Airless packaging isn’t limited to a certain product type, container shape, or retail distribution category—options are abundant.

“Consumers have embraced airless packaging. It’s a premium solution found in all market segments, from mass to prestige,” says Robert Brands, president/CEO, VariBlend. Brands says that the popularity of airless packaging has elevated consumers’ expectations. “They have come to expect packaging that offers high functionality, superior ergonomics and appealing aesthetics.”

Skin care products use airless packaging most often, since air can cause the degradation of certain active ingredients. There are also more natural products in airless packages, which can extend a product’s shelf life, when used in place of some preservatives.

“I am definitely seeing an increasing demand for airless packages that can help preserve the integrity of natural formulations,” says Yoolie Park, director of sales and marketing, Nest-Filler USA. “And it is not only in skin care, but in the cosmetics and body care categories as well,” she explains.

Jae Chong, vice president, global skin care division, HCT Group, agrees, saying, “More than ever, we are seeing many different design options in the airless packaging category, to accommodate different types of products.”

According to Robert McDermott, director, techinical sales, East Hill Industries, “Airless solutions now include jars, tubes, airtight compacts, lipsticks, pens—and many other options. The demand for airless packaging is here to stay, and it is no longer limited to the traditional airless pump.”

Brand marketers are also choosing airless bottles and pumps strictly for functionality, when a product’s formula doesn’t necessarily require it. “More brands are gravitating toward airless bottles for their sleek appearance and ease of use,” says Chong.

McDermott is noticing this as well. “Brand marketers often equate an airless bottle with a luxury product. We are hearing this quite often, particularly with our high-end acrylic and double-wall product lines. They tell us they love the weight, the feel in the hand, the function, and the premium look,” he says.

David Hou, marketing and sales director, Cospack America, also says that brand marketers are looking for more airless packages to convey “luxury.” Hou explains, “We have been hearing requests for more options in airless packaging that are both functional and luxurious-looking. One solution we now offer is a new airless tube that has a rigid acrylic overshell, which makes it look more upscale than a traditional tube.”

Is Black the New White?

On the design side, there’s another trend—darker colors for airless bottles, especially for prestige and luxury brands. Purple, brown, and even black are no longer unusual color choices for skin care, which was once mainly white.

Retrouve, which is sold at Bergdorf Goodman and select prestige retailers, comes in chic packaging that is mostly black—and the high-end look reflects the brand’s luxury price tag. Its airless dispensing systems protect the formulations from light and oxidation.

The bottles, overcaps and collars feature a black lacquer decoration. The Retrouvé logo, fonts and labels, are printed in muted bronze, silver, copper and gold. The brand describes its look as “elegant and classic, marrying Renaissance and modern references.”

Why black? It’s Jami Morse Heidegger’s favorite color. Jami, along with her husband, Klaus Heidegger, are the brand’s founders. (Prior, the duo ran Kiehl’s Since 1851, which was their family business—see BeautyPackaging.com for more of their story.)

Morse Heidegger says that Retrouve’s manufacturing and packaging processes affect the efficacy of its products, and are just as important as its formulations. “Our ingredients are highly susceptible to oxidation,” she says, explaining, “Using a vacuum process allows our ingredients to be mixed together at high speeds, without incorporating any air. The final formulae are then dispensed directly into our airless bottles. This helps eliminate oxidation and preserve the integrity of the ingredients over a prolonged period of time.”

Revision is another skin care brand that uses black packaging, and its airless bottles look sleek.

Sold through dermatologists’ offices, Revision’s Retinol Complete, Vitamin C Lotion 15% and 30%, D.E.J. face cream, and D.E.J. eye cream are all housed in bottles with airless pump dispensers.

The brand’s Retinol and Vitamin C are highly affected by exposure to air, so they chose airless pumps. “They protect product performance and make application a pleasant experience. Our customers have a great brand experience, from start to finish,” says Joan Gleason. director of marketing, Revision.

Revision’s black packaging symbolizes “high quality, and the scientific sophistication of our skin care formulas,” Gleason says, continuing to explain, “Black is universal. It’s modern and classy. It also provides a stark contrast to the white packaging found en masse on shelves.”

Juara’s Decorative Bottles in Rich Brown

Juara recently worked with Nest-Filler to develop new packaging and relaunch the brand, using rich brown to make a design statement. The brand’s goal was to find airless packaging that would protect its product formulations, which contain active botanicals and organic ingredients.

Park, of Nest-Filler USA, explains, “We worked with Juara to find components that fit with their brand image, to convey their message.”

