Filling liquid cosmetic products in retail packages – weight-to-volume conversion by means of density measurement

How much volume is in the package?

The final step in production is normally the filling of the material into its transport container, or more important, the consumer-suitable retail package.

Especially for low and high viscous liquids or even paste-like substances from various industries, especially cosmetics and personal care, this is frequently done by transferring product into the empty package until the desired weight is reached.

Customer protection laws and regulations require that the labelling must indicate the volume in the case of liquid products (in e.g. milliliters or liquid ounces). For Europe this is connected with the “℮”-symbol on packages [1, 2], but there are also regulations in other countries [e.g. USA: references 3 & 4; South Africa: 5].

References

• [1] Verordnung über Fertigpackungen (Fertigpackungsverordnung) FertigPackV 1981 § 7 Kennzeichnung der Füllmenge bei Fertigpackungen mit bestimmten Erzeugnissen
• [2] EUR-Lex Labelling of pre-packed products Dec 14, 2015
• [3] Electronic Code of Federal Regulations e-CFR data current as of February 3, 2020 PART 500—REGULATIONS UNDER SECTION 4 OF THE FAIR PACKAGING AND LABELING ACT § 500.7 Net quantity of contents, method of expression
• [4] NIST Handbook 130 & 133 (2020)
• [5] SANS 1841:2015 & SANS 289:2016