Filling and closing hair colour bottles line

We have supplied Herbatint - Antica Erboristeria S.p.A. with a small line for filling and closing bottles of hair colour. The project involved Marchesini Group Beauty - the Marchesini Group division that specialises in packaging solutions for cosmetics - , which offered the customer the model ML 642 machine, in this case able to fill and cap 60 screen-printed plastic bottles a minute. The main challenge was the need to process an extremely viscous product while optimising its dosing to avoid dripping during transportation.

Founded in Rome in the 1960s by expert herbalist Michele Albergo, Antica Erboristeria specialises in the production of ammonia-free hair colours. In 2012, Antica Erboristeria was acquired by French natural cosmetics group La Financiere Maconnaise, which has successfully promoted its historic legacy and boosted the notoriety and sales of Herbatint, the company’s leading brand.

In January 2017 Antica Erboristeria moved to new headquarters to the north of Rome, a major step in the global renewal process the brand has undertaken in recent years. The new site has enabled the company to develop key projects such as the Accademia Herbatint, an area and programme completely dedicated to the development and teaching of green, sustainable technologies.
 

A flexible bottle filling machine

The ML 642 is a linear intermittent motion bottle filling and capping machine. Its linear structure gives the machine ergonomic benefits, facilitating work on it and enabling greater visibility of every single phase in the cycle, from filling to capping of the bottle. Its impressive versatility makes the ML 642 an ideal solution both for cosmetic liquids and in the pharmaceutical sector, where it can be set to operate with laminar flow.

The solution created for Antica Erboristeria has several special features custom-developed for the customer after in-depth planning with our engineers. In particular:

• the four filling syringes have brushless drives, providing controlled suction at the end of the liquid dosing phase to prevent any dripping onto the star wheel transport system;
• the dosing system can be dismantled rapidly by simply decoupling the rotary syringe from the piston. The aim, typical of the cosmetics market, is to allow the customer to produce a large number of different small lots;
• to ensure higher production speeds, Antica Erboristeria requested two sets of syringes, with four in use in the cycle plus four as standby ready for use when those in service have to be washed, increasing production efficiency;
• in this case, Antica Erboristeria uses its own infeed system with its own tank. The ML 642 is fitted to connect to the tank via a small manifold which can also be easily removed and washed if necessary, to meet the high production speeds demanded by the cosmetics market;
• the Marchesini Group’s mechanical engineering function was supported by Vibrotech of Bientina (Pisa), which produces infeed and unscrambling systems used in automated industrial processes. Vibrotech, which has been associated with the Group since 2017, designed two in-line devices for this project: a mechanical unscrambler suitable for the cosmetics sector, able to feed the unstable bottles entering the filling and capping machine, and a vibrating conveyor pot for the troublefree feeding of the screw caps used for capping the bottles.