Airless bottles by Nest-Filler were chosen for Juara’s Clove Flower & Turmeric Anti-aging Serum; Sweet Black Tea Moisturizers; and Miracle Tea Eye Crème. They are decorated with an intricate gold design and gold accents, which reflect the brand’s Indonesian heritage. The design on the bottles replicates a traditional hand-drawn batik pattern.

Nadia Yousif, brand strategist, Juara Skincare, explains, “It was really important that we choose packaging that would not only protect our botanically active formulas, but would also reflect our personality and heritage. The packaging had to be functional, recyclable, elegant and luxurious. The team at Nest-Filler understood what we were looking for and together, we were able to create exactly what was needed for the brand.”

There were a few challenges, Yousif says. “It took some trial and error to make sure the airless dispensing systems were compatible with our formulas. We also had to find components from separate packaging families for certain items, and make sure they matched,” she explains.

Juara is inspired by, and named after Jamu, an Indonesian herbal health tradition that is considered an ancient beauty ritual.

A Double-Wall Square Airless Bottle in Deep Purple

MediCell technologies chose a double-wall airless package in deep purple by VPI for its DefenAge skin care brand. The 24/7 Barrier Balance Cream and 8-in-1 BioSerum are in 30- and 50ml square bottles that feature a double-wall design. The bottles’ inner walls and caps are colored purple.

DefenAge’s products are formulated with “Age-Repair Defensins,” the brand’s proprietary regenerative peptides. The airless pump dispensing system helps to preserve the products’ paraben-free formulations by eliminating exposure to air for a longer shelf life, according to VPI’s west coast sales representative, Paul Donahie.

The bottles are paired with a dispensing cap that twists to open and close its actuator. “This provides extra protection that a typical screw cap cannot, and keeps the product free from contamination,” Donahie says. “The sleek package matches the value of the product,” he adds.

A Specially Designed Solution for Skin Care

Aptar Beauty recently worked with Laboratoires Dermatologiques Avène and its PhysioLift skin care brand. PhysioLift is a dermo-cosmetics line formulated with a trio of new patented actives that claim to rebuild skin structure, smooth wrinkles, firm and brighten skin.

PhysioLift Precision Wrinkle Filler uses Aptar Beauty’s Serumony package. The 15ml airless pen has a specially designed dispensing nozzle, which includes a valve that prevents airflow back into the product, making it ultra airtight.

Serumony is designed to apply serums easily, and with high-precision accuracy. Its one-touch pushbutton actuator is located on the bottom, which allows the user to dispense and apply the product to the skin with one hand.

PhysioLift’s Jour Day Soothing Cream and Yeux Eyes come in bottles paired with Aptar Beauty’s Irresistible airless pump dispensing system.

The Irresistable system offers enhanced protection from microbiological contamination. It includes a sterilizing filter and a tip seal that is ultrasonically welded to the actuator, which creates a perfect seal, the supplier says. This system uses Aptar’s Gaplast coextruded pouch system, which is designed to prevent any risk of leakage, and works with a wide range of viscosities.

Optimal Preservation for Natural Products

Albéa offers several airless solutions with enhanced features for natural products and sensitive formulations that might require higher levels of protection. The supplier’s Nea range includes modern pump designs that are highly customizable, with a choice of various collar, cap and actuator options. The Nea airless dispensing system is engineered to ensure neutrality and compatibility with any formulation.

Albéa’s Nea pump operates smoothly and delivers a high suction rate, to dispense even the most viscous products. It is ideal for sunscreen, exfoliants, and makeup. It has a glass ball inside the engine and a spring outside the dosage chamber, which ensures that the formulation never comes into contact with metal.

The Dutch brand Uncover Skincare chose to combine the Nea pump’s engine with Albéa’s 50ml airless pack, for its skin care and sun care products. The brand also uses Albéa’s actuator with its new Protective Insert, which uses a self-sealing technology to protect a product from drying. It also prevents leakage and waste to ensure that a formulation is optimally preserved between applications.

Albéa also launched three new standard collar designs for its Nea Airless Dispenser. When combined with D.N. Airless 35, an airless bottle system, it will protect formulations that contain highly active and organic ingredients, since it blocks air and UV rays to give products a longer shelf life. It is designed for use with skin care, cosmetics and hair care products.

Travel Size Airless Solutions

Smaller size beauty products continue to grow in popularity, and this requires smaller packaging, as well as airless solutions. Travel size products and kits are fueling the demand, as well as the many subscription box services and retailer promotions that offer products that are larger than traditional sample sizes.

“We often hear requests from our customers for travel size packages that will ‘mirror’ their larger retail sizes, including a smaller version of an airless dispensing system. This wasn’t always the case. Brand marketers never considered smaller sizes as important, since they are for short term use,” explains David Hou, marketing & sales director, Cospack America. He says, “This has recently changed, and our customers are now asking for the same functionality in smaller sizes, to maintain a consistent brand image and quality feel.”

