A product’s packaging is the first and foremost ambassador of a brand. Packaging is a crucial marketing asset in an increasingly demanding market, where every detail counts: appearance, quality, sustainability, performance, time-to-market. Behind these characteristics lies a production process that must combine high quality and productivity through advanced automation. For companies specializing in packaging metallization and painting, it is strategic to constantly update their production assets with the latest technologies, not only to remain competitive but also to support designers and brands in their pursuit of uniqueness and of an exclusive consumer experience. This is what COMETA, a French industrial player with extensive history and deep knowledge of finishing processes, has done by investing in a brand-new and innovative packaging painting line designed and built by Eurotherm.
Minimalist and functional, yet also luxurious and multisensory. These are just some of the adjectives that best define the emerging trends in cosmetic packaging for 2025 and 2026, which also include the adoption of sustainable materials, the use of advanced technologies, and a focus on consumer experience. All these themes, particularly that of technological innovation aimed at quality and increased productivity, are at the heart of COMETA Metallisation’s ambitious development program, which began in 2024 with the installation of a second high-productivity UV painting line for packaging, both cosmetic and non-cosmetic, designed, manufactured and installed by the Italian engineering Eurotherm Spa (Volpiano, Turin).
Beauty and the pursuit of perfection as a mindset
Based in Izernore, near Lyon, COMETA is a historical and independent player in the metallization, varnishing, and lacquering industry in France. For 35 years, from ORPHEL to GUINARD before becoming COMETA, the company has grown and adapted to meet the needs of its ever-increasing client base with a customer-oriented approach. Located in the French Plastics Valley, a hub of excellence in the plastics industry at the crossroads of Europe, an area which extends around the Oyonnax basin, between Lyon and Geneve, it was natural for COMETA to become a key player in the metallization, varnishing, and lacquering sector.
COMETA owes its development and longevity to several factors, starting with the experience and expertise it has acquired. Today, more than 30 employees can manage daring packaging decoration projects, primarily for cosmetics but not limited to them, with one core objective: to enhance a product with the finest finishes.
Thanks to this approach, COMETA has earned and grown the trust of the most prestigious brands in the cosmetics, perfumery, and spirits sectors, but its expertise extends to the automotive industry and many other industrial sectors as well.
“COMETA is the fusion between two small companies, also located in the Plastics Valley, which were Guinard and Orphel.
They merged in 2016 and the new industrial reality quickly emerged in the field of metallization and painting of plastic components, a sector dominated by the power of large international groups and of two very strong independent players, one Italian and one Dutch” Antoine Nivesse, General Manager at COMETA tells ipcm®. “Back then COMETA was a family business offering high quality varnishing, lacquering, and metallization in the Plastics Valley, where 50% of the plastics companies are based. In April 2022 Jet Metal, a leader in spray metallization, bought COMETA to develop the business of plastics painting. Today the company is 100% subsidiary of Jet Metal, whose goal is to turn it into the French independent leader in metallization, varnishing, and lacquering of packaging for the cosmetic industry”.
Antoine Nivesse, on the right, with Léo Duraffourd, Production Director at COMETA, in front of the loading and unloading station of the new UV painting line designed and installed by Eurotherm. Ⓒ COMETAExpert in decoration and fine finishes
With 2 UV varnishing lines, 4 metallization chambers, and a thermal workshop, COMETA can process over 30 million pieces annually. “Our team’s dedication and customer-oriented organization make us a preferred partner in an often-complex daily routine” states Antoine Nivesse. “We never compromise on quality: durability, excellence, and customer satisfaction are at the heart of our priorities.”
“Our company is equipped with fast and versatile industrial lines for varnishing and metallization. COMETA masters both UV and traditional varnishing technologies, favouring the use of high-solids content varnishes to reduce the carbon footprint of its finishing processes. The varnishes used can decorate a wide variety of materials such as PP, PET, PE, SAN, ABS, ZAMAK, METALS, and even recycled materials like RPET and RPP. The coatings we offer ensure intense, colours with a glossy, matte, or even “soft” finish. In addition, we offer metallic, pearlescent, and glittery effects”. Beside varnishing and lacquering, Cometa offers metallization, that is the process that gives a piece a unique and rare aesthetic finish, highlighting a luxury appearance.
“Our metallization coatings are compatible with other decorative technologies, such as screen printing, pad printing, inkjet printing, or hot stamping. Metallization can be produced in the colour chosen by the customer, regardless of the desired effect, that can be glossy, satin, or matte” Antoine continues. “In three years, since Jet Metal acquired the company, COMETA has tripled its turnover, going from 1.2 million euro in 2021 to 3.2 million euro in 2024. We have a lot of ambitions for this company: to reach our business development goals we needed and will need more production capacities. This is the reason why in 2023 we have partnered with Eurotherm to implement a new high-throughput UV varnishing line. We finish small, medium, and high-volume series, ranging from 5,000 pieces to millions of pieces: what we asked Eurotherm was to supply us with a versatile, advanced, and highly automated painting system.”
