How to Choose Between PET, PP and HDPE Cosmetic Packaging

Three plastics cover the overwhelming majority of cosmetic packaging: PET, PP and HDPE. Choosing between them is mostly a compatibility decision — and getting it wrong shows up months later as cracking or deformation.

The comparison that matters

Property	PET	PP	HDPE
Density	1.33–1.38	0.90–0.91	0.94–0.96
Clarity	Clear	Translucent	Opaque
Alcohol resistance	Good (moderate)	Excellent	Good
Essential oil resistance	Limited	Good	Good (absorption risk)
Heat resistance	~60–70 °C	~100–120 °C	~70–90 °C
Cost at 100 ml	Low	Medium	Medium
Cost at 500 ml	Higher	Medium	Low
Recycled content	rPET 30–100%	rPP 30–100%	rHDPE 25–100%
Recycling code	1	5	2

Choose PET when

• Clarity is part of the product story — clear lotion, toner or gel bottles
• The formula is water-based or mildly alcoholic
• You want a thick-wall premium look without glass weight (or PETG, which is clearer at heavy sections)
• You need very tight neck tolerances for a filling line

Avoid PET for high essential oil concentrations, strong solvents and hot filling.

Choose PP when

• The formula is acidic, alcoholic or hot-filled
• You want a mono-material recyclable pack (PP bottle, PP pump, PP cap)
• You are building a refill system, where thread tolerance across cycles matters
• You need airless bodies, engines and closures, which are almost always PP

PP is the default for PP cosmetic jars and travel formats.

Choose HDPE when

• The pack is opaque and 250 ml or larger
• The formula is surfactant-rich (cleanser, shampoo, body wash)
• Recycled content is a requirement — rHDPE is the most widely available certified stream
• Unit cost at volume is the deciding factor

See HDPE bottles for how this plays out in practice.

The compatibility test that prevents failures

Whatever the material, test it with your actual formula:

1. Fill the pack to the production level
2. Close at the specified torque
3. Store 4–12 weeks at 40 °C
4. Check weight loss, panel deformation, colour change and closure function

This test is cheap and it catches the failures that otherwise appear after shipping. Our material pages list compatibility notes per polymer.