Airless tubes adapted to take very viscous products
The France-based packaging company has been developing Tubairless, the airless tube system, for a number of years and launched the first products in the range at this year’s PCD Congress in February.
Applying the airless packaging principle to tubes can significantly decrease the amount of plastic used as there is no pump added, while retaining all the positive points of airless packaging such as protecting the formulation as well as complete evacuation of the product, according to Pumpart.
Compatible with viscous products usually packaged in pots
In an attempt to widen the range of products that can use the airless tube, the company has developed the design to make it compatible with very viscous products, as well as launching new sizes.
“Our Tubairless is perfect for any cream than cannot be dispensed with a standard actual airless pump because of the extreme viscosity of the formula,” Pumpart’s associate director Jerome Boumnso told CosmeticsDesign-Europe.com
The tubes are compatible with viscosities up to 250 000 cps. Peanut butter is approximately 200 000 cps, Boumnso added.
The sort of cosmetics products to have this viscosity would be body creams or face creams, Boumnso said, adding that most of the extreme viscosity products are currently packaged in jars.
A number of small changes were made to the tube to make it compatible with the thicker formulas.
“We did change our caps and increase the sizes of the delivering hole to be able to deliver extreme viscosity products. The squeezable Tubairless packaging makes it easy to deliver the product until the last drop,” he said.
The company has also launched two new sizes, a mini 10 ml version as well as a maxi 200ml version, in addition to the already existing 15ml and 150ml products.
Tube is the pump
In the Tubairless system, it is the tube tself that acts as the pump which the company says can save between 25 and 65 per cent of the plastic used. Lining the tube is a plastic pouch that contains the formula so that it does not touch the outer, more rigid wall of the tube itself.
When full, the pouch fills the space available inside the tube, however, as the product is pushed out of the tube with use, the pouch reduces in size without letting any air back in to touch the formula.
A small hole in the outer layer means the tube itself is not forced to contract as the volume of product is reduced; instead, it retains its original shape and size and continues to perform the pump action until all the product has been used.