Cospack introduced a line of travel size airless packages, which are designed to match and coordinate with many of its larger sizes. Hou says, “Our customers are willing to spend a bit more on smaller sizes now, realizing that the experience the user has with the smaller product is still a reflection of the brand.”

A New Airless Compact To Rival the Cushion

Airless solutions are not only for skin care. Cosmetic products are increasingly requiring the protection that an airless package can provide. HCT Group wants its customers to know that it is offering a better alternative to the trendy Cushion Compact—a new line of airless compacts that HCT will debut at the Cosmoprof show in Bologna this month.

Chong, of HCT Group, explains, “Airless compacts dispense in a more visually appealing way, as opposed to a cushion, and offer a much cleaner dispensing area. Instead of formula sitting inside of a sponge within the compact, the airless package keeps the formula preserved and is a much more hygienic solution, since it dispenses per pump.”

HCT’s new line of airless compacts offer five different dispensing options—stay tuned for more about them.

Airless Tubes & Convenient Closures

Brand marketers expect more options in airless packaging and its componentry—and suppliers are delivering.

East Hill recently added two new tubes with airless pumps, in .5-oz and 1-oz sizes, to its in-stock, on-demand packaging options. McDermott says, “Our tubes are produced with an integral airless pump, which is molded into the tube head.”

This design provides a more airtight fit over a tube with a traditional screw-on airless pump. “Its design also reduces production costs, and has enhanced tamper-proof qualities,” James adds. 

East Hill also offers its customers an airless bottle with a twist-lock mechanism, designed for one-handed use. “Twist, and the pump actuator appears. Press down for the product, then twist back to close,” says McDermott. 

Fusion Packaging is another supplier that offers a variety of airless tube options, as part of its new Shine FX collection. It can be viewed on a new section of the supplier’s website.

Fusion’s Shine FX collection features multi-layered laminate tubes, available in an airless fornat, in 7- to 300ml capacities. The supplier also offers brands the ability to customize the tube using gloss or matte varnish effects, in four metallic film options:  Aluminum Barrier Laminate (ABL), Coated Aluminum Laminate (CAL), Vacuum Metallized Polyethylene (VMPE), and Holographic Aluminum Laminate (HAL).

Lesley Gadomski, business development officer, Fusion Packaging, says, “We have a diverse portfolio of product offerings, including Airless and Atmospheric Bottles, Airless Tubes, and now Shine FX Laminate Tubes. It was important with the launch of this new product category that we build awareness, so the intention of the website is to educate our customers on the functional and decorative benefits of our Shine FX collection.”

Child-resistant (CR) compliant closures are typical in the pharmaceutical industry, but as beauty product formulations get more sophisticated, especially with ingestible beauty products trending, Mega Airless has an option that may be useful for beauty brands.

Its new child-resistant airless dispenser is a patented design that prevents air from coming into contact with the product, and dispenses a controlled dosage. The dispenser features a press-and-rotate opening system, with vertical ribs on the cap to enable a better grip, and an embossed diagram on the top for clear instructions on how to use it.

An Airless Solution for Custom-Dispensing

VariBlend is known for its airless packaging system that allows a user to blend two products just before use. They are kept separate inside a dual chamber in the bottle, and blend as they are dispensed.

When using a product in this package, a formulation can be customized, for example, by adding less or more of an active ingredient to a base. “The two formulas can be of varying viscosities and flow rates,” explains VariBlend’s Brands.

It’s Just the Beginning

We’ll soon see an even greater variety of airless packaging options available in the future, as suppliers continue to develop new options for beauty customers.

HCT Group is one supplier set to debut a few new innovations. In addition to its new airless compacts described earlier, the supplier will be showing visitors at Cosmoprof Bologna its new 2-in-1 airless pump, which has a retractable brush sleeve, designed to keep the applicator damage-free.

In a collaborative effort that leverages its Cooling Tip technology, HCT has also developed a number of new airless pump packages paired with its dispensing applicators, in Zamac or ceramic.

“These packages are popular for eye and lip formulations. The dispensing tips effectively deliver the benefits of the formulation to the skin, while also providing users with an immediate de-puffing effect and cooling sensation,” Chong explains.

East Hill Industries also offers an extensive range of airless pump packages—in bottles, compacts, pens and tubes—to suit all shape, size, material, time and budget constraints. “We will continue to build our airless and airtight componentry inventory to help our clients stay ahead of the curve,” says East Hills’ James.

Nest-Filler’s Park adds, “We are always trying to find innovative containers to combine with airless technology—beyond bottles. This will continue.”

More developments in airless technologies to come—stay tuned.