01
1 — UV adhesive printing
A UV-curable adhesive is printed flexographically onto the substrate in the exact shape of the metallic artwork. Resolution down to 0.15 mm fine lines.
Luxury Beauty
Cosmetics & Beauty
Mirror-grade cold foil for prestige beauty packaging.
Beauty packaging lives or dies on the shelf in the first 0.4 seconds. Cold foil stamping lets brands lay down mirror-grade metallic accents — logos, borders, full coverage panels — inline with UV flexo printing, then immediately overprint with tints and varnishes to create dimensional, multi-layered finishes that hot stamping simply cannot replicate at speed. Because the process is heat-free, it works flawlessly on heat-sensitive films, lenticular substrates, and the thin metallised PET liners common in prestige cosmetics.
Quick answer
Cold foil stamping decorates cosmetic cartons — lipstick, mascara, serum and fragrance boxes — inline on UV flexo presses at 200–350 m/min on 250–400 gsm SBS. It transfers a 40–60 nm aluminium layer with a photopolymer plate, replaces heated brass dies used by hot stamping foil, and can be overprinted with tinted UV inks in the same pass to build rose gold, champagne and holographic effects on heat-sensitive PET liners.
The cold foil process
Three inline steps. One press pass.
Cold foil stamping is fundamentally different from hot stamping — it lives inside the flexo print line, not beside it. Here is how it works for cosmetics & beauty.
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2 — Foil lamination & cure
The CFS foil web is nipped against the wet adhesive and instantly UV-cured. The metal layer transfers only where adhesive was printed.
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3 — Inline overprint
Tints, gradients and matte/gloss varnishes are printed over the cured foil in the same press pass — enabling holographic-on-gold, tinted rose-gold, and sculpted finishes.
Why cold foil for cosmetics & beauty
The case against hot stamping.
- No heat damage to thin films, shrink sleeves or metallised liners
- Inline with flexo — no offline stamping bottleneck for short prestige runs
- Overprintable: build tinted golds, rose copper, sculpted holographic looks
- Sub-millimetre registration for fine serif typography and ornamental borders
Press parameters
Production-tuned.
- Substrate
- SBS / FBB 250–350 gsm, PET films 23–50 µm
- Press speed
- 200–350 m/min
- Min. line weight
- 0.15 mm
- Overprint
- UV flexo tints, matte/gloss UV varnish
- Finishing
- Embossing, soft-touch, spot UV all compatible
Cold foil vs hot stamping foil
Cold foil vs hot stamping foil for cosmetic cartons
Side-by-side operating parameters for cold foil stamping and hot stamping foil on cosmetics & beauty, using the substrate and press-speed window this vertical actually runs.
| Attribute | Cold foil stamping (CFS) | Hot stamping foil |
|---|---|---|
| Process | UV adhesive printed → cold foil laminated → instant UV cure (ambient temperature) | Heated brass/magnesium die at 100–150 °C presses foil onto substrate, offline |
| Typical substrate window | SBS/FBB 250–400 gsm, PET liners 23–50 µm | Coated SBS/FBB; heat-sensitive films require special dies |
| Press speed | 200–350 m/min | 20–60 m/min (Kurz / Crocus benchmarks) |
| Tooling | Photopolymer flexo plate — hours, low cost | Etched brass/magnesium die — days, per-artwork cost |
| Inline overprint | Yes — CMYK/varnish overprint in same press pass | No — decoration happens after print, offline |
| VOC / m² | ≈ 0 g/m² (100% UV-cure adhesive) | 2–6 g/m² for solvent-adjacent finishing steps |
| Registration | ±0.05–0.10 mm (servo combination presses) | ±0.15–0.30 mm typical |
Sources & test methods
- Cold foil transfer at 150–450 m/min on inline UV flexo (Bobst Master M6). — Bobst Master M6 — inline flexo press specification (bobst.com)
- Hot stamping foil: 100–150 °C brass/magnesium dies at 20–60 m/min, offline. — Kurz / Crocus Foil Stamping Advice PDF; Labels & Labeling Label Academy chapter 8
- VOC ≈ 0 g/m² for UV-cure cold foil vs 2–6 g/m² for solvent-based decoration. — RadTech Low-Emission Technologies (Golden, 2019); US EPA flexographic VOC baseline (AP-42 §4.9)
- Adhesion tested to ASTM D3359-22 (4B pass); coating weight verified via beta-gauge; colour tolerance ΔE00 ≤ 1.5. — ASTM D3359-22 standard test method
- Cold-foiled paperboard is repulpable under EN 643 (metal layer ≈ 0.05% of pack weight). — CEPI / PTS Munich deinkability protocol reports
- Market, cost and lifecycle figures. — /cold-foil-statistics dataset — Grand View Research, Smithers Pira, FINAT, CEPI, CFS press trials
Recommended foils
Full rangeThe CFS palette for cosmetics & beauty.
