Bormioli Luigi, which specialises in luxury bottles for the perfume and cosmetics industry, is now expanding its offer to new territories with a range of customisable glass standards for lipsticks and mascaras. With already some 3 million glass components produced each year for the make-up sector, mainly foundations for clients such as Chanel and Dior, the company, which is therefore not a newcomer to this market, wishes to gain momentum by demonstrating all the possibilities offered by this infinitely recyclable material and thus broaden the categories of products that use it.
Industrial investments
To address this new market, the Italian glassmaker will rely on the industrial facilities of its fellow company Bormioli Rocco, from which it acquired the "tableware" division in 2020.
To increase its capabilities in the masstige segment, the Group has installed an IS machine at the Azuqueca site in Spain and plans to continue its investments to have a total of three lines dedicated to cosmetics locally.
Lipsticks and mascaras
At the MakeUp in Paris trade show, on October 20 and 21, Bormioli Luigi presented two customisable glass standards: a refillable lipstick bottle and a mascara or lipgloss vial, with caps, stems and wipers made in partnership with Pibiplast, for a turnkey offer.
The lipstick was created using a pressed glass technology derived from the tableware industry, allowing the production of thin walls.
For mascara and lipgloss bottles, produced in standard blown glass, the technical challenge was to comply with the small tolerances required for the inside of the neck to correctly position the wiper. This is much more difficult to achieve in glassmaking than in plastics processing.
As part of this "back to glass" initiative aimed at introducing glass again into as many categories as possible, Bormioli Luigi is making available all its glass decoration techniques for the customisation of packs, including its INSIDE lacquering, which is particularly suitable for mascaras where the bottles are often opaque.
"We can therefore offer our standard solutions to a brand that would then be able to decorate them in its corporate image, but we are also available to brand owners looking for a specific and unique solution," explains Federico Montali, Business Development and Marketing Manager - Prestige Perfumes, at Bormioli Luigi.
Recycled and recyclable
The Italian glassmaker is convinced that glass has what it takes to appeal to make-up brands. It is a high-end material that can both be recycled indefinitely and contain a significant amount of post-consumer recycled material (PCR). In Italy, Bormioli runs several furnaces with 15% PCR glass continuously and a 40% PCR glass will be available at the Spanish site as soon as it opens.
"Up to 40% of PCR glass has little effect on the tint of the glass. This poses even less of a problem for use in make-up where the products are coloured," emphasises Federico Montali.
For even greater flexibility, the glassmaker has implemented an innovative technological solution called "Your PCR", which allows an additional 10% of PCR glass to be added to the feeder at the end of the annealing process, thus increasing the percentage of recycled material on specific lines when requested by the customer.
Finally, UV protection can be applied to the glass and - for safe use - the Safe Glass option is also available. This option allows the bottle to be reinforced by lacquering, making it highly resistant to shocks and preventing the scattering of splinters, in the event the glass should break.
