For those who are seeking a factory to build their brands or manufacture their products, one of the most important decisions to make is to choose a reliable manufacturer. While for the big giant brands or supermarkets, they could just go for those big manufacturers with a large scale, but for the medium or smaller brand owners or importers, it would be very crucial for them to find a suitable factory that can balance the price, quality, and quantity.
After serving in the cosmetic industry for over 20 years, from all the cases and mistakes that I learned, I believe the factory that possesses the following aspects and abilities is good enough to be suitable for you and your products. You might feel that if a factory does have all these features, it must be a very big one, and the price might be high. Well, it is not necessarily big; it’s more like how the factory manages itself to possess all these aspects and abilities at the lowest running cost. I have seen some medium-sized skin care factories that do a great job, and I’ve also seen some big ones doing disasters and chaos. Yes, it’s all about what you want to be.
So now let’s begin. Below are the aspects and abilities that I think a good cosmetic or beauty product maker should possess.
- R&D: A nice cosmetic factory should have a nice R&D lab, whether for brand business or for the OEM/ODM business.
- Chemists/Engineers: There must be some of them who are familiar with the formulas and have a good understanding of the requirements of the customers. They have the knowledge, technique, and experience of how to make the perfect formula.
- Regulation: there must be some regulation specialists who are focusing on the regulations from all over the world. They keep monitoring the formulas from the beginning and check if the formula complies with the target market. They would save a lot of money and time to modify the formula and documents after the formula being found un-complied with the target market’s regulations.
- A nice lab: clean and tidy, all the people working there with masks and lab coats on. And also, there is all the equipment that helps the chemist make samples.
- A filing system: as a cosmetic factory, it has a lot of formulas. So, it’s very important to keep track of every formula. There must be a formula code for each formula. A new code must apply when there is even a slight change to the color or the fragrance. This is the best way to track back all the related documents and the easiest way to communicate with the customer. I have seen some small factories that don’t have a formula code for their formula. For sure, that will cause chaos afterwards.
- Testing Lab: Since cosmetic products are made by the manufacturers, the formula’s quality is essential to the business and to the customers. How to make sure the formula is good enough to go into production? We need to count on the testing lab. So a reliable factory should have its own in-house testing lab. In this case, the factory could take the shortest time to find out the problems, study, and react. What kind of tests will usually be done in that lab?
- Stability & compatibility test: Stability means that the formula will be tested under different testing conditions, like different temperatures, light test, and cycle test. For the testing lead time, usually there would be 1 week (7 days) and 12 weeks. If the formula passes 1 week, then it can go into the 12-week test. But for most cases, 1 week is good enough to know if the formula is stable or not. The difference between a stability test and a compatibility test is that a stability test aims for the formula itself, while a compatibility test aims at whether there is a reaction between the formula and the packaging. So usually, stability will be done in a glass container, and compatibility will be done in the final retail container.
- Micro test: for this one, from what I have seen, only some big factories could perform these tests. There are 2 types of tests, one is called micro test. This is to check whether the sample is contaminated by microorganisms. The other is called the Challenge test, also called the preservative test, which tests whether the preservation system is good enough to kill bacteria after the sample has been contaminated on purpose. It would be good if your favorite factory could perform this test; if not, an outside lab could also help you.
- Class 100K dust-free Mixing & Filling workshop: As per the cosmetic industry standard, both workshops need to comply with the Good Manufacturing Practice, AKA GMP. Most of the cosmetic factories in China have been certified by a third-party testing lab and awarded the certification of GMP & ISO 22716. With such workshops, products are less likely to be contaminated by bacteria. However, for some very small factories that offer a very “good” price, their workshop’s condition may not be good, and the product may have a higher chance of getting contaminated.
- Good Managed Warehouse: Of course, if the factory has a big warehouse, it may not sound good to the customer unless it is well divided and managed. Otherwise, only chaos could happen and make the wrong products. Imagine you have dozens of SKUs. How could you make sure the right label applies to the right bottle? So for a well-managed warehouse, there must be a specific room for components, another for RW, and another for finished products. Moreover, all the materials in stock must be coded to be identified and located in the shortest time. With such a code system, the warehouse could run a FIFO (first in, first out) system. So that no materials will be left behind that have expired. Temperature and Humidity monitoring and control is also a must, this is to keep the materials in stock safe from the bad weather without deterioration.
- IQC Lab: Most of the cosmetic factories outsource their packaging, such as paper boxes, plastic containers, vac-forms, and shipper cartons, etc. So an IQC lab with testing equipment is very important to check that the incoming materials live up to the agreed standard. This is a very important control point. Some common testing devices would be vacuum chamber, light box, aging chamber, etc.
- QC system: A well-managed factory must have its own QC system, including IQC, online QC, and finished goods QC. They perform at different production nodes. IQC is to ensure the incoming material is qualified, and the online QC is to control and make sure the production manufactures the products in the correct way. While for the finished QC, they make sure the final finished products comply with the standard that the customer has signed off.
- Sales Team: Or maybe we should call them merchandisers. They are responsible for communicating with customers and transferring customers’ requests to the factory, and also providing feedback to customers. They are the bridge between the customer and the factory. A good merchandiser could fully understand the customers, coordinate the internal departments to accomplish the customers’ requests, and also provide a professional opinion to the customer. Considering the project is worth a lot of money, a good and experienced merchandiser is necessary to run the project smoothly.
- Purchasing Team: As stated above, most of the factories outsource their packaging and RW. So a good purchasing team would help maintain a good relationship with the suppliers, and also manage to get a good price and lead time from the supplier. They can negotiate with them for a better price and less quantity when the customer requires.
When you are looking for a factory for your own products, pls look for a factory that has the above settings. Jin Cosmetics has been serving in the cosmetic industry for over 20 years, and has experienced customers from different countries. We may not be as big as customers expected, but we have everything necessary to be a good and reliable manufacturer. All you need to do is come and ask. You can find the contact on the website here: https://jincosmeticmanufacturer.com/
