Basic product knowledge of tube packaging materials

In recent years, the application fields of tube packaging have gradually expanded. Industrial supplies choose tubes, such as lubricating oil, glass glue, caulking glue, etc.; food chooses tubes, such as mustard, chili sauce, etc.; pharmaceutical ointments choose tubes, and the tube packaging of toothpaste is also constantly upgraded. More and more products in different fields are packaged in "tubes". In the cosmetics industry, tubes are easy to squeeze and use, light and portable, have customized specifications, and are customized for printing. They are used in cosmetics, daily necessities, Products such as cleaning products are very fond of using cosmetic tube packaging.

Product definition

Tube is a kind of packaging container based on PE plastic, aluminum foil, plastic film and other materials. It is made into sheets using co-extrusion and compounding processes, and then processed into a tubular shape by a special tube-making machine. The tube is light in weight and easy to use. It is favored by many cosmetics manufacturers due to its characteristics such as portability, durability, recyclability, easy squeezing, processing performance and printing adaptability.

Manufacturing process

1. Molding process

A. Aluminum-plastic composite tube

Aluminum-plastic composite tube is a packaging container made of aluminum foil and plastic film through co-extrusion compounding process, and then processed into a tubular shape by a special tube-making machine. Its typical structure is PE/PE+EAA/AL/PE +EAA/PE. Aluminum-plastic composite tubes are mainly used for packaging cosmetics that require high hygiene and barrier properties. The barrier layer is generally aluminum foil, and its barrier properties depend on the pinhole degree of the aluminum foil. With the continuous improvement of technology, the thickness of the aluminum foil barrier layer in aluminum-plastic composite tubes has been reduced from the traditional 40μm to 12μm or even 9μm, which greatly saves resources.?

B. Full plastic composite tube

All plastic components are divided into two types: all-plastic non-barrier composite tubes and all-plastic barrier composite tubes. All-plastic non-barrier composite tubes are generally used for packaging of low-end, fast-consuming cosmetics; all-plastic barrier composite tubes are usually used for mid- to low-end cosmetics packaging due to side seams in tube making. The barrier layer can be EVOH, PVDC, or oxide coating. Multi-layer composite materials such as PET. The typical structure of all-plastic barrier composite tube is PE/PE/EVOH/PE/PE.

C. Plastic co-extruded tube

Co-extrusion technology is used to co-extrude raw materials with different properties and types together and form them in one go. Plastic co-extruded tubes are divided into single-layer extruded tubes and multi-layer co-extruded tubes. The former is mainly used for fast-consuming cosmetics (such as hand cream, etc.) that have high requirements on appearance but low actual performance requirements. Packaging, the latter is mainly used for packaging of high-end cosmetics.

2. Surface treatment

The tube can be made into colored tubes, transparent tubes, colored or transparent frosted tubes, pearlescent tubes (pearlescent, scattered silver pearlescent, scattered gold pearlescent), and can be divided into UV, matte or bright. Matte looks elegant but is easy to get dirty, and colored The difference between the tube and the large-area printing on the tube body can be judged from the incision at the tail. The tube with a white incision is a large-area printing tube. The ink used must be high, otherwise it will easily fall off and will crack and reveal white marks after being folded.

3. Graphic and text printing

Commonly used printing on the surface of tubes includes silk screen printing, offset printing, hot stamping and hot silver. Screen printing usually uses spot colors with small and few color blocks. It is the same as plastic bottle printing and requires color registration. It is commonly used in professional line products. Offset printing is similar to paper printing, with large color blocks and many colors, and is commonly used in daily chemical line products. Tube processing usually uses lithographic offset printing, and most of the inks used are UV-dried. It usually requires the ink to have strong adhesion and resistance to discoloration. The printing color should be within the specified depth range, the overprinting position should be accurate, the deviation should be within 0.2mm, and the font should be complete and clear.

Product structure

The main part of the plastic tube includes the shoulder, tube (tube body) and tube tail. The tube part is often decorated through direct printing or self-adhesive labels to carry text or pattern information and enhance the value of product packaging. The decoration of tubes is currently mainly achieved through direct printing and self-adhesive labels. Direct printing includes screen printing and offset printing. Compared with direct printing, the advantages of self-adhesive labels include: Printing diversity and stability: The process of making traditional extruded tubes first and then printing usually uses offset printing and screen printing, while self-adhesive printing can use letterpress, flexographic printing, offset printing, screen printing, hot stamping and other diversified combined printing processes, the difficult color performance is more stable and excellent.

1. Tube body?

A.Category:

Divided by material: aluminum-plastic composite tube, all-plastic tube, paper-plastic tube, high-gloss aluminized tube, etc. Divided by thickness: single-layer tube, double-layer tube, five-layer composite tube, etc. Divided by tube shape: round Tube, oval tube, flat tube, etc. are divided according to application : facial cleanser tube, BB box tube, hand cream tube, hand cream tube, sunscreen tube, toothpaste tube, conditioner tube, hair dye tube, facial mask tube Other conventional tube diameters: Φ13, Φ16, Φ19, Φ22, Φ25, Φ28, Φ30, Φ33, Φ35, Φ38, Φ40, Φ45, Φ50, Φ55, Φ60 Conventional capacity: 3G, 5G, 8G, 10G, 15G, 20G, 25G , 30G, 35G, 40G, 45G, 50G, 60G, 80G, 100G, 110G, 120G, 130G, 150G, 180G, 200G, 250G, 250G

B. Tube size and volume reference

During the production process of tubes, they will be exposed to "heating" processes many times, such as tube drawing, jointing, glazing, offset printing and screen-printing drying. After these processes, the size of the product will be adjusted to a certain extent. The shrinkage and "shrinkage rate" will not be the same, so it is normal for the pipe diameter and tube length to be within a range.

