Teach Soap

What do you, and your customers, prefer for a lotion container?

Do you like a squeeze tube/tottle?
Or do you prefer a bottle with a pump?

How heavily do you weigh their various advantages and disadvantages when choosing?

For example - tottles might cost more, but are easier to pack and move, etc..


Also - what do you do about that fact that when you label a squeezeable container, like a tube - your label is gonna get crunched when the product is dispensed? I'd love to be a ble to afford to order 10,000 printed tubes from China...lol...that solves one problem but creates another! $$

thanks in advance for your help and opinions!

I use clear PET bullet containers. You can squeeze them a little bit, but they are not squishy. Right now, I'm using dispensing caps instead of lotion pumps, but I may have to rethink that for markets this spring. Lotion pumps tend to leak more for me during shipping then the dispensing caps.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

If I use a dispensing cap and enclose a lotion pump with each bottle, I would have to charge more and I'm not sure my customers would like that. I'm still thinking on this one.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

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Linda
I know the voices in my head aren't real, but they sure have some great ideas!

Honestly, I don't care for pump dispensers. There is always that last little bit of lotion that the pump can't get to, so then you have to balance the bottle on its head (and find things to surround it with to prop it up so it doesn't fall over) to get the last of the lotion out. If the lotion is thick, you end up having to dig it out with your fingers.

I much prefer the PETE-type plastic bottles with disc caps, especially if the top of the disc cap is flat so I can just stand the bottle on its head when the lotion starts to get low. I can get almost all of the lotion out easily with those types of containers.

I wouldn't not buy lotion with a pump dispenser if it's good stuff and I wanted it. I would wish it didn't have a pump, though.

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I really appreciate all the replies. They have given me lots to think about. I have several squeeze tottles as well as pump bottles on order - samples to try and hopefully pick out.

There are several factors I am mulling over: In the store, you see the smaller sizes tend to be in a squeeze tube, then the really big sizes (Vaseline Intensive Care and the like) are in large bottles with pump dispensers. So, despite the correct observation that pumps always leave a bit in the bottom, customers have conditioned to think that is a normal product presentation.

I love the feel of the squeeze tubes, but the labels will look like #@*! when they have been squeezed a few times....

I will leave a full report when and if those darn samples ever show up!

Let's see if I can be of help. There's a good company for all kinds of bottles and jars. McKernan's - they 'precycle' surplus stock and often have some great bargains.
I use 250mL pump bottles for our Bodymilk product. The bottles, complete, cost me about US0.75 each. The thing with bottles is, it's a much more hygienic way to dispense than jars. I use jars for our skin creams but only because people expect that; I would prefer to use pump bottles also. Dipping fingers into jars of cream is to contaminate the contents again and again. Sure, the preservative system should take care of it, but it's inherently a poor idea.

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Irena
Closed minds are like faulty parachutes; they refuse to open.

hmmm... 75 cents a piece is almost DOUBLE what I am paying for my 8 oz bottle w/ pump.
But I am a serious bargain hunter

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~bytheSEAsoap~ Mella bythesea, bythesea, bythebeautiful sea

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~bytheSEAsoap~ Mella bythesea, bythesea, bythebeautiful sea

海の皂