Metsä Board (previously M-real) now has a new identity. But for the Finnish company, it is much more than a simple change in appearance. "By changing our name, we returned to our roots as Metsä means forest in Finnish," explains Christophe Baudry, Healthcare & Beautycare Commercial Director for Metsä Board. "We are strengthening our association with the fresh and natural wood fibres, a renewable resource, and with the purity that makes our cartonboards perfectly adapted to beauty products and other sensitive products. Customers are increasingly looking for brands whose image of luxury makes them dream but with a minimum impact on the environment."
The next edition of Luxe Pack Monaco will also be an opportunity for the company to show once again how its eco-friendly packaging boards can sustain the requirements of premium brands in terms of image and quality.
Improved lightweight cartonboards
The lightweight cartonboards of Metsä Board enable to design attractive and prestigious packagings while keeping the same size without increasing the weight. The strength of fresh wood fibres makes our cartonboards particularly suitable for embossing, die cutting and other special effects enhancing the overall brand image.
"Recent improvements on our Carta Elega and Avanta Prima cartonboards ranges now almost exclusively made from BCTMP pulp and the triple layer on the front demonstrate our commitment to always invest in the quality of our products by meeting customer requirements," emphasises Baudry. “BCTMP is a pulp especially developed for its purity and lightness. This provides improved taint and odour properties as well as cleanliness.”
Metsä Board’s range of cartons dedicated to the beautycare industry consists of four products: Carta Elega, Carta Solida, Carta Integra, and Avanta Prima. According to Baudry, "they are particularly recommended for fragrances, make-up products, toiletries, hair colouration products and other demanding packaging."
Carta Elega is a fully coated board for folding boxes with a coated back, which offers superior visual quality with high brightness and an equal bluish-white shade on both sides. Its excellent print quality makes it an excellent medium for gravure printing and other high-value printing forms. Carta Solida is a fully coated board with a white back. Its brilliant visual appearance helps achieve attractive print results, and its high brightness enhances unprinted areas. Carta Solida also holds excellent properties thanks to its high purity. Carta Integra is also a fully coated board with a coated back, suitable for demanding packaging products such as graphics applications. Eventually, Avanta Prima is a fully coated lightweight cardboard for folding boxes, with a clean and light look, ideal for embossing.
| Packaging characteristics | Advantages |
| High brightness and smooth appearance | Excellent print quality and clean, bright appearance |
| Optimized coating | Clear and uniform printability |
| Superior surfaces properties | Ideal base for laminating and other applications |
| Excellent die-cutting properties | Dust-free printing |
| Lightness | Durability and cost efficiency |
"Typical applications for these cartonboards are packagings for perfumes and other fragrances, skincare and make-up products, but also hair colouring products and toiletries."
Refreshed Chromolux range
Metsä Board will also show its refreshed Chromolux cast-coated board range, which is now, according to the company, “the best of its kind for all types of printing and finishing processes with a comprehensive selection of surfaces, colours and grammages.”
Six of the most popular Chromolux colours are now available in 350 g/m² weight. This provides more choice for packaging of luxury products such as fragrances, where the bulk and stiffness of Chromolux gives added value to the carton.