The new Eurotherm painting line for basecoat application
“We already had one big UV line applying both the basecoat required by the metallization process and the subsequent topcoat, but we needed a second line to respond to the increasing market demand” Antoine Nivesse explains. “We have been working with Eurotherm for 15 years now, because Jet Metal supplied them its spray metallization technology to equip their plastic painting lines with in-line metallization. We have a very strong relationship with Eurotherm and we are a very fond of their equipment, of their degree of innovation, and of their reactivity when technical support is needed.”
The new painting line has a very compact layout, with a floor conveyor and loading and unloading areas in the same spot. The line speed is 6 m/min. After manual loading of the parts onto the piece-carrying bar, parts undergo a surface preparation process including the following stages:
- Ionization
- Brushing
- Ionization
- Flame treatment.
After all the dust has been removed from the plastic pieces and their surfaces have been activated to receive the varnish, the parts enter the first application booth, equipped with 7 spray guns and two separated paint supply-circuits since each booth can apply both the basecoat and the topcoat. After a flash-off area for solvent evaporation, there is an IR tunnel for additional flash-off before entering the second painting booth, equipped with 7 spray guns and two paint circuits, exactly as the first booth.
The surface preparation area before application of the basecoat. Ⓒ COMETAThen, after solvent evaporation and IR flash-off, parts enter the UV curing oven for polymerization, then proceed to the cooling zone and to the unloading area.
“The line supplied us by Eurotherm is very compact and versatile” Antoine comments. “We can apply one, two or more layers of basecoat and topcoat. Nonetheless we decided to dedicate this line to basecoat application only, to produce a flawless surface before metallization. Only such an advanced painting line with a good air filtration system could ensure us a defects-free surface before entering the vacuum chamber: metallization is like a mirror and if there are defects on the substrates, these will be mirrored by the metal layer. The topcoat needed to protect the metallization layer is then applied on the existing UV painting line.”
One of the two application booths of the basecoat, equipped with 7 spray guns. Ⓒ COMETA
The UV curing oven. Ⓒ COMETA“The one installed at COMETA is a standard line for cosmetic packaging that paints the exterior of the packaging products” states Paolo Ghiazza, General Manager of Eurotherm Spa.
“There are two different kinds of paint installations for packaging: with or without piece-carrying bar, according to the finishing stages included in the process. If batch metallization in a vacuum chamber is included, the use of spindles to move the pieces along the line is not an option: the painting line must be equipped with piece-carrying bars mounted on the floor conveyor, because bars can be transferred and put into the metallization chamber right after unloading from the painting line, without the need to unload every single piece and hang it again on a bar for metallization.” “With the installation of Eurotherm UV painting system COMETA runs a fully integrated process: application of basecoat on the new system, metallization in the vacuum chambers, application of the topcoat on the old painting system.
The technical plan of the painting line. Ⓒ COMETAThe challenge was to adapt the piece-carrying bars the conveyor of the existing painting line and to create a new, efficient workflow without too much manual handling of the pieces, which always implies surface defects and rejects” Paolo Ghiazza states.
Sustainable packaging
“Sustainable development concerns us all. COMETA brings its green sensitivity to the entire value chain of our customers’ production process” Antoine Nivesse states. “All the suppliers of decoration and finishes should work with the idea of sustainability in mind. This is definitely COMETA habits. All the biggest cosmetic group like L’Oreal, Louis Vuitton, LVMH are using sustainable and recycled materials for their packaging and they asked their suppliers of decoration and finishes to switch to sustainable materials and to run resource- efficient processes. For this reason, 80% of the varnish and lacquer we apply have high-solid content and the lowest possible VOC emissions”.
COMETA works with the most important players of the cosmetic industry. Ⓒ COMETAFuture developments
“To start using the new Eurotherm painting line was a challenge for my technical team: they were used to run a 17 years’ old system and it has been difficult to switch to a new technology, to a lot of innovation in the process and to completely new operating conditions” Antoine Nivesse concludes. “In two weeks, my team absorbed all the information from the trainers of Eurotherm and started running successfully the new system. Now they are glad to work with such a modern equipment. COMETA’s main goal is to grow: we expect to triple our turnover by 2029. It’s not impossible, maybe it will require some more years but for sure COMETA will need to increase again its capacity: the short-term program is to install a third UV line in this production site, to buy another site and to implement Jet Metal roll-to-roll spray metallization process. This will make us the French leader in packaging decoration!”