57 injection machines, 44 finishing machines a dozen assembly machines ....! Who can that be? A French SME, Cosmeco, created by Michel Poignant and now headed by his son, Alexandre [1]. A SME displaying nonetheless, sizeable industrial strike force and technical skills!

Dummy testers Dior Addict

Industrial partnerships

Starting point for the firm and still remaining today a main specialty: dummy testers for lipsticks. To do so, the firm has been working for over thirty years with an Austrian injector, Wampl Plastic, whose factory is twenty minutes away from Zurich and who has a flawless reputation in the field of injection of colored parts. " Dummy testers still represent 60% of our business", says Alexandre Poignant, Cosmeco’s COO.

Dummy testers Estée Lauder Electric

Second string to the bow of the firm, another industrial partner, a German one this time, the AHA company, which is known for mastering the manufacturing of large capacity pump dispensers. But AHA is also acquiring a solid reputation in the injection of parts partially composed with plant derived material. All this in connection with Bower Ag, a Swiss company that has been developing and marketing for the last few weeks industrial products derived from wet biomass, including plastic granulates, under the brand Agriplast, of PP, PE, PS, ABS type, made with 50% of plant fibers.

"And that’s not all, underlines Alexandre Poignant, since we have become as of last year exclusive representatives in France for products designed by the Korean company Joycos which manufactures airless containers, jars, mascaras, tubes, make-up cases, in particular airtight cases".

Moulded parts composed with 50 % of grass!

" It is clear that we’re considerably diversifying and broadening Cosmeco’s field of activity, with both the catalog of the Korean company Joycos and the offers from the German and Swiss firms, AHA and Biowert Ag ", insists Michel Poignant.

"You can easily guess that demand for this kind of products half of them made from bio material continues to grow".

The process developed by the Swiss firm is at least very original, simply because it finds its origin in the grass cut by farmers within a radius of five kilometers around the factory. With 5000 tones of forage, annually, it is possible to produce some 500 tones of plastic granulates 50% of which is composed of plant fibers (the rest being PP, PE, PS or ABS). Main constraints: raw material must be moist and should not contain any pieces of wood or other impurities. The length of the cut grass should range between 4 and 8 cm.

According to Alexandre Poignant, the main advantages of this raw material used to produce injected parts are "a very competitive price, improved stability of the shape, stiffness and abrasion resistance of formed parts, plain color - which can be a real plus - an almost non-existent smell due to a high degree of purification of fibers, but also the reduction of the weight of the finished products and, most of all, the possibility of waste disposal with no left over residue, by the means of combustion or biological degradation".

"The product catalog from Joycos, is surely today the most comprehensive one regarding ranges of airless containers, and its ability to manufacture airtight make-up cases suits exactly market demand," underlines Alexandre Poignant.