Customers like convenience. This means they want their products to provide value, work effectively, and last a long time. They’ll often take a while to fully use up products like perfumes and beauty creams, so making sure they have longevity is a great way to increase customer satisfaction.

Cosmetics start on the shelf, so increasing the shelf life of a cosmetic product is a great way to maximise its overall lifespan. At Fillcon, we fill and assemble cosmetics packaging and samples, providing high-quality solutions for beauty products.

In this article we’ll discuss why cosmetics have a use-by date, what affects it, and how best to improve it.

Increase the shelf life of your cosmetics with packaging and filling from us – get in touch today!

Why do Cosmetics Have a Use-By Date?

Mostly, for safety. Having an accurate use-by date for a cosmetic product ensures it won’t harm your customers by letting them know when it is no longer safe to use. This, in turn, protects cosmetics suppliers from angry customers and potential lawsuits due to harm sustained by out-of-date products.

Over time, products will deteriorate. This can be due to exposure to air, water, bacteria, or just a breakdown in chemical composition. Eventually these changes may lead to a product becoming harmful so ensuring an accurate use-by date prevents people from using dangerous, out-of-date products.

The Cosmetic Products Enforcement Regulations in Great Britain outline the need for a use-by date on cosmetic products and the circumstances in which one is required. There are slightly different regulations in place for Northern Ireland.

Another requirement for cosmetics in terms of their use by date is a tub-and-lid symbol which refers to the length of time after opening that a product is suitable for use. Typically, this symbol might have text reading 6M or 12M – referring to six- or twelve-months life after opening.

Make sure you’re choosing the right packaging for your cosmetics by reading our guide >

How do I Increase the Shelf Life of My Cosmetic Products?

Increasing the shelf-life of your products means they can sit for longer before a customer buys them and may even mean a customer can keep hold of them for longer, increasing satisfaction while decreasing wastage. Some of the main ways to increase the shelf life of a cosmetic product are:

  • Sealed Packaging. Using properly sealed packaging eliminates exposure to air, increasing shelf life.
  • Appropriate Packaging. Utilising the right type of packaging for your cosmetics can offer increased lifespan and better usage for customers.
  • Chemical Composition. Keeping an eye on the lifespan of ingredients used in your products can be a good way to improve their overall shelf life, although less convenient than simply finding a better way to package them.
  • Resealable Packaging. Tubes, bottles, or pouches with features like the Fillcon Spout can be resealed – improving their longevity and sustainability.

To maximise the shelf-life and lifespan of your cosmetics, contact a member of the Fillcon team.

What are the Best Practices for Cosmetic Packaging?

As we’ve mentioned, there are a lot of different considerations for cosmetic products and packaging – from how it in sealed, to what it’s packaged in, to the composition of the product.

The Best Ways to Increase the Shelf Life of Cosmetics

Practices for cosmetic packaging can provide synergistic effects by using the right packaging for the right products and thinking sustainably about the entire lifecycle of your cosmetic products. Some of the top packaging solutions we offer are:

Tubes: Filling is available in sizes from 10ml to 150ml, tubes are a great option for hand creams, lip glosses, and other beauty or pharmaceutical products.

Sachets: An excellent option for cosmetic sampling, our sachets are assembled and hermetically sealed to offer protection and airtight support to the contents.

Bottles: Along with jars and tins, we fill bottles from small 2ml vials all the way to 500ml shampoo bottles. We fill, label, code, cap, and pack into retail cartons to provide a streamlined process and consistent quality.

Pouches: Our pouches feature an anti-microbial varnish that is effective at preventing bacteria, fungi, and moulds, increasing the longevity of your cosmetics. They can also come with a spout that allows for resealing, increasing the lifespan of the product for customers.

Sustainability for Cosmetic Packaging

An important consideration for cosmetic packing is sustainability. You want your products to last a long time, but the packaging shouldn’t stick around forever.

With plastic and packaging making up a sizeable portion of the waste that goes to landfill and fills the oceans, choosing sustainable packaging solutions for your cosmetic products is a great step to mitigating harm done to the environment.

One great way to increase sustainability is by using packaging that lasts longer. You will reduce the number of cosmetic products that go to waste; this reduces environmental impact from the wasted product, and also the packaging that is likely to be thrown away.

Another way to package beauty products in an eco-friendly way is by utilising sustainable packaging solutions. Things like tubes, bottles, and tins are good, but there are other ways to do this as well.

Sampling sachets from Fillcon come in bulk orders of 10,000+, and both them and our pouches are and are engineered sustainably. This means there is:

  • A lower carbon footprint from transportation.
  • Less plastic per product than an equivalent bottle.
  • The addition of our signature feature, the Fillcon Spout, that allows for resealing – improving environmental impact.
  • The option for storefront or kerbside recycling for many of our products.
  • Specialist recyclers like Enval and TerraCycle are able to maximise the reclaimed materials from sachets and pouches with up to 99% aluminium recovery from flexible packaging and plastics that are turned into oil and gas.

Your Cosmetic Packing Solutions from Fillcon

By increasing the lifespan of your cosmetics you’ll cut down on the number of your beauty products that go to waste and increase customer satisfaction due to longer-lasting goods. Focusing on picking the right packaging for your products is a great first step to improving their shelf life.

Get started today with maximising the shelf life for your cosmetic products by utilising packaging and filling solutions from Fillcon – simply get in touch, check out our services for more information, or read on with some related articles!

Inform yourself on the legal requirements for packaging in the UK with our article >

Check out some tips & tricks on eco-friendly packaging for liquids >