consumers.
- Glass bottles can be recycled repeatedly for multiple uses, reducing corporate packaging costs, but also conducive to environmental protection.
Of course, glass bottle as packaging material also has certain defects, because it is fragile, heavy, and requires special protection, which invariably increases the cost of transportation. This is also an important reason why it can not be more popular in cosmetic packaging.
The application of glass containers in cosmetics
Glass containers are mainly used for small-capacity cosmetics, such as creams, perfumes, essential oils, and candles, reed diffusers, capacity greater than 200ml is rarely used.
Creams are generally used with a wide-mouth short jar, for easy scrape out to use, it is appropriate to match the electrochemical aluminum lid or plastic lid, the capacity of most 100ml or less.
Perfume generally uses a short bottle, richly styled, palm size, with a sprayer or nozzle, a capacity of 100ml or less.
Essential oil bottles are usually made of teal or tinted frosted, light-proof, with an inner stopper or dropper, generally less than 30ml.
Candles basically use cylindrical cups with wooden or aluminum lids, or without lids, the most used being 100ml.
Diffusers generally use narrow-mouthed, short and round bottles with PP stopper and electrochemical aluminum cap, 100ml is the most used.
In practical applications, glass containers are given various surface treatments to enhance their attractive appearance.
Ordering and shipping
Commonly used glass bottle shapes are usually in stock, if not, they generally required 10,000MOQ, the smaller the volume the higher the MOQ, with a 30-day production lead time.
If you want to customize your own shape, or engraved it with your logo, you need to open a new mold(one cavity) at the cost of about 4,000, but the production mold is generally four cavities, it will take 16,000 in total.
Due to the glass being fragile, it may cause issues in transportation. To ensure its safety, it is necessary to do the following two things: to ensure that the goods will not shake in the box; there should be enough cushioning and shock-absorbing space between each item.
If there is no outer packaging, it needs to be separated by a thick partition so that it has sufficient cushioning and shock absorption space. If there is outer packaging (paper box, plastic box), then the safety of the outer packaging must be taken into account, must use the tray to fix each item, not let it shake. Additional, it is highly recommended to use pallet in shipping.
Finally, on the outer carton, it is best to label “fragile” “do not fall” “afraid of pressure” and other tips.
Recycling of glass
From the perspective of environmental protection, used glass does not pollute the environment and does not have the risk of threatening human survival as plastic does (of course, there is the risk of getting hurt by broken glass crumbs).
From a circular economy cost perspective, glass products are cheap to produce and even less valuable to recycle (perhaps even less than the cost of recycling), and there is no economic incentive to recycle as there is with metals.
However, the energy saved by recycling a glass bottle can light a 100-watt light for about four hours, run a computer for 30 minutes and watch a TV program for 20 minutes, so recycling glass is a significant thing to do.
