Sephora selects The Glass Polymer™ from Eastman for the packaging of two new beauty & healthcare products

CAPELLE A/D IJSSEL, THE NETHERLANDS - Sephora, a global leader of the beauty & healthcare products (BHP) sector has recently launched a new "Bain" range of products including a body exfoliating cream and a bodycare cream. For these two new products, Sephora had been looking for a uniquely designed packaging able to convey the prestige positioning of its worldwide renowned brand. This is why Sephora has selected The Glass Polymer™, a specialty copolyester of Eastman Chemical Company, to produce the jar+lid pair of moldings for the corresponding packaging solution.

In this new application, the lid and the jar are blow-molded and injection-molded, respectively. “We had at first considered to use PET but the resulting esthetics quality did not turn out to meet our requirements, due to PET crystallizing too fast and producing a whitish mottling in the gate area”, says Stéphane Arraitz, Project Manager. “Thanks to its low crystallization rate, The Glass Polymer could eliminate this defect while at the same time enabling us to produce the jar+lid pair of moldings with a perfect match in terms of color and high gloss.” The material has also demonstrated its high versatility in enabling to produce a thick-wall molding and a thin-wall molding using two different processing techniques.

The Glass Polymer has been developed by Eastman Chemical to provide an innovating response to the particular requirements of BHP packaging. Its inherent high gloss provides distinctive look and esthetics to the final product by the rendering of vivid, highly saturated colors.

Moreover, its excellent chemical and mechanical properties makes this Eastman copolyester a perfect fit for the BHP packaging applications, while ensuring the safety in use by the consumer.

The jar+lid pair of moldings is manufactured by Mayet, a company of the TEXEN Group, the French specialist injection-molder of BHP packaging solutions. “The assistance of Mayet, who is a production partner of the Sephora brand and who already had experience with Eastman materials, has been a valuable contribution to the success of this new packaging issue in suggesting to use The Glass Polymer”, Mr. Arraitz adds.

Already marketed in Western Europe and in Poland, Russia and Rumania, these new exfoliating and bodycare creams will be part of the product offering of the future first retail shop of Sephora in China, to be opened in Shanghai during the second quarter of 2005.

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