L’Occitane selects Albéa’s recyclable tube for its 30 ml hand cream

Premium Beauty News

19 October 2023

L'Occitane selects Albéa's recyclable tube for its 30 ml hand cream

The French brand has team-worked with Albéa Tubes to reinvent the packaging of its 30ml iconic hand cream collection starting with the shea butter version to be launched in January 2024. The new tube combines Albéa’s Greenleaf technology with the OctoTop 2-in-1 closure system.

L’Occitane en Provence and Albéa Tubes add a new milestone to their cooperation with the relaunch of 30ml shea butter hand cream best seller. The all-plastic laminate and APR-certified Greenleaf solution with a multilayer sleeve in HDPE replaces the former Aluminum Barrier Laminate tube. The new solution reduces the number of materials from 5 to 2 and the components from 3 to 2.

Lighter and recyclable

The transition from a laminated (ABL) tube to a Greenleaf tube integrating the OctoTop opening system enables now recyclability while reducing the overall weight of the tube by 23% compared to the current one.

For the cap, L’Occitane relied on Albéa’s EcoTop technology with OctoTop, a 2-in-1 flip-top closure system featuring the famous octagonal form iconic of l’Occitane and removing the peel seal. The closure system is in HDPE, making the whole tube recyclable in existing PE recycling streams in France, Europe and the United States.

According to Albéa, this custom project required two years of co-development and is based on a certified life cycle analysis (LCA) assessing the environmental impact reduction of the new tube solution in several categories compared to the current one.

“In our CSR strategy, the reduction of the CO2 impact of our products is one of our main commitments, and we want to address it with innovations that make a real difference”, explains David Bayard, R&D Packaging Director at L’Occitane. “Weight reduction and recyclability were therefore at the heart of this project and led us to simplify the tube as much as possible without compromising on esthetics and functionality. On the contrary, the OctoTop improves the tube’s functionality for our customers.”

“L’Occitane did not hesitate to rethink and redesign its most iconic packaging to drive circularity forward, and we could not be prouder of this new milestone in our common journey,” adds Isabelle Sery, Sales Director at Albéa Tubes.

The tubes are produced for L’Occitane at the Albéa Argonne site, in France, and will be available on the market early next year.

Portfolio