Clean is the latest buzzy beauty trend and for some beauty and personal care products with sensitive ingredients or natural/preservative-free formulations, standard packaging just won’t do. Unscrewing a standard cap for a jar, bottle or tube exposes product formulas to the degrading effects of light and air, which can rapidly reduce the viability and efficacy of ingredients, while dipping a finger into the package to access the formula additionally risks the introduction of bacteria.

Airless packaging, on the other hand, is made to protect formulas and preserve ingredient freshness by eliminating contact with oxygen and the user’s chosen method of application until the moment the product is dispensed.

“Airless packaging is ideally suited for the clean and sometimes more fragile formulas we see trending today,” says Jing Santos, co-founder, Accipiter Beauty Packaging LLC. “Compared to open systems like jar packaging, airless offers a big advantage in mitigating bacterial ingression.”

Airless packaging is also ideal for products used in smaller quantities, such as essences, foundations, BB creams and concealer, says Alex Wu, vice president and manager, Guangzhou Sanrong Material Packaging Co., Ltd. “Airless tubes allow a specific amount of product to be dispensed at once,” he says. “Metered dispensing helps lower the amount of product waste by dispensing an exact amount of product with each pump.”

In addition, Simon Kassas, managing director, healthcare, PKG Group LLC/Yonwoo PKG, notes that the piston design of airless packaging configurations enables a more thorough evacuation of product formula from a package. Dispensing can also be achieved in a metered dose format in 360 degrees, meaning the package can be held in whatever way is most comfortable to the user, and the dispensed dose will still be accurate.

Branded Collaborations

NF Beauty Group’s All-Out Bottle proved to be the perfect airless solution for Dew as I Do and The Power Move, products that are part of Stripes, a new brand co-founded by actress Naomi Watts. The brand was created to destigmatize and support women as they transition through menopause, and features skincare, haircare and personal care products formulated with clean, natural and ethically sourced ingredients.

The All-Out Bottle comes in 30- and 50ml refillable inner cartridges with a glass outer, explains Andrea Greff, senior design and marketing manager at NF Beauty Group. The All-Out Stripes bottles were “spray-coated a cream color with cap and inner bottle color matched in injection molded PP, creating a fully uniform look,” she says, adding that the artwork on both bottles is silk screened in a fresh cyan color, to fit in with the brand aesthetic.

“Color matching plastic to spray coating can be a challenge generally, so we did various samples and iterations to get this right,” Greff says. “The reason this is a challenge is due to the nature of how color shows up on different materials.

“Injection molding requires heat and the melting and flow of plastic, therefore a color you choose early on may come out differently in the final cooled product, so testing and sampling is essential,” explains Greff. “With spray coating or spray painting, we can mix colors to get the right Pantones and shades, but sometimes this also requires a delicate eye to coordinate and match to client specs.”

In addition to the All-Out Bottle, NF Beauty Group’s airless packaging includes bottles and pumps, single-wall, double-wall, in various sizes and material options, plus airless jar pumps that are available in single- and double-wall options. Its latest offering is the All-Out Airless Jar, launched last year, which is part of the All-Out collection that’s more than just airless, it’s also refillable for brands hoping to create a strong sustainability story.

Danish skincare brand Nuori turned to Quadpack to source an airless solution that aligned with the ethos of its new, all-natural skincare launch, The One, which contains no synthetic preservatives, stabilizers or additives to prolong shelf life. The company chose Quadpack’s Regula Airless, which shields the formula’s fresh ingredients from external contamination without the need for synthetic preservatives.

The brand opted to configure its package with a metal-free pump and recyclable materials, including 100% recycled PET for the outer bottle and cap, which were left uncolored except for two-color silk-screen branding. The inner bottle, adapter and dispenser were color-injected in the brand’s signature sea green shade. The result is a sustainable packaging solution that encapsulates Scandinavian minimalism.

“We wanted the most sustainable pack with the highest protection,” said Nuori brand manager Ann-Marie Rønlund Jensen. “As our expert partner, Quadpack always takes us on a journey to navigate the options in terms of innovation and sustainability. With The One, our research and discussions led us to embrace recycled material, complete with its imperfections and color variations. Airless was a given. The finished pack perfectly fits our mindset of high performance, simple aesthetics and low waste.”  

Accipiter Beauty Packaging’s range of all-plastic airless dispensing options, which including several mono-material and 50% PCR solutions, proved beneficial to Bread Beauty Supply, which was in search of an airless packaging configuration for its Bread Hair-Gel.

After reviewing the package brief, Accipiter’s Santos knew its 200ml Airlessio Mono-PO airless bottle was the ideal solution. “With a tight timeline, tight budget and an untested formula with an airless package, the Airlessio met all requirements,” he says. “Made in Germany, which helped with the precision color matching a sprayed glass jar into injection molded PP, there was no time for a re-match and we hit the color on the first round. [With] no additional tariffs and with an in-mold matte finish, [we] kept the cost within budget. There was also no time for a second round of testing and with the Airlessio’s proven track record with hair care products, [the] results were all positive.”

