化妝品軟管因With the characteristics of light weight, easy to carry, strong and durable, recyclable, easy to squeeze, good processing performance and printing adaptability, etc., it is favored by many cosmetic production brands and is widely used in the packaging of skin care products and other cosmetics. In the previous article, there is a published article on theKnowledge of cosmetic tubesThere is a brief introduction to the type of hose, features, process and so on, but because of the limitations of the collection of information, did not provide more detailed information. Can not solve the problem of the article, is the editor can not tolerate, so determined, hanging beam, collect information about the cosmetic hose, organized into this article, I hope to help you better understand all aspects of the cosmetic hose:

I. Cosmetic plastic hose characteristics

At present, plastic hoses commonly used in cosmetic packaging mainly include aluminum-plastic composite hoses, all-plastic composite hoses and plastic co-extruded hoses, which are able to meet a variety of needs of cosmetic packaging, such as hygiene, barrier properties and so on.

1.Aluminum-plastic composite hose

Aluminum-plastic composite hose is made of aluminum foil and plastic film through co-extrusion composite process, and then processed into a tube by a special tube-making machine as a kind of packaging container, and its typical structure is PE/PE+EAA/AL/PE+EAA/PE. Aluminum-plastic composite hose is mainly used for packaging cosmetics with high requirements for hygiene and barrier, and its barrier layer is usually aluminum foil, and its barrier depends on the pinhole of aluminum foil. Its barrier layer is usually aluminum foil, and its barrier property depends on the pinhole of aluminum foil. With the continuous improvement of technology, the thickness of the aluminum foil barrier layer in aluminum-plastic composite hose has been reduced from the traditional 40 μm to 12 μm or even 9 μm, which greatly saves resources.

Aluminum-plastic composite hose has the following advantages in use.

(1), high barrier, aluminum foil with light-blocking, oxygen-blocking and water-blocking barrier properties, on the one hand, can prevent the invasion of external substances within the cosmetic products, to prevent oxidation and deterioration of cosmetics, while also preventing the cosmetic products within the water or fragrance and other ingredients through the hose diffusion to the outside world, so as to ensure the quality of cosmetics.

(2) Low cost. To achieve the same barrier performance, aluminum-plastic composite hose than all-plastic composite hose and plastic co-extruded hose using less material, lower cost, better economy.

2. All-plastic composite hose

All-plastic composite hose is all plastic components, divided into two kinds of all-plastic non-barrier composite hose and all-plastic barrier composite hose. Plastic non-barrier composite hose is generally used for low-grade fast-consumption cosmetic packaging; full plastic barrier composite hose due to the existence of side seams in the tube, usually used for low and medium-grade cosmetic packaging, the barrier layer can be a multilayer composite material containing EVOH, PVDC, oxide coated PET and so on. The typical structure of full plastic barrier composite hose is PE/PE/EVOH/PE/PE.

The advantages of all-plastic composite hose are as follows:

Environmental friendliness. Compared with aluminum-plastic composite hose, full-plastic composite hose using economic, easy to recycle full-plastic sheet, can reduce the environmental pollution of packaging waste, recycled full-plastic composite hose can produce relatively low-grade products after re-processing.

(2) Color diversification. According to the characteristics of cosmetics and different consumer demand, plastic composite hose can be made of different colors, such as colorless transparent, color transparent, color opaque, etc., giving consumers a strong visual enjoyment. Especially transparent full-plastic composite hose, can clearly see the color of the contents of the state, giving a strong visual impact, and greatly promote the consumer's desire to buy.

(3) Good resilience: Compared with aluminum-plastic composite hose, full-plastic composite hose has better resilience, to ensure that after squeezing cosmetics, the hose can quickly return to its original form, always maintain a beautiful, regular appearance. This is essential for cosmetic packaging.

3.Plastic co-extruded hose

Plastic co-extruded hose uses co-extrusion technology to co-extrude different properties and types of raw materials together in a single molding. Plastic co-extruded hose is divided into single-layer co-extruded hose and multi-layer co-extruded hose, the former is mainly used for the packaging of fast-consuming cosmetics (such as hand creams, etc.) with high requirements for appearance and low requirements for actual use, while the latter is mainly used for the packaging of high-grade cosmetics.

The main advantages of plastic co-extruded hose are as follows:

(1) Because there is no edge seal, the appearance effect is better than the composite hose, which is necessary for high-grade cosmetic hose packaging.

(2) According to the different extrusion die opening, various shapes of extruded hose can be produced, such as oval, square, etc., to meet the needs of different consumers.

