When a Bangalore-based D2C skincare brand approached me, they had a problem: five products formulated, branding ready, but zero packaging. Their e-commerce launch was 90 days away, and they hadn’t even spoken to a tube manufacturer yet.
Here’s exactly how we did it.
Week 1-2: Brief & Material Selection
We started with a detailed packaging brief for all five SKUs. Three were water-based creams (face moisturizer, sunscreen, night cream). One was an oil-based serum. One was a face wash.
Decision: PE Coex with EVOH barrier for the creams, standard PE Coex for the face wash, and ABL for the serum (needed maximum barrier for vitamin C stability).
All five products used the same tube diameter (D30) and two tube lengths — 100mm for 30ml SKUs and 140mm for 50ml SKUs. This consolidated our tooling requirements.
Week 3-4: Design & Sampling
The brand had their artwork ready in AI format, but it wasn’t print-ready. We worked with the manufacturer’s pre-press team to convert the designs — adjusting colour profiles, expanding bleed areas, and repositioning text away from the side seam.
Two cap options were sampled: a standard flip-top and a disc-top. The brand went with flip-top for all SKUs — simpler, lower cost, one-hand operation.
Week 5-6: Colour Proofs & Approval
First colour proof came back with the green too yellow and the brand’s signature coral too pink. We adjusted Pantone references, ran a second proof, and got approval on attempt two.
Lesson: Always budget for 2-3 colour proof rounds. First-time colour matching on tubes rarely nails it.
Week 7-10: Production
With five SKUs sharing the same tube body and cap, the manufacturer could run production back-to-back with minimal changeover. Total production time: 18 working days for 10,000 units per SKU (50,000 total).
Week 11-12: Quality Check & Delivery
We conducted a pre-shipment quality inspection: print registration, colour consistency, cap torque, and random drop tests. Two pallets had minor scratching from stacking — those were repacked. Everything else passed.
Delivered to the brand’s Bangalore warehouse on day 84. Six days ahead of schedule.
The Result
The brand launched on schedule, sold through their first batch in 7 weeks, and has since reordered three times with the same manufacturer at better pricing (volume discounts kicked in at the second order).
This is the exact process framework I teach in Module 6: Timelines & Process. No guesswork, no delays.