Cosmetics

Manufacturingand the Lipstick Molding

Process

Cosmetics have been used on lips for millennia to protect them from chapping and cracking when the air is dry but also to ornament them.

In the nineteenth century, soothing and protecting lip-salves could be purchased from local chemists/pharmacists or could be made at home from any one of a number of available recipes, many of which contained a red coloring agent – such as alkanet or black grape juice – to also redden the lips and make them more attractive.

The History of Lipstick

Women in the nineteenth century could also use liquid or paste rouge to color their lips; for example, Bloom of Roses – a liquid rouge made from carmine dissolved in ammonia and rose water – was used to redden cheeks but some women also applied it to their lips.

Commercial versions of Bloom of Roses were available all through the nineteenth century, a popular English form being made by Pears.

Rouge

Stick cosmetics were well known to the perfumery and pharmacy trades in the nineteenth century and many products were made in this form, moustache wax sticks and suppositories being good examples.

Colored lip-salves were generally made as pastes but stick forms could be produced by adding a sufficient amount of a stiffening agent such as white wax. According to some sources these date from well before 1840.

Stick Cosmetics

Lip salve-sticks and rouge-sticks have some advantages over other forms of lip rouge; they do not spill like liquid lip-rouge and if used directly on the lips do not produce messy fingers as with using a paste lip balm.

The difference between a colored lip-salve-stick and a rouge-stick or lip-stick is arbitrary but they can perhaps be distinguished by the type and amount of coloring agent they contain; lip-salves usually had less coloring and were generally made with cheaper alkanet, whereas lip-rouges or lip-sticks had more coloring and often used the more expensive carmine.

Stick Cosmetics

The 1870s saw the introduction of another stick cosmetic of importance to the story of lipsticks; greasepaint, a theatrical make-up sold as sticks wrapped in ornamental paper or tin foil.

As the use of powder, rouge and other ‘paints’ became more acceptable towards the end of the nineteenth century, some French firms making cosmetics primarily for theatrical clients began selling their wares more widely and their cosmetics, including their batons grime, began to find their way into more general hands.

Paris led the way in the use of make-up in the late nineteenth century and as this French fashion spread to other parts of the world so to did French cosmetics.

Greasepaint

At some point lip-sticks were encased in metal tubes. Cardboard or paper gave lip-rouge protection, portability and ease of use but the use of metal allowed for better mechanisms for pushing the stick out of its container and gave the finished product an appeal that would eventually make it an essential item for almost every handbag.

Although it was made for a ip-salve rather than a lip-stick, the first metal case that can be dated with some precision was made by Beiersdorf AG in Germany in 1911 when it began selling its Labello lip balm in a new sliding case made of tin – it had previously been wrapped in paper. The company reverted to paper during the First World War due to tin shortages and then used aluminium from 1922. The first American metal lipstick case was made by the Scovill Manufacturing Company (Connecticut, U.S.A.) in 1915.

Lipstick cases

Once introduced, the idea of metal lipstick casings quickly spread, particularly after the First World War when scrap metal was abundant and metal prices were low. Early forms were generally small, often oval in cross-section rather than round, and used some form of sliding mechanism to extend and then withdraw the lip-stick.

Some had a paper label glued to the case while others had the company name embossed into the metal. By the late 1920s there were a wide variety of case designs, made from a range of materials, with varying mechanisms for getting the lipstick in and out of the tube.

Lipstick cases

A major advance in the production of lipstick cases came in the 1950s when case manufacturing firms, like Scovill, introduced component standardization.

Breaking down the parts of a lipstick case into its various parts – the base assembly, holder cup and cap – and then manufacturing variations of each at standard sizes, meant that components became interchangeable. Lipstick manufacturers could select items from the range of component parts and combine them to produce a lipstick case that suited their own needs, dramatically reducing fitting costs.

Lipstick cases

Lipsticks are made by incorporating color into a suitable base made of solvents, spreading agents and stiffening ingredients, with a suitable fragrance and preservatives mixed in. Each part of the lipstick formulation – color, base, and perfume – had problems that needed to be solved by the cosmetic chemists of the day.

Early twentieth century lipsticks were relatively simple mixtures of fats, oils and the pigment carmine.

Formulation

Over the years a wide variety of substances have been use in formulating lipstick bases including beeswax, candellila wax, canauba wax, castor oil, lanolin and lanolin absorption bases, ozokerite, ceresin, cocoa butter, lard, cetyl alcohol, petroleum jelly and liquid paraffin.

However, although formulations became increasingly sophisticated, as manufacturing methods and the quality of raw materials improved, their fundamentals did not change dramatically until the 1990s when silicone derivatives came into widespread use.

Formulation

The basic procedure for making lipsticks for much of the twentieth century was relatively simple. The ingredients were thoroughly mixed together in a heated liquid state, then poured into molds to form the lipsticks which, after being cooled, were removed from the molds and packaged for sale.

Like other cosmetics, the production of lipsticks started out as a cottage industry with most of the work being done by hand. However, as the demand for lipstick increased and batches got larger, the methods used evolved and became increasingly mechanized and systematized.

Manufacturing

The two main concerns a manufacturer faced when making a lipstick from a suitable formula were to make sure that the colors were uniformly dispersed through the lipstick – so streaks and graininess were eliminated – and to ensure that the molded sticks had a smooth, finished appearance.

Looking at the process as a whole we can divide it into four main steps: color blending; melting and mixing the ingredients; molding the lipsticks; and packaging.

Manufacturing

Colour Blending

Melting and Mixing

Molding

Packaging

When the completed lipstick mass was ready it was poured into molds made specifically to fit the size and shape of the lipstick specified by the manufacturer. The pouring temperature had to be carefully controlled to avoid the colorant separating or molding blemishes, air bubbles and other artifacts being introduced into the finished sticks.

The lipsticks contract on cooling in the molds and were removed after an hour or so. This time was dramatically reduced by refrigerating the mold, a practice that became a standard proceedure in larger manufacturing concerns. Chilling the sticks also had the added benefit of reducing the tendency of the lipstick to sweat or bloom while cooling.

Manufacturing

The process of making lipstick in this manner was very labour intensive as it required the molds to be cleaned, filled and emptied. From the 1970s onwards automatic molding machines began to be used which enabled manufacturers to deliver higher volumes of lipsticks without increasing labour costs.

Manufacturers also began to experiment with molds made of silicone or high temperature plastics and these have now replaced the traditional metal molds in many situations.

Our hot melt parts are often used by cosmetics manufacturers in the process of molding in the manufacturing of lipstick.

Manufacturing

If you are a manufacturer in search of replacement hot melt parts, hot melt glue systems or heated hoses, visit http://www.indemax.com to check out

our full line of products and order to ship today. 

Thanks to http://www.cosmeticsandskin.com/ded/lipsticks.php for the history and references for this presentation.