Scenthusiasm

After checking that your fragrances are safe, you might share them with friends and family. 

For that, you will need to think about packaging.

Bottles

Don’t get too excited yet. I have met dozens of people whose first aim is to have their own bottle and cap designed without realising that this is a huge investment of thousands of dollars, euros or pounds.

To have your own design made you need to plan for quantities of 3,000 bottles in Europe and 10,000 in China. For smaller quantities, you can choose one which is already in production.

This is because design, tooling and machinery set-up charges for a new bottle are high and need to be spread out over the quantity. It’s the economies of scale issue. (See the example I give below for bottle printing to illustrate how the calculations work.)

For small quantities our choices are limited, and often depends on which has just imported a production run of hundreds of thousands of bottles into our own country and is selling them in smaller quantities.

The bottles available in small numbers from Ebay and the like are usually imported from China. They can look great in the photos, but be careful with the quality. Caps can fall off easily and pumps can be wonky and leaky. For my early workshops when I started up I bought some for my visitors to use, and the standard varied.

I buy from Pochpac in the UK for 4160Tuesdays, and have done since 2012; their glass is at least 25% recycled. They will supply people who are beginning to get started in business and their minimum order quantity is just one box.

I prefer to buy locally because if something goes wrong it’s easier to fix, and there’s a much lower carbon footprint for delivery.

It’s possible to buy good quality bottles and boxes directly from China at quantities of 10,000 upwards, as long as you are dealing directly with a responsible manufacturer.

Crimps, pumps, caps and screws

You can choose screw-top bottles and pumps or crimp systems; with crimped pumps there are two kinds: self-crimping and those which need a specific tool.

Screw top pumps are easy to fit by hand and that makes bottles easily refillable, great for sustainability. But they are also very easy to remove, decant and replace, which not everyone wants as the security is lower.

There are two crimping styles of pump. Self-crimping pumps are made so that the pump outer layer slides down over the bottle neck, pushing a circle of grips into place, to hold the pump in place and reveal the nozzle.

They can be shoved into place with the right sized plastic bottle but that is hard work, and it’s easy to get it off centre. Eventually if you use these in quantity, you will need to buy a bottle crimping tool.

Pochpac’s bottles are for use with self-crimping pumps which they also supply.

With standard crimp pumps the nozzle is visible, and a ring of metal sits over the bottle neck; this needs the right tool to grip it in place. There are inexpensive, hand-held tools which can do the job, but everyone messes up the first few tries. Colourlites (colouredbottles.co.uk) supply this style of bottle and pump.

If you have bought bottles which take a standard pump, don’t attempt to use self-crimping pumps with them - or vice versa - because they won’t fit, and a combination of anger, frustration and disastrous leakage will occur.

If you want your bottles printed, bear in mind that set-up charges are high.

The maths works like this:

Having 10 printed bottles might cost £500 to set up the screen + £2.20 per bottle. 

10 printed bottles = £522, £52.20 each.

If you want 1000 printed bottles they will cost £500 to set up + £2.20 x 1000 = £2700  which is £2.70 each.

I’d recommend a label machine for starting out in small quantities, rather than going for print.

Caps

Most perfume bottle caps fit most perfume bottles. People are often unaware of this, but give it a go with your own collection. If you want your own cap designing, you need to consider set-up charges again, often into the £$€1000s.

If you buy from Pochpac, Stocksmatic and other suppliers who keep a small range in stock, you will have a limited variety of caps to choose from - wood, glass and plastic - in several different colours.

There are specialist makers in Italy, France and China, and you can meet them at luxury packaging trade events. To have something individually made the MOQ is in the thousands.

For small quantities, you can 3-D print your own, or handmake them in other materials depending on the time, skills and budget available.

Boxes 

As with bottles, you either buy standard designs from packaging companies, or have your own designed and made. Mine come from Project Works London, and are bespoke. I buy 2000 at a time to justify the set-up charges including design and the cutting tools.

For small quantities, you can take a standard box and customise it. For example, use coloured  tissue paper for the insides and label the outside, tie with ribbon and seal with wax and they will look magnificent. 

Packaging Providers

Colourlites - bottles -  www.colouredbottles.co.uk

Ampulla - bottles  - www.ampulla.co.uk

Tiny Box Company - boxes - www.tinyboxcompany.co.uk 

Pochpac - bottles - www.pochpac.co.uk 

Stocksmetic bottles - www.stocksmetics.com