New Airless Options

In addition to more eco-conscious material options, some of the most noteworthy advancements in the airless realm relate to the availability of new design configurations.

In addition to being a one-stop resource partner for ideation and prototyping capabilities through to decoration and commercialization, PKG/Yonwoo has debuted six new launches in the past year spanning a new airless pump Mono Mild, Vx Mixing system, a single material Jumbo pump, a Mono straight pump, an Eco-Dropper and Tension Body, an innovatively configured, precision squeeze-to-dispense configuration that’s refillable and lockable.

PKG/Yonwoo offers more than 400 primary packaging components and dispensing system configurations, including airless pumps for bottles, jars, tubes and droppers, ranging from 3- to 300ml capacity with viscosity tolerances that can pump most formulations that are thin as water or as thick as peanut butter. The company also offers dual chamber, mix chambers and child-resistant airless packaging.

Samhwa has designed several unique refillable and sustainable airless products specifically targeting the beauty and personal care channel’s need for leading-edge eco-friendly design and function, including patented glass airless bottle and jar systems that combine the luxe feel of glass with Samhwa’s metal-free ECO pump perfectly and matching all-PP sustainable componentry.

“Our glass airless bottle system is patented on the functional simplification of the filling and replacement process,” says the company’s Vince McCarthy, national sales director. “Specifically, the inner bottle and pump attachment process is perfectly aligned with the customers’ intuitive expectation of how to refill.”

Samhwa’s latest innovation is the Airtight Stick, which was designed to reduce evaporative weight loss with hydro-based serum formulas like sunscreens and other skincare products that can be as high as 30-40%. “Brands and fillers are continuing to bring newer and more cutting-edge serums to the market which rely on more sophisticated elements,” McCarthy says. “The Airtight stick gives them the opportunity for increased mobility while also protecting the serum.”

Airless options from Epopack come in a variety of different material choices in sizes currently ranging from 7-50ml. Different attachments can be mixed and matched to suit unique product and brand needs.

With sustainability at the forefront, Epopack’s new 15- and 30ml PET airless bottle is a sustainable, stylish and functional package for beauty products. “The bottle, base cap and over cap are made of PET material or 100% PCR PET,” comments the company’s Amber MacDonald, part of the customer success team. “Additionally, it offers excellent chemical and physical resistance, making it suitable for the majority of beauty products. Its high transparency is also a great feature for highlighting products with unique colors or textures.”

APC Packaging offers several custom molds for airless packaging and has the capabilities to produce private molds as well. The company’s latest introduction, a sleek and modern, customizable airless pump called the AWP, was launched in October. The demand for this new look also inspired the launch of an in-stock version available for quick shipping. 

The company’s Erin Gallagher, director of marketing, says that brands in search of sustainable airless packaging would be interested to know that AWP has been engineered to be light weighted to reduce its carbon footprint. “The new airless pump is available in 15-, 30- and 50ml capacities with either a low- or high-profile cap, and can be mixed or matched to different sizes,” she says. “The pump also features an ergonomic actuator with depression for finger placement, so it is very intuitive for the consumer.”

APC Packaging also offers an Airless Refillable System that encourages refilling and recharging. “Our patented refillable system utilizes polypropylene but can also be created with up to 75% PCR by package weight,” she says. “The internal cartridge can be recycled and a new cartridge can be used with the same actuator and outer bottle. Both of these features reduce the carbon footprint and environmental impact of the ARS.”

Guangzhou Sanrong Material Packaging Co., Ltd. specializes in producing various plastic tubes and caps for cosmetic packaging and in the airless space, it offers airless pump tubes sized from 15-150ml in diameter and 19-40mm for beauty and personal care brands. Tube material options are PCR, sugarcane, green PE, ocean waste material PE, virgin PE, ABL or polylaminate. The company is currently finalizing the development of trend-forward dual-chamber pump tubes and oval pump tubes, which it hopes to launch in the coming months.

And finally, Quadpack celebrated the April launch of an innovative airless pen with four different sensorial, cold-touch tip options as a reusable solution for makeup and skincare products. The Light Me Up is an airless, 6.6ml refillable flow pen that provides an uncomplicated wellness experience for low viscosity formulations. (NOTE: ‘Light Me Up’ is shown in the slider above—the caption is incorrect in our print and digital issues.)

When it’s time to refill the pen, its inner bottle is removed for recycling and replaced with a simple turn. The full pack is available in up to 30% PCR and the refill is made of PP. According to Quadpack, the lifecycle assessment of Light Me Up shows that the product’s CO2 emissions reduce by 50% in the refillable version when compared to a non-refillable flow pen, while its circularity index shows a five-fold improvement.