Beauty packaging components: what data do you need?

Two questions per part

Every physical part of a beauty pack has to answer two separate questions. EPR asks what it is made of, what class it belongs to, whether it is household packaging and what it weighs. RAM asks whether it will survive collection, sortation, reprocessing and application. The first question is answered in grams; the second in polymer names, coverage percentages, densities and adhesive behaviour.

The list below is the practical version: what to record per component, and who normally holds it. Facts marked as RAM facts are the ones our encoding of the published RAM 2027 guidance actually reads.

Bottles, jars and flacons

EPR: material category, packaging class (usually primary), household judgement, gram weight, recycled content percentage.

RAM: the rigid plastic format matters, because PET bottles, PET thermoforms, HDPE and PP each have their own criteria. Record polymer, colour (clear, white, translucent light blue, another colour, or NIR-undetectable), whether any carbon black blocks near-infrared detection, dimensions in millimetres for the 40 mm sortation check, EVOH content as a percentage, any density-increasing additives, PVDC or polyamide barriers, UV stabilisers, acetaldehyde blockers, external coatings and whether there is decorative direct printing. For glass, record the glass type: only soda-lime silica glass is accepted in household glass collections, so a lead crystal or borosilicate flacon is red at collection.

Who holds it: the primary pack supplier or converter, and the masterbatch or colour house behind them for pigment questions.

Pumps, droppers and airless dispensers

EPR: a weight for the whole assembly is usually enough, but material category should reflect what it predominantly is.

RAM: whether the dispenser is separable from the container by the consumer, which decides whether it is a separate component or part of an integrated item rated on predominant material by weight. Then the parts: closure or actuator material, whether it floats or sinks, gasket and valve materials, dip tube polymer, wiper or insert materials, and for trigger sprays whether there is any glass, metal or non-PE or non-PP part. Dropper assemblies need the pipette material, the bulb material and the dimensions of the pipette itself.

Who holds it: the dispenser manufacturer, not the bottle supplier, even when they arrive assembled. Ask for the component breakdown, not the assembly datasheet.

Closures, caps and liners

EPR: material, weight, class. Caps are routinely omitted from spreadsheets and are rarely trivial across a range.

RAM: closure material matters directly. Steel, aluminium, PS, PVC and thermoset caps are red on HDPE and PP. On a PET bottle, a non-PET closure with a density over 1 g/cm³ is red, because it sinks with the PET instead of floating off. Liners, wads and induction seals need their own material: PS, PVC, PU, nylon, heavy PET, PC, PMMA, thermoset and silicone are all red as inserts on HDPE and PP.

Who holds it: the closure supplier, and separately the liner supplier, who is often a different company.

Labels

EPR: label material and weight, which is small per unit and large across millions of units.

RAM: label or sleeve material, whether it is the same polymer as the container, coverage as a percentage of surface area against the 60% threshold, density over 1 g/cm³ where the container is PET, and whether the adhesive releases in a 70–90°C hot wash. PVC, aluminium, metallised PET and metallised PS labels are red on HDPE and PP. Foil-blocked and metallised decoration is exactly where beauty labels tend to fail.

Who holds it: the label converter for material and adhesive, and the ink supplier for the EuPIA exclusion policy declaration.

Sleeves and shrink

RAM: the same coverage question as labels, plus the material. A full-body metallised sleeve is the single easiest way to turn a green bottle amber or red. An enrobed paper or board sleeve covering more than 60% can be exempt from the sortation amber if it carries clear consumer removal guidance, so the artwork brief becomes a regulatory fact worth recording.

Cartons, leaflets and outers

EPR: paper or board or fibre-based composite, class (secondary or shipment), weight.

RAM: non-paper content as a percentage by weight, glitter, surface treatments such as greaseproof, siliconised or waxed, PVDC or PVC dispersion coatings, aluminium foil lamination of 6 µm or more, non-wood fibres, internal adhesive lamination with PET or metallised PET, wax dispersion coatings, and silicone release coating as a percentage of label weight. Foil blocking on a premium carton is a question about the foil thickness and how it is applied, so ask the carton converter for specifics rather than a yes or no.

Sachets and samples

RAM: sachets are usually flexible plastic, which is rated at collection only and is red unless there is take-back scheme evidence, in which case amber. They can never be green. Small rigid samples raise the 40 mm question: an item under 40 mm in two dimensions that cannot be reattached will not be captured by sorting equipment and is red.

EPR: samples and gift-with-purchase items still carry packaging weight even though they carry no sales value, and they are frequently missed.

Checklist

• Build the component list from a physical teardown, not from the bill of materials.
• Weigh what you cannot evidence, and record that the weight came from a sample.
• Ask dispenser suppliers for a part-level breakdown, not an assembly sheet.
• Capture coverage percentages and adhesive behaviour at artwork sign-off.
• Record who supplied each fact and when, so it can be refreshed rather than redone.

The readiness checker lists the missing facts for one pack, which is a good way to see the shape of the request before you send it to a supplier.