Beauty & Packaging: Our top stories featuring packaging and design news in the cosmetics industry

1 – Eco-friendly demand: Hotels demanding environmentally-friendly options for personal care amenities - Groupe GM​

Luxury hotel brands are leading the charge for more eco-friendly personal care amenities​ in both Hong Kong and Macau, according to Groupe GM.

The company has only been operational in Hong Kong for eight months but already services luxury hotel names such as Four Seasons and Mandarin Oriental. The latter has recently banned the use of plastic bottles as part of its efforts to reduce its environmental impact.

The French company says this bodes well for its eco-designed and eco-responsible products such as Ecopump, 300ml dispensers

According to the company, Ecopump can help hotels save five times more plastic, an equivalent of 25 plastic 30ml bottles every month.

2 – Henkel Beauty Care launches 100% recycled plastic packaging

Henkel, which owns personal care brands including Schwarzkopf hair care, has announced its launch of 100% recycled plastic product packaging​, of which 50% is ‘social plastic’ across specific products within its offering.

Across two special editions of shampoo and shower gel from its brands Fa and Nature Box, Henkel is using packaging bottles made of recycled plastic in Germany, with the company stating the first products involved will hit the market in June.

The products will be dubbed "Meeres Glück" from Nature Box and "Meeres Liebe" from Fa. With this latest effort, Henkel Beauty Care is continuing its support for the initiative led by Plastic Bank, which is committed to fighting Ocean Plastic while reducing poverty.

“We are looking forward to consistently and successfully integrate sustainability with the upcoming product launches for Fa and Nature Box and to tackle – together with Plastic Bank – the global issue of Ocean Plastic," says Saskia Schmaus, Corporate Director International of Henkel Beauty Care.

3 – Unilever’s new pigment to help recycling of plastic packaging

Unilever’s new packaging innovation could see 2500 tonnes of black plastic​ to be removed from the waste stream each year.

As part of the multinational’s UK and Ireland ‘Get Plastic Wise’ campaign, Unilever has pioneered the use of a new detectable black pigment so packaging can be detected by recycling plant scanners and sorted for recycling.

The company says it will be sharing the solution with other manufacturers and across industry.

The new detectable black pigment will be used initially in its High Density Polyethelyne (HDPE) bottles for its leading brands, TRESemmé and Lynx.

Sebastian Munden, General Manager of Unilever UKI, said: “We’ve been working on a solution for black plastic for some time, and this move to using detectable black plastic in our TRESemmé and Lynx bottles means we will potentially be removing around 2,500 tonnes of plastic from the waste stream.

4 – Silgan Dispensing works to make fragrance packaging faster and greener

At Luxe Pack New York this month, Cosmetics Design caught up with Anne Echard, global product manager of fragrance at Silgan Dispensing, to learn how the manufacturer is helping customers get custom packaging to market more quickly and offer recyclable and refillable fragrance packaging.​

Silgan’s latest offerings are a product of the time, really. The always fast-paced beauty industry has sped up in recent years, thanks in part to all things digital and the rise of agile indie brands. And environmental sustainability is a priority across the board.

In our video interview with Anne Echard, global product manager of fragrance at Silgan Dispensing, she describes the company’s new XpresService by Silgan and how it can help customers with speed to market. “We’re leveraging our expertise, with a great sense of priority, to offer some reliable and easy solutions to offer full satisfaction to our customer,” Echard tells Cosmetics Design editor Deanna Utroske; noting that with ready-made metal color options this service “can save around 6 weeks” time.

5 – HCT Group launches recyclable colour cosmetics packaging

At this year’s Luxe Pack New York event it seemed as if everyone was showing some sort of greener, cleaner beauty packaging. To meet the growing demand for environmentally friendly packaging, HCT has begun making compacts in recyclable, recycled, and bio-plastic options​. Cosmetics Design spoke with Nicole Amorosino, the company’s VP of product sales, to learn more.

The company’s new collection of makeup packaging is called EMA—Eco Modern Approach. And in this video interview with Cosmetics Design, Nicole Amorosino, VP of product sales at HCT Group, talks through the first EMA designs as well as plans for further packaging and product. “We’re looking to do the different resins in even our brush handles,” says Amorosino.

She later describes some new HCT applicator technologies and how the company is responding to the clean beauty movement across all of its business units (packaging, formulation, brushes and tools, etc.).