4. Analysis of the shortcomings of various plastic hoses

The three types of plastic tubes for cosmetic packaging mentioned above have their own drawbacks.

(1) Aluminum-plastic composite hose due to the use of aluminum foil, there are many drawbacks, such as invisible contents, poor environmental protection, poor resilience, composite strength is lower than the full-plastic composite hose, easy to delamination and so on.

(2) The barrier property of full-plastic composite hose mainly depends on the type and thickness of the barrier layer material, for example, the full-plastic composite hose with EVOH as the barrier layer material, in order to achieve the same barrier property and stiffness, the cost of which should be higher than that of the aluminum-plastic composite hose, which is about 20%~30%. In the future for quite a long time, it will become the main factor to limit the full-plastic composite hose to replace the aluminum-plastic composite hose comprehensively. The main factors.

(3) Plastic co-extruded hose production and processing technology, generally for the first tube after the printing, for the printing process, the efficiency is low, the process is complex and difficult.

Second, the advantages of plastic tubes commonly used in cosmetic packaging

Plastic hose is convenient to use hygiene, bright and beautiful surface color, so it has been widely used in the packaging of cream cosmetics, such as cosmetics industry, facial cleanser, hair conditioner, hair dye, toothpaste and other products packaging, as well as the pharmaceutical industry, cream, cream type of topical drugs and other packaging.

Plastic hose packaging is economical and convenient, easy to carry, and even with high intensity circumferential extrusion, it can still be restored to its original shape and maintain a good appearance. The data show that 60%~70% hoses are used in the cosmetic industry, 10%~15% hoses are used in the pharmaceutical industry, and about 5% are used in the food industry. Therefore, how to better realize the design concept of the product through the flexible tube packaging, strengthen the decorative effect of the flexible tube packaging, in order to more quickly attract consumers' eyes and fit the brand temperament, has become an important topic for end users to think about.

Three,Plastic Flexible Tube Packagingproduct mix

The main part of the plastic hose includes the shoulder, tube (tube body) and tube end, while the tube part is often decorated by direct printing or self-adhesive labels for appearance to carry text or pattern information to enhance the value of product packaging.

The decoration of the hose is now mainly realized by direct printing as well as self-adhesive labels. The direct printing, including screen printing and offset printing. Compared with direct printing, self-adhesive labels have the following advantages: printing diversity and stability: the traditional extruded hose first tube and then printing process usually use offset and screen printing, and self-adhesive printing can be used letterpress, flexo, offset printing, screen, hot stamping and other diversified combinations of printing processes, difficult color performance is more stable and excellent.

Fourth, the rational choice of plastic hose

In the cosmetics industry, packaging quality is the second life of the product. According to the characteristics of cosmetics and sales and other factors, choose the right plastic tubes as packaging, can make cosmetics in the high-quality packaging under the auspices of the more charming.

1. Hygiene and safety

Cosmetics are in direct contact with the human body, which puts forward high hygiene and safety requirements for their packaging. For plastic tubes, control should be carried out from the safety of raw materials (raw material particles must comply with relevant laws and regulations, such as FDA, SGS certificate, etc.), production process, production environment, etc., so as to ensure the hygiene and safety of the cosmetics inside.

2. Protective

Packaging materials should have sufficient mechanical strength, a certain degree of barrier properties, chemical resistance, weather resistance, etc., to prevent cosmetic products in the filling, storage and transportation process to produce quality problems.

(1) Mechanical properties. The main function of packaging is to use its mechanical properties to ensure that the contents are not damaged. Cosmetics packaging plastic hose mechanical properties such as compression, impact resistance, bending strength, etc., mainly based on the nature of the packaged product, packaging machinery and storage and transportation requirements. Generally speaking, the plastic hose must have a certain stiffness to ensure that the overall shape of the product is intact; at the same time, it also needs to have a good resilience to ensure that the extrusion can be returned to its original shape. However, in the same material composition and the same thickness conditions, stiffness and resilience is a pair of contradictions, only to balance the two, in order to meet the needs of customers.

(2) Barrier properties. Cosmetic packaging plastic soft commonly used barrier materials are aluminum foil, EVOH, oxide coated PET and nylon, etc., and their barrier properties vary according to the selected materials and thickness. For example, aluminum foil has a high barrier, when the thickness of aluminum foil in 25μm or more, its barrier performance up to 100%; EVOH barrier to oxygen and its thickness is directly proportional to the oxygen permeability of 15μm thick EVOH is about 0.3 ~ 0.4cc/m2-24h (mocon detection method); with the oxygen permeability of oxide-coated PET is generally 0.2 ~ 1.0cc /m2-24h (mocon detection method). Therefore, different materials with different barrier properties should be selected according to the requirements of the packaged cosmetics. In addition, the interaction between fragrance and packaging materials should also be considered, for example, polyolefin materials absorb essential oils, at which time a protective coating can be added between aluminum foil and polyolefin materials.

