Luxury Skincare Packaging.

For most brands it can, because a 24pt SBS carton with soft-touch lamination and a deboss gets most of the way to rigid feel. It ships flat, packs faster and costs a fraction of the invoice. We have talked plenty of skincare brands out of rigid on exactly that basis.

Rigid earns its cost when the box is part of what the customer keeps, such as a gift set or a hero cream that lives on a vanity.

We build rigid skincare boxes on 1.5 to 2mm greyboard, wrapped in 128 to 157gsm printed paper. Below 1.5mm the walls flex when the lid comes off, and above 2mm the wrap starts to show tension at the corners.

The heavier wrap weights also hide the corner joins better, which matters on a box the customer will turn over in their hands.

The magnets sit in pockets cut into the board, and anything thinner than 2mm lets them dimple the lid from behind. You end up with two small dents on the front panel where the magnet shows through the wrap.

If you want a magnetic flap, specify 2mm from the start. Lift-off lids and drawer styles are more forgiving of a lighter board.

Choose the insert at the same time as the box, from EVA foam, moulded pulp or folded paperboard. A jar that rattles undoes everything the outer box did, so the cavity has to be drawn around the actual container.

We would go with moulded pulp on most skincare ranges. It holds a jar firmly and keeps the recyclability claim on the outer box intact, which foam cannot do.

Soft-touch lamination with a single hot foil or debossed mark is where most luxury skincare lands. The velvet surface makes foil and spot UV read sharper, and a restrained debossed logo tends to do more than a large printed one.

On rigid boxes, painted lid edges are a small detail that few brands ask for. Spot UV at this tier usually goes on a background pattern instead of the logo.

A folding carton for a 30 to 50ml jar typically comes out around 2.2 × 2.2 × 3.0 in. The rigid version is larger, around 3.5 × 3.5 × 3.5 in, because it has to leave room for an insert around the jar.

Those are starting points only. We size every box from the real container with its lid on, so send a sample jar or its drawing before we draw the dieline.

You can start at 500 boxes per design. Rigid builds carry a hand-assembly step, so the minimum on rigid can climb, and we will tell you where that line falls when we quote.

Folding cartons at 24pt stay at the 500 floor, which makes them the easier route for a first launch or a limited edition.

Production runs 7 to 10 business days once the artwork is signed off, or 5 to 7 on a rush. A physical sample takes 5 to 7 business days and lets you check the insert fit and the finish in hand.

The sample fee is credited against your production order, so going ahead costs you nothing extra for having checked first.