"People buy scent with their eyes,” says Bernd Stauch, Senior Director Sales Cosmetics at Gerresheimer.

Anybody looking to buy a fragrance in a perfume store will find a huge selection of bottles in many different shapes, colors, and sizes.

You reach for a bottle whose appearance best conveys a certain idea of the scent it contains. A person looking for a sporty, invigorating fragrance will be more drawn to a flat, sober shape than someone after a weighty, sensuous one.

Glass packaging as an integral style element

In no other market is the glass packaging, i.e. the bottle, such an important design tool as in the cosmetics industry. Be it for care (cream jars, make-up, or dyes) or actual fragrance (perfumes, eaux de toilette, or aerosol sprays), the glass packaging is always the integral style element in the marketing concept, the external “ambassador” of the valuable content.

And then there are the special safe-like characteristics of the glass packaging that mean that none of the content can get out and nothing from the outside can get in. Inside the glass, the contents are protected in the best possible way and interactions are completely ruled out.

This starts with a special glass recipe to underline the crystalline and flawless character of the valuable contents through the glass packaging. Gerresheimer’s plants in the German town of Tettau and the Belgian town of Momignies specialize in making high-quality glass for the cosmetics industry.

Decorations – adding the customizing touches

Numerous finishing and decoration techniques allow high-impact brand messages to be designed and showcased in an unmistakable and eye-catching way, ensuring variety in both appearance and feel.

Decoration is regarded as anything that can be offered to customers as added value alongside the classic areas such as screen printing, color spraying, acid etching, and pad printing, such as fitting plastic inserts.

Gerresheimer’s new high-performance Decoration Centers at Momignies in Belgium and Tettau in Germany employ the latest technology such as UV printing, which uses ultraviolet light to dry the printing ink as soon as it has been applied.