(3) Chemical resistance and weather resistance. Cosmetic packaging plastic hose materials selected should have the content of chemical corrosion resistance, including oil resistance, fat resistance, acid resistance, etc., according to the actual conditions and needs of the base resin to meet the requirements of the use of preferred, such as HDPE than LDPE has better chemical resistance.

The weather resistance of the plastic hose is related to the temperature resistance, dimensional stability and environmental stress cracking resistance of the materials used, only to ensure the short-term or long-term performance of the plastic hose to ensure the quality and safety of cosmetics. For example, some cosmetics are suitable for use in the cold winter, if the plastic hose using PP and other conventional materials, there may be a series of problems such as drop test failed, burst tube, etc., this is because the glass transition temperature of PP in -10 ℃ or so, low temperature brittle, fragile. At this time it is necessary to adjust the formula structure of the plastic hose, the use of toughened materials to improve the impact strength of the plastic hose.

3. Operational

In order to facilitate printing and packaging operations, to adapt to mechanized operations, cosmetic packaging plastic tubes should have good printing suitability, heat sealing performance and packaging machine suitability.

(1) Printability. From the printing point of view, aluminum-plastic and plastic composite hose than plastic co-extruded hose has more advantages. Because aluminum-plastic and all-plastic composite hose are first made of different materials through the extrusion process into a sheet, after slitting, printing process before making the tube, or will be printed after the film after extrusion, slitting process and then make the tube; and plastic co-extruded hose is the first tube after the printing, will inevitably lead to the complexity of the printing process.

(2) Heat sealing performance. Heat sealing performance includes two indicators of sealing temperature and heat sealing strength. Especially some temperature-sensitive cosmetics, the requirements of the end of the tube welding sealing temperature can not be too high, this time the heat sealing surface can be used in some low-temperature heat sealing materials to ensure that the quality of cosmetics does not affect the quality of the low-temperature conditions of welding sealing. When filling cosmetics, the contents may be contaminated sealing, the use of general materials processing plastic hose can not be a good sealing, but if the heat sealing surface using anti-pollution materials, it can effectively solve the problem.

4. Economy

In the aluminum-plastic composite hose, the unit price of aluminum foil is the highest, and controlling the thickness of aluminum foil can effectively control the cost of the hose. Therefore, under the premise of ensuring good product performance, the use of thinner aluminum foil, reducing losses in the production process, and adopting simple packaging as much as possible can reduce the cost of aluminum-plastic composite hose.

At present, the cost of all-plastic composite hose is high, without affecting the performance of the premise, thinning the thickness is also one of its future development direction. As a result, high stiffness materials (such as PP, etc.) will be more and more used in the full-plastic composite hose.

In order to reduce the printing cost of plastic co-extruded hose and to take advantage of its appearance (no side seal), a new hose structure has been developed. The structure consists of a transparent plastic co-extruded hose sleeved on the outside of the printed composite hose by a special process, so that the printed pattern inside is clearly presented to the consumer, while maintaining the excellent feel of the plastic co-extruded hose.

V. Outlook for future development trends

In recent years, more and more cosmetic manufacturers have begun to pay attention to environmental protection, green packaging will become a trend. At present, aluminum-plastic composite hose is still the main packaging material for high-barrier products, which consumes a lot of resources and is very difficult to recycle. Barrier materials such as EVOH and SiOx coated film are used to replace aluminum foil, which not only can achieve high barrier properties, but also can be recycled, but the high cost limits its wide use. On the other hand, the development and application of biodegradable plastics have alleviated the environmental problems to a certain extent. NatureWorks Polymer, produced by NatureWorks LLC in the United States, is a polylactic acid resin that can be used to process all kinds of plastics and packaging, and it has good biodegradability.

At the same time, both protective, functional and decorative multi-layer composite hose will seize more market in the future, multi-layer co-extruded hose will gradually replace the single-layer co-extruded hose, the protection of cosmetics is further enhanced. In addition, the use of advanced technology to minimize the visibility of the plastic hose seams, so that the plastic hose looks more beautiful, will also be one of the future development trend.