Lipstick Boxes.

Heat softening in transit, more than any drop or knock. A wax bullet softens well before it looks damaged, and a summer truck is warm enough to slump a tip. A snug carton holds the tube upright so any softening sets back down straight rather than bent. Full-coverage ink on the outside also blocks some radiant heat that reaches the wax through bare board.

Metallised board reflects heat as a side benefit on metallic shade ranges.

Close enough that the tube cannot tilt, with only a couple of millimetres of clearance each way. Bullet and slimline tubes differ by millimetres, so the carton is sized to the assembled tube rather than a nominal format. The tube then acts as a column, which is why 18pt board is enough when cartons ship in a fitted case.

Where cartons ship loose in a mixed parcel, we move up to 20pt.

It should belong to the same range and be visibly plainer. Same colourway, none of the finishing. A refill specified as richly as the primary undercuts the environmental argument for offering refills at all. The primary case for a refillable system usually goes rigid on 2mm greyboard, while the refill stays a folding carton.

Restraint on the refill reads as intentional when the hierarchy is consistent across the range.

With a spot colour per shade family, because four-colour process misses deep reds. CMYK drifts orange or brown on a saturated red, so we mix a spot for each family and version the swatch panel. Soft-touch matte is the prestige default and reads as a matte formula, while gloss lamination matches glossy and satin lines and scuffs less at a tester counter.

Ask for a press proof on the real board before the shade range is approved.

Approximately 1.0 by 1.0 by 3.5 inches inside for a standard bullet, and 0.9 by 0.9 by 3.2 inches for a slimline. Those are starting points, and the assembled tube with its cap is what we measure. A carton at this size gives about 16 square inches of panel, which is enough for the ingredient list at standard type.

Hot foil for the brand name runs vertically to use the tall narrow format.

500 cartons per printed version is the minimum. A ten-shade range with a versioned swatch panel is therefore 5,000 boxes, though a shared carton with a digital-printed shade area keeps small ranges within one run. Orders go up to 100,000.

Reorders use the same dieline, so adding a shade later is a print job rather than a new box.

Finished cartons leave us 7 to 10 business days after proof approval. Rush production takes 5 to 7 business days. A sample takes 5 to 7 business days, and for lipstick we suggest a printed one so the spot red can be checked against the bullet.

What you pay for the sample is taken off the production order, and shipping reaches every state.

Soft-touch is a film lamination, so the carton is recyclable in most paper streams but not strictly single-material. A matte aqueous coating gets close to the flat look without the film if the claim matters. Recycled board and SBS both work, with the caveat that some recycled stocks take ink less evenly, so proof the red on the chosen board.

Metallised board is the one to avoid on a recyclability claim.