Axilone: the winning strategy of staying one step ahead!

The Axilone Group, a key player in the manufacture of lipstick tubes (aluminum and/or plastic) and perfume and skincare caps, employs 3,000 people and has almost doubled in size in ten years. It has two factories in France (plastic injection molding, decoration, assembly), two factories in Spain (aluminum forming and decoration), and three in China, its center of excellence in lipstick manufacturing, but it has also diversified into lip gloss and aluminum caps for perfumes. We take stock at the end of 2025 with Martin Haye, Director of Strategy and Development.

Given the progress made over the past ten years and the investments currently underway and planned for the future, you are proving wrong those pessimists who predict the inevitable decline of this sector.

Martin Haye: We remain confident in the fundamentals of luxury and beauty and have chosen to continue our strategic investments. These include increasing our aluminum capacity in Spain with a new anodizing line, deploying our new cold extrusion tools in China, and integrating new decoration technologies, all accompanied by a sustainable development plan rolled out across all our sites.
Over the past ten years, we have also focused on strengthening our leadership in sticks (makeup, skincare, and solid perfumes) by expanding our range of proprietary mechanisms and our integrated decoration capabilities. Through the implementation of a combined Europe-Asia offering, we have also strengthened our capacity to produce complex aluminum and plastic closures for the fragrance and skincare markets. Also noteworthy is our diversification into “adjacent” categories such as lip gloss and into new aluminum technologies, which I mentioned earlier (“cold extrusion”). At the same time, we are implementing an ambitious environmental policy aimed at offering virtuous packaging solutions and decarbonizing our operations, thereby contributing to the fight against global warming and the preservation of natural resources.

How have you been impacted by the economic and geostrategic turmoil currently affecting the supplier sector?

Martin Haye: As for the entire profession, 2024 was marked by a slowdown in activity, mainly due to destocking by most major brands. In 2025, this trend should come to an end, giving way to a technical rebound to “catch up” with the growth of the end market.
Recently, uncertainties surrounding US tariffs have led to a wait-and-see attitude throughout the distribution chain. While we are not greatly affected by the tariffs applied to our direct logistics flows to the US, which represent a minority of our physical deliveries, it is mainly the general wait-and-see attitude that has prevailed and de facto impacted volumes.

What are your areas of development and your strengths in the different regions you cover?

Martin Haye: Europe and the United States obviously remain our customers’ main markets and still offer significant growth potential, particularly in healthcare, which is a strategic diversification area for the group. Opportunities also exist with brands where our presence is recent or limited to a specific product category. Our mastery of complex solutions and our expertise in decoration are levers for accelerating our development.
In Asia, where our history with local brands is more recent, growth opportunities exist across all our product categories and markets: in fragrance and skincare, with the support and technical expertise of our European entities, but also in makeup, particularly lipstick and lip gloss. In this vast and dynamic region, we are primarily targeting brands in the “premiumization” phase, for which we have both the right industrial tools and solid experience.
We developed an automated lip gloss workshop in China in 2019. We have focused on packaging where a distinctive offering is possible (aluminum caps, complex decorations, etc.). We have also developed a catalog of standard lip glosses to meet the time-to-market needs of certain brands. This range, like the stick range, is available on the Axilone Virtual Studio digital simulation and preview platform. To date, total lip gloss orders, both custom and standard, exceed €50 million.
Regarding our production facilities in Spain, our main factory was expanded for the first time in 2018, and we have begun construction of a second site on adjacent land, scheduled for completion in 2024/2025. With this new site, now complete, Axilone Metal is able to double its production capacity in the medium term. A third automatic anodizing line is currently being installed.
It should be noted that the group has a fourth factory in China, Anewcos, acquired in 2021 for formulation and filling, with particular expertise in powders for makeup and creams for skincare.

The environment is a major focus today for all suppliers in the beauty sector. What are your strengths in this area?

Martin Haye: Our complete integration and our Innovation unit enable us to offer our customers more sustainable solutions: choosing low-carbon or recycled materials, developing single-material solutions that are therefore recyclable, and rechargeable systems, particularly in our Sticks catalog.
On the environmental front, we have made significant investments to decarbonize our energy sources and reduce our overall consumption, particularly water.
In this regard, aluminum is particularly attractive to the market. We are continuously investing in this area to strengthen our technological and operational lead. The construction of our new plant in Spain is a prime example of this strategy.
In this regard, I would like to highlight a new aluminum forming technology available at our plant in China. This technology enables us to develop thick-walled solutions and limit the number of components, using low-carbon or recycled aluminum where appropriate. As this involves aluminum, we can capitalize on our 30 years of fully integrated industrial expertise in anodizing and decoration to enhance these cold extrusion creations and meet luxury standards. We thus offer a more virtuous alternative to Zamak. Several of our creations are currently coming onto the market, such as the L’Entropiste perfume cap.

What are the main new products you are presenting this year?

Martin Haye: In terms of our range of customizable products, we have developed a new range of “big sticks” (16 to 18 mm in diameter) that allows us to target the skincare, foundation, and solid perfume segments with twist-up sticks. We are thus applying our expertise in mechanisms to new areas where end-consumer demand is constantly growing. With these “big sticks,” we offer brands technical solutions that set them apart: they can be waterproof to protect increasingly sensitive formulas, refillable, and/or recyclable, since they are made of a single material, either plastic or aluminum.
As part of our commitment to sustainable development, a recent example also illustrates our approach. We have developed the first Sauvage perfume cap for Dior, incorporating rare earth magnets that are 100% certified recycled. This innovation reduces their environmental impact by 40%, marking an unprecedented technical breakthrough.
Finally, we will soon be unveiling a new range of products based on our expertise in lipstick mechanisms: “Beauty Pens,” available for eyes, eyebrows, and lips. Once again, our offering will focus on solutions with distinctive functional characteristics, the true signature of Axilone. See you at Luxe Pack Monaco to find out more!