Have you ever wonder what is the colored square box at the back of your skin care tube for?
At one of the blogger get-together recently, I learnt something new. Fellow blogger friends shared about the meaning of the small little square box that was found on the top edge crimp behind most skin care or product tubes. I was told that different color box bear different meaning.
Green: All natural
Red: Some natural, but most chemicals
Black: Only chemicals are used.
Black/Blue line: 100% chemical
Red Line: 50% chemical, 50% natural
Green Line: 100% natural
Well, after some digging online I found out that all this is not true 😀
So what exactly does the colored square box means?
It is referred as “eye marks”. Eye Marks is used in the manufacturing process in order to detect and align squeeze tubes. Normally these marks are printed on the area that will be trimmed off later. But because of the tube shape it is not necessary to trim it off. All colors are made from 4 colors in printing. Eye Mark is also used to make sure everything lines up. So yes, these colored box is just marks used in printing process, nothing else.
Corporate Color / Any Printing Color Used
Not sure if you notice this or not but I do. Most of the time the color used to print these square boxes are usually the brand’s corporate color or color from the printing. I remember freaking out upon seeing red square box on all my Clarins tube!
Some spread rumors saying these colored square boxes has something to do with the formulation of the product as well. That is not true. It is just a mark used on printing of the tube 🙂
If the printing at the back of the tube is silver, the color on the square box will most probably be silver too. If it’s white printing, the square box will be white most probably. I think you get the drill 😀
There has been countless information being spreaded on various platform with regards to the color square box that appear on various products. Most of these information claimed that different color represent the type of ingredient used or even product formulation.
These “eye marks” are also found on many different products and even newspapers printing uses the square as identifying marks. There is also quite a number of concern on toothpaste. Really? Toothpaste? Okay so I did some reading and found this.
Toothpaste tubes would be produced by one manufacturer but the toothpaste brands may get their tubes filled in the same filling factory as other brands. Photo sensors on the machines in the filling plants would need to know that whats on the tube goes in the tube hence the need for indicators.
Eye marks is also used to indicate to the machine that the tube is the right way up when being filled. So the next time you are thinking hard about the colored square box at the back of your skin care tube, just ignore it. It is mainly for printing purposes 😀
Comments (24)
Haha, how random! A few weeks ago, my mom also whatsapp me about how she read that those lines means what type of ingredients were used in a product. So she started going through all my beauty products in my drawers! 😮 But I already knew it was a myth and I did notice that the colour of the box always matches the colours of the writing on the tube. I mean, if you want to argue about it, some of my Origins ones are a greyish brown, what would that even mean? 😛
That’s me…random 😛
Some are purple too. How to explain that right? Most of it matches the printing color. It’s actually just marking 😀
Thanks for sharing and clarifying the myth abt the coloured boxes (Y)
Gosh… the amount of ‘untruths’ people share on the social media… **facepalm**
Because I was curious too so I do some digging online and from my stash. I think when it comes to beauty products, people get sensitive. Afterall it is stuff that we put directly on the face 🙂
You never fail to surprise me with randomness.
I am told the same. Some Clarins bear a black box and it is scary to see a black box. Can you do other topic on others? Great post from you as usual.
I’m feeling demotivated lately lol. Falling off the blogging bandwagon…Oh yea, there will be another topic on “Know Your Skin Care”. I already figure out what to write 😀
LOL, so many urban myths circulating online…that’s why I always Google (but with a grain of salt). You know, I only recently came to understand what that little jar and lid with the 6M/ 12M/ 24M etc meant – so dumb of me, yeah? I found out it means months to expiry from date of opening. I found it out from Bun Bun’s Makeup Tips 😀
Oh man. I planned to blog about the little jar soon :P. Actually I never read all the stuff at the back of a product except for instruction on how to use lol. Now I pay more attention 🙂
Oh no! Sorry to jump the gun on you, Fiona! Please still blog about it – your post will be way more interesting than my comment and besides, not everyone will read my comment. It’s pretty important to know. More people should be aware of this.
Oh no worries Jude. Don’t say sorry. I was surprised that you mentioned the jar logo :). Well actually there are people that stalk comments in my blog haha. Every comment is valuable to me so don’t worry about that 🙂
Haha yeah, like me. Stalker/ Fan 😀
I like that you always respond to comments even though you are a very impressive blogger with probably the busiest life. Some bloggers don’t even respond anymore to any readers. Or they only do in the beginning when they want to get more followers. Once they have the numbers they forget about their readers. Sad but true. I don’t expect an answer all the time but it’s nice to find a blogger who comes into the comments section sometimes. You, darling, go above and beyond which shows our dedication, I think.
The international one that I comment once in a while responded. Not asap but at least they responded. Some local ones do too but most don’t anymore. Sadly but true. A few of my readers ask me why other bloggers don’t respond to their comment and email. At that time I have no idea they don’t. So I started to take notice.
I personally like comments. It’s a motivation for me :). Readers are valuable. They come and go but the good one stays. These are the people I want to take care 😀
Good job to debunk this myth! This is educational and makes us a smarter consumer. These days we read a lot of information shared via social media platforms and some may not be the truth after all.
Oh yea. It is unfair to those that printed the square box in black or red. However I found out that certain natural product still print theirs in green but it is not a compulsory for skin care to follow the color code so in the end we will still unable to tell who is right, who is wrong.
What is the difference between Red and Red line?
No difference
Holy bejesus! I was getting all paranoid when I read the mythical article of “how coloured mark indicates the ingredients used in the product”. After reading your article I verified all my products and what you wrote is very true. I am surprised on how I believed such hoax. Thank-you for clearing this up. I am relieved.
That’s the myth Omi. It actually does not mean anything 😉
What does the purple colour indicates ? Please see the boroplus antiseptic cream of emami limited.
As mentioned in the article. It is referred as “eye marks”. Eye Marks is used in the manufacturing process in order to detect and align squeeze tubes. The tube of the said product is purple hence the purple marking. It’s all in the article.
thank you for sharing this…even i just got to know about this myth..then stared searching about the fact…guess what just found your blog..and heewwwssh I’m relieved now??…thank u ???
Never too late to find out 😉 . Glad you find this useful 🙂
what white color signifies?
Hope you’ve read the article Vishal because the answer is there