Product

Personal and home care products

10.05.2021 | 3 min read

Tõnu Kundla

There is currently a great deal going on in the personal and home care markets. Innovative products that make consumers’ lives easier or simply more beautiful are on the rise. The industry has relied on plastic packaging for many years in order to protect household cleaners, laundry detergents, creams, and similar products. This should come as no surprise given that these plastic solutions are lightweight and robust, give their contents excellent protection, and also impress in terms of design – both at the point of sale and in consumers’ homes. Packaging manufacturers must come up with innovative solutions if they want to meet the requirements for personal and home care products while also fulfilling consumers’ expectations for sustainability and user-friendliness.

The packaging solutions shown in this article are design ideas from our design and prototyping department, DesPro. Some have already been brought to market, while others are still in the development phase.

New packaging trends for cleaning products and household chemicals

Today, a variety of detergents, cleaning products, and household chemicals can be found in every home. With child safety at the forefront, the packaging used for these products also provides ideal protection for the contents and ensures that they are used efficiently. There is also a strong focus on environmentally friendly, sustainable solutions, with the use of PCR material a prime example. Of course, none of these considerations should compromise the packaging design or its user-friendliness.

When it comes to laundry and dishwasher detergent, there is a clear trend toward convenient single-dose units. These are easy to use and ensure that consumers do not use too much of the product, helping to conserve resources. Product protection is a top priority, for compressed versions and even more importantly for liquid tablets or pods. This means that the outer packaging has to be sufficiently robust to ensure that the tablets or pods are not crushed and damaged in consumers’ shopping bags. The ability to stack products is another important factor with respect to product transport and presentation at the point of sale.

Household cleaning products are not excluded from the demand of today’s consumers for sustainable solutions, such as the use of PCR material. At Greiner Packaging, we produce cups, lids, buckets, bottles, and closure options for the home care market. We take environmental protection very seriously in this area. On the one hand, we use lightweight packaging solutions to reduce our material usage and, in turn, our carbon emissions from transport. On the other, we make use of postconsumer recycled plastics (PCRs) for these packaging solutions wherever possible and have set a long-term goal of making our packaging 100 percent recyclable.

Tablets and pods containing detergent and cleaning products belong in household appliances, not in children’s hands. It is all too easy for children to confuse the brightly colored products with candy. As a result, it is crucial to ensure that the packaging, and especially the closure systems, for laundry detergent pods and dishwasher tablets are absolutely childproof.

Refill packs are increasingly popular in the home care market for sustainability reasons. For example, they may contain a concentrated product that can be easily diluted with water. Cutting down on plastic waste doesn’t get much easier or affordable than that. After all, why would you buy a new spray bottle every time you need household cleaner when there is now an efficient and eco-friendly way to refill your existing bottle?

K3® r-PP packaging solution for Persil 4in1 Discs

Greiner Packaging produces a cardboard-plastic packaging solution made with 50 percent r-PP for brand manufacturer Henkel. The plastics experts make the plastic tub in a two-layer process: Its interior consists of white virgin material, while the outer layer contains r-PP recovered from household waste. The sustainable packaging solution has received accolades in the form of the WorldStar Global Packaging Award 2021 and the Green Packaging Award 2020.

Lightweight laundry detergent packaging solutions with childproof lids

In the interests of sustainability, we try to save material wherever possible. With that in mind, we have developed a range of solutions for thermoformed, lightweight laundry detergent packaging. These can be combined with a variety of lids with carefully designed opening mechanisms to guarantee that small children cannot gain access to the colorful laundry detergent pods or dishwasher tablets. If you are interested in teaming up to implement our design concepts, please contact our designated market contact, Tonu Kundla.

Multidose refill solution

Sustainable refill solutions are gaining ground as a means of reducing plastic use, including in the household cleaning product segment. In conjunction with its in-house design agency DesPro, Greiner Packaging has developed a 200-milliliter squeeze bottle for refills. It is made of HDPE, PP, or PET and weighs just 16.4 grams in its original form. The bottle contains 200 milliliters of concentrate, which is enough for four spray bottle refills. This means four fewer conventional spray bottles and nozzles are needed, which amounts to an 85 percent reduction in plastic use across the spray bottle’s entire life cycle.

Personal care: trends in cosmetic and body care product packaging

In the bathroom, there has always been a need for packaging that is not only practical, but also aesthetically pleasing and attractively shaped. This has always been an area where appearance and style play a greater role than in the utility room, for instance. Nevertheless, the trend in the bathroom products segment is also increasingly moving toward sustainable, environmentally friendly packaging that contributes to the fight against plastic waste. After all, beauty and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive. Quite the opposite. The cosmetics packaging of the future will be recyclable, lightweight, based on PCR plastic – and it will boast a reduced CO₂ footprint. Potentially made with a cardboard element, it will look natural and organic with a simple visual appeal and the capacity to be recycled or refilled after use. The concept of design for recycling is therefore key to packaging development in this space right from the outset.

When it comes to our cups, lids, bottles, and closure systems for the cosmetics and personal care markets, we use lightweight packaging solutions that make it possible to reduce our material usage and, in turn, our carbon emissions from transport. In addition, design for recycling and the use of postconsumer recycled (PCR) plastics have a major role to play. The use of refill packaging is one option that provides opportunities to cut down on plastic consumption. And K3^® solutions are ideal for the cosmetics sector too.

Beauty products such as face creams require top-quality protection. Nevertheless, to consume as little plastic as possible, thin-walled plastic cups are an attractive and sustainable option as refill packaging solutions. The cups can be produced with barrier properties for even better protection of the product inside. In addition, they can be printed with eye-catching designs or decorated using a feature such as a cardboard wrap to save even more plastic.

When it comes to creams, for instance, Greiner Packaging uses plastic containers with an assortment of different design options: printed, unprinted, or K3^® cardboard wrap.

K3® cardboard-plastic bottles

The best example of sustainable packaging solutions with great potential, particularly in the cosmetics and personal care category, is K3^® packaging. A cardboard wrap, which lends stability to a thin-walled plastic body, helps to reduce the use of plastic. Cardboard and plastic are easy to separate from one another and, when disposed of properly, the two materials are readily recyclable. Greiner Packaging has a plethora of ideas for how cardboard-plastic bottles could enrich the personal care market. But there are also many potential applications for this sustainable and attractive form of packaging in the home care sector. Turn to page 13 to find out more.

Are you looking for packaging for your laundry detergent pods or dishwasher tablets? Or interested in childproof lid solutions? Please get in touch with our designated contact, Tonu Kundla. We are happy to custom design the perfect packaging for your product.