Procter & Gamble Cosmeticshas engineered and built a

packaging line at its plant in HuntValley, Md., specifically for fillingliquid makeup—both existingproducts and products that willbe invented in the future.

Currently, P&G Cosmeticsuses this line to package threeproducts: CoverGirl’s TruBlendMakeup in an airless pumppackage, CoverGirl’s newOutlast Liquid Makeup in dual-container tottles and MaxFactor’s Colour AdaptFoundation in a similar pumppackage to TruBlend, but with acompletely different style cap.

Gary Mitchell, principalresearcher for global packagedevelopment at Procter &Gamble Cosmetics, explains howthe multi-tasking line was engi-neered. “When we originallybuilt it, we intended the line to beversatile enough to be able to run

a variety of liquidmakeups and

packaging

shapes,” Mitchell says. “Wedesigned it for producing liquidmakeups and future packaging.We have, of course, our idea ofwhat future packaging is and weknew it at the time, so we built[the line] to accommodate thepackages running now and 10years into the future.”

P&G COSMETICSBUILDS IN

VERSATILITYThree distinct packages for liquidmakeup run on the same modular,expandable filling line.

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“You design your package to the manufacturing operation you have, but then you design an innovative

manufacturing operation to accommodate a multitude of different packages.”

— Gary Mitchell, principal researcher for Global Package Development

!

Modular stations give P&G Cosmetics theflexibility to add or expand packaging operations as needed for liquid makeup.

The idea is to design the lineand the packages to be insynch. “You design your pack-age to the manufacturing oper-ation you have, but then youdesign an innovative manufac-turing operation to accommo-date a multitude of differentpackages.”

To create a versatile packagingoperation, P&G Cosmetics optedfor equipment that was simpleand modular.

For example, the line was ini-tially set up to fill the CoverGirlTruBlend Makeup pump bottle.Recently, the company extendedthe line and added a second fillerto handle the new CoverGirlOutlast Liquid Makeup in dual-container tottles, which wasintroduced in January 2005.

New formula, new fill processThis packaging operation wasbuilt from the TruBlend launchand is unique because of theproduct's unusual formulation.

The consistency and texture ofTruBlend differentiates it fromother products. It’s formulatedto be a silky, smooth foundationthat blends away imperfectionsand evens out skin tone.

The product is force-fed from abulk product silo and goesthrough a series of shearing tubeson its way to the filling nozzle.

“The formulation starts out ata high viscosity. It would be toothick when the consumer got itif we just handed it to themwithout running it through ourfilling operation. When itfinally comes out of the pack-age, it’s at a viscosity that theconsumer can use and enjoy,”Mitchell says.

At the start of the line, pre-labeled pump bodies are manu-ally loaded into pucks. They arefilled through the bottom andsealed with a bottom piston. Fillaccuracy was critical because thebottom piston vent must seatproperly for the airless pump towork right. Mitchell admits that

the standard deviation is “verylow…in fact, incredibly low.”

The positive displacementHibar filler indexes, four-up, atspeeds of 80 packages perminute. To get a consistentlyaccurate fill level, the viscosityand the nozzle diameters have tobe just right. Plus, the pistonmust be placed precisely over thepackage and inserted to a certaindepth. This is all servo controlled.

Complex shrink bandingAnother challenge was theshrink banding operation forTruBlend. For tamper evidence,a full-body clear shrink band iscut to a length that allows it towrap around the bottom lip ofthe pump body and extend to adesigned height on the pump’scap. This bottom wrap was nec-essary because of the draftangles on the package.

The band goes under thepump body a minimum of 1/16of an inch. In cooperation withits machinery supplier PDC Int’l,P&G Cosmetics modified thesystem to shrink the band belowthe container’s bottom but with-out interfering with the bottle’sstability. “When [the container]sat in a merchandising unit, wedidn’t want a wad of excessshrink band at the bottom pre-venting it from sitting properly,”Mitchell says. “It was quite achallenge to drop a shrink bandover the top of the pump andshrink it upwards.”

The line is also set up with astation for cartoning for flexibilityin secondary packaging, too.

— Lisa McTigue Pierce, Editor-in-Chief

Hibar Systems Ltd.905-731-2400; www.hibar.com

PDC Int’l Corp.203-853-1516; www.pdc-corp.com

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This one line handlesthe different packagesfor CoverGirl’sTruBlend Makeup, Max Factor's ColourAdapt Foundation and CoverGirl's new Outlast LiquidMakeup.