Custom 100ml Bottle Boxes

Carton Styles for Bottled Skincare

The right carton depends on where your product is sold and how premium you want it to feel. A few styles suit this size particularly well:

Shelf sellers usually prefer a tuck end carton because it stands upright neatly in a row and can be hung or stacked. If you mostly sell online, the crash-lock base is worth the small extra cost, since it stays closed even when a parcel is thrown about. Gift-focused brands tend to keep the sleeve and tray for their best seller and use tuck cartons for the rest of the line.

• Reverse or straight tuck end carton: the everyday choice for shelves and online orders, quick to fill and cost-effective
• Crash-lock bottom carton: a base that locks firmly when opened, ideal for heavier glass bottles
• Sleeve and tray: a slide-out drawer that feels like a gift, good for hero products
• Rigid two-piece box: for facial oils and serums sold as luxury gifts
• Carton with window: shows a frosted bottle or a coloured oil through a clear panel

Inserts That Protect Glass

Glass dropper bottles are beautiful but fragile, and a simple card insert does a lot to keep them intact. A collar insert holds the bottle by the neck so it cannot slide up and down. A base insert raises the bottle off the bottom of the box and stops it rocking. For sets, a card or foam insert with two or three cut-outs holds a serum and a toner side by side.

Inserts can be printed to match the outer carton, which makes opening the box feel more finished. A short usage card can also sit behind the bottle, with directions and the order of your routine laid out clearly.

For online orders, think about what happens when a parcel sits upside down on a van floor. A collar insert keeps a dropper bottle from pressing its pipette against the lid, and a small tamper-evident sticker across the tuck flap reassures customers that nobody has opened the product before them. Both are inexpensive additions that cut down on returns and awkward emails about leaking bottles.

Space for Ingredients and Required Details

A 100ml carton has more room than a small serum box, which is useful because skincare packaging carries a lot of information. Ingredients lists, directions, warnings, batch code, the period-after-opening symbol, net volume and the responsible person's details all have to sit somewhere legible. The back panel and one side usually carry this text, leaving the front and the other side free for branding.

Plan for text to be big enough to read without squinting. Light grey text on a pale background may look elegant on screen but becomes hard to read when printed small. We will flag anything that looks likely to be too faint on your proof, although the content of your regulatory text remains your responsibility. p1 The layout rules are the same ones we use across cosmetic cartons of every size, so a range can share one back-panel template.

Board, Print and Finish

Most 100ml bottle boxes are made from 350 to 400 gsm folding boxboard, which holds crisp edges and takes fine print well. White board shows pastel and clean clinical palettes accurately. Kraft board suits botanical and natural-look brands and gives an earthy background that pairs nicely with one or two ink colours.

Soft-touch laminate gives a smooth, velvety feel that customers notice the moment they pick the box up. Foil on the brand name and product name adds a touch of light, and embossing lifts a logo off the front panel. Spot gloss can highlight an illustration or a botanical pattern against a matt background. For brands with several products in a line, we can keep foil and finish consistent across every carton while changing the colour per product. p1 The board and finish options page shows each laminate and foil side by side if you want to compare them before the proof.

Pick the Closure Before You Pick the Carton

The single decision that shapes a 100ml bottle box is the closure, so settle that first. A pump adds 25 to 40 mm of height and usually needs a locking collar; a dropper adds a bulb that must not be squashed by the top flap; a plain screw cap adds almost nothing. Once the closure is fixed, measure the filled bottle with it on and send those three figures with a photo of the bottle on a ruler.

Then choose the carton style around the weight. Under about 150 g filled, a straight tuck end is fine; above that, ask for a crash-lock base. The quote comes back by email inside a working day, the proof is free, and a plain tuck end starts at £0.25. Production is 4 to 7 working days once you sign off, with free tracked UK mainland delivery after that.

Keep ten or so spare cartons from the run for product photography and for the inevitable box that gets scuffed on the filling line. A lotion box with a fitted insert follows the same measuring routine if you later add a pump cream to the range.