Where you'll find it on shelf.
Lipstick & mascara cartons
Serum and cream secondary packaging
Fragrance outer cartons & sleeves
Gift sets and limited editions
Other applications
All four
Specifying the job
What to lock down before press.
Successful cosmetics & beauty jobs share four upstream decisions: substrate and finish, foil family, adhesive coat weight and overprint sequence. Lock these in design review and the press run becomes a repeatable production task instead of a make-ready experiment. Our technical team publishes per-product run-sheets for each foil SKU so prepress, platemaking and the pressroom work from the same numbers.
On press, the variables that matter most are anilox cell volume (we recommend 8–12 cm³/m² for most cosmetics & beauty work), UV lamp dose (350–500 mJ/cm² for cationic adhesives), nip pressure on the foil station, and web tension stability across the foil-transfer zone. Combination flexo presses from Bobst, Gallus, Nilpeter, MPS and Mark Andy all run our foil range out of the box; older machines may need a foil-station retrofit, which we can scope with your OEM.
For brand owners, the practical takeaway: send your dieline, intended substrate and a sample of a competitor finish you want to match or beat. We will return a printed sample pack on your stock, a recommended foil family, and a target run-sheet within 5 working days.
Quality control
Every production batch is checked on a Konica Minolta CM-26d spectrophotometer for L*a*b* consistency, plus inline 100% optical inspection for pinholes and edge definition. Tolerance bands and golden samples ship with each lot.
Sustainability
Foil supplied to cosmetics & beauty customers is produced in plants running on 100% renewable electricity, with carrier-film take-back through our French recycling partner. Full ISO 14040/14044 LCA data is available on request. Read our sustainability brief.
Compliance
Products tested against EuPIA, Swiss Ordinance Annex 10 and Nestlé Guidance Note for low migration; FSC chain-of-custody available on paper-backed lines; REACH and RoHS declarations on every technical data sheet.
FAQ
Cosmetics & Beauty cold foil questions.
Don't see your question? The technical team replies within one working day on the contact form.
Manufacturing capability
Made in our own plants — not resold.
Vacuum metallizing, UV coating, colour matching and QC all happen under one roof across three European sites. That is why every batch ships with a spectrophotometer report, a golden sample and a batch code you can trace for ten years.
- ISO 9001:2015 — Quality management
- ISO 14001:2015 — Environmental management
- ISO 50001:2018 — Energy management
- FSC® Chain of Custody (carrier films)
01 · Vacuum metallizing
Aluminium coil to optical mirror
02 · UV cold-transfer coating
Release + colour chemistry
03 · Colour & QC lab
ΔE ≤ 1.5 against master
04 · Warehouse & dispatch
Consignment stock, 40+ countries
Go deeper on the cold foil process.
Specify cold foil for cosmetics & beauty.
Sample cards, press validation, and substrate compatibility — our technical team is one form away.