C. Case: Schematic diagram of five-layer plastic composite tube structure

2. Tube tail

Some products need to be filled before sealing. The sealing can be divided into: straight sealing, twill sealing, umbrella-shaped sealing, and special-shaped sealing. When sealing, you can ask to print out the required information at the sealing place. Date code.

3. Supporting equipment?

A. Regular packages

Tube caps come in various shapes, generally divided into screw caps (single-layer and double-layer, the double-layer outer caps are mostly electroplated caps to increase product quality and look more beautiful, and professional lines mostly use screw caps), flat caps , round head cover, nozzle cover, flip-up cover, super flat cover, double-layer cover, spherical cover, lipstick cover, plastic cover can also be processed in a variety of processes, hot stamping edge, silver edge, colored cover, transparent, oil spray, Electroplating, etc., tip caps and lipstick caps are usually equipped with inner plugs. The tube cover is an injection molded product and the tube is a drawn tube. Most tube manufacturers do not produce tube covers themselves.

B. Multifunctional supporting equipment

With the diversification of user needs, the effective integration of content and functional structure, such as massage heads, balls, rollers, etc., has also become a new demand in the market.

Cosmetic applications

The tube has the characteristics of light weight, easy to carry, strong and durable, recyclable, easy to squeeze, good processing performance and printing adaptability. It is favored by many cosmetics manufacturers and is widely used in cleansing products (face wash, etc.) and skin care products. In the packaging of cosmetics (various eye creams, moisturizers, nutritional creams, creams, sunscreens, etc.) and beauty and hair care products (shampoo, conditioner, lipstick, etc.).

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Procurement critical control points

1. Review of tube design drawings:

For people who are not familiar with tubes, designing the drawings by yourself is a heart-wrenching problem, and if you make a mistake, everything will be ruined. High-quality suppliers will design relatively simple drawings for tube who are not familiar with tubes. After the tube diameter and tube length are determined, they will then provide a design area diagram. You only need to place the design content in the diagram area and center it. That's it. High-quality suppliers will also inspect and advise on your design and production processes. For example, if the position of the electric eye is wrong, they will tell you; if the color is not reasonable, they will remind you; if the specifications do not meet the design, they will remind you repeatedly to change the artwork; and if the barcode direction and readability are qualified, color separation and High-quality suppliers will check for you one by one whether there are small errors such as whether the process can produce a tube or even if the drawing is not twisted.

2. Selection of tube materials:

The materials used must meet relevant health standards, and harmful substances such as heavy metals and fluorescent agents should be controlled within specified limits. For example, the polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) used in tubes exported to the United States must meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standard 21CFR117.1520.

3. Understand filling methods:

tube filling: tail filling and mouth filling. If it is tube filling, you should pay attention when purchasing the tube. You must consider whether the "size of the tube mouth and the size of the filling nozzle" match and whether it can be flexibly extended into the tube. If it is filling at the end of the tube, then you need to arrange the tube, and at the same time consider the head and tail direction of the product, so as to make it convenient and fast to enter the tube during filling. Secondly, you need to know whether the contents during filling are "hot filling" or at room temperature. In addition, the process of this product is often related to the design. Only by understanding the nature of filling production in advance can we avoid problems and achieve high production and efficiency.

4. Tube selection:

If the contents packaged by a daily chemical company are products that are particularly sensitive to oxygen (such as some whitening cosmetics) or have a very volatile fragrance (such as essential oils or some oils, acids, salts and other corrosive chemicals), then Five-layer co-extruded tubes should be used. Because the oxygen transmission rate of five-layer co-extruded tube(polyethylene/bonding resin/EVOH/bonding resin/polyethylene) is 0.2-1.2 units, while the oxygen transmission rate of ordinary polyethylene single-layer tube is 150- 300 units. Within a certain period of time, the weight loss rate of co-extruded tubes containing ethanol is dozens of times lower than that of single-layer tubes. In addition, EVOH is an ethylene-vinyl alcohol copolymer with excellent barrier properties and fragrance retention (the thickness is optimal when it is 15-20 microns).

5. Price description:

There is a big difference in price between tube quality and manufacturer. The plate making fee is usually 30-50 US dollars per color. The tube body can be printed in multiple colors and silk screen. Some manufacturers have thermal transfer printing equipment and technology. Hot stamping and silver hot stamping are calculated based on unit price per area. Silk screen printing has better effect but is more expensive and there are fewer manufacturers. Different manufacturers should be selected according to different levels of needs.

6. Tube production cycle:

Generally, the cycle time is 15 to 20 days (from the time of confirming the sample tube). The order quantity of a single product is 5,000 to 10,000. Large-scale manufacturers usually set a minimum order quantity of 10,000. Very few small manufacturers have many varieties. The minimum order quantity of 3,000 per product is also acceptable. Very few customers open molds by themselves. Most of them are public molds (a few special lids are private molds). The contract order quantity and the actual supply quantity are ±10% deviation in this industry.