A new label for Le Chat, a Henkel Consumer Brands detergent line sold in France, was on display at an undisclosed booth* at Loupe Americas. The new label format was made with EcoLeaf, an on-demand metallization technology, and it's already reaching store shelves on real brands' products.
Metallic finishes are common on labels because they boost shelf appearance, but they're typically applied with cold foil, which starts as a separately manufactured metalized polyester film. That film has to be shipped to the printer and trimmed to match the label's design, a process that leaves behind a large amount of leftover foil waste. 
Le Chat Excellence detergent, sold in France, uses StarShine's on-demand metallization for the shine on its logo emblem rather than a full sheet of cold foil.
EcoLeaf works differently and solves that waste problem. Instead of transferring foil across an entire web, it spot-prints a chemistry-activated binder only where the metallic effect is needed, using flexo, screen, or inkjet (digital printing), ahead of the main print run. The material then passes through a separate unit where loose metal flake circulates over a drum; the flake sticks only to the areas where the binder was printed, through a dry, hydrophobic reaction, and nowhere else. The result is spot-applied metallization with no foil substrate and no offcut waste.
The metallic layer also functions as a base that can be overprinted in flexo or digital inkjet with additional colors, so a label isn't limited to a single fixed metallic tone. Brands can layer custom colors over the metallized area for different effects.
The finishing equipment behind on-demand metallization. Rather than laminating a full web of metalized foil, the process applies metal flake only where a printed binder calls for it.
Converter All4Labels built a commercial label line around the technology, called StarShine, positioned as part of its push into fully digital label production (StarShine is fully digitally printed). It's marketed under a campaign called "The Flow." Henkel has applied StarShine across several of its home and personal care lines beyond Le Chat, including hair care products, as part of an effort to move existing brands toward more sustainable versions of themselves.
The Flow campaign also includes demonstration designs for other categories, like personal care, laundry care, and wine and spirits, showing how the technology could be applied in those markets. Those are concept work rather than confirmed in-market products, distinct from the Henkel deployment already on shelf.
The on-demand metallization technology behind StarShine, All4Labels' commercial label line.
StarShine labels are designed to wash off cleanly during PET, HDPE, and polypropylene bottle recycling, meeting RecyClass's protocol for labels and adhesives on PET bottles, including a test for whether printed inks bleed into the wash water. The label itself isn't recycled; what matters is that the rigid bottle's recyclate comes out clean and uncontaminated by label or adhesive residues.
All4Labels' own materials put the technology's emissions reduction at up to 80% compared to traditional metallic foils, with reduced waste and setup time. The company also cites fewer hazardous chemicals and lower solvent content than gravure printing, ATEX and CE safety conformity, and compatibility with in-line production alongside conventional printing methods. Production currently runs across sites in Italy, Germany, the UK, Romania, and France.
*Editor's note: The exhibiting booth chose not to be named or quoted in this story.
