Softer skin, smaller footprint: Essity’s Velvet Tissue with paper packaging targets plastic waste

Essity is pushing its UK premium tissue brand Velvet into more sustainable territory. The Velvet Toilet Tissue range now comes in paper-based outer packaging, cutting plastic use while keeping the familiar triple-soft feel that anchors Essity’s bathroom tissue lineup.

Edited by ad hoc news New Releases & Launches Desk. Reviewed before publication on 06/16/2026 at 4:10 AM ET. Details in the imprint.

Essity’s UK premium tissue brand Velvet is shifting its toilet paper range into paper-based outer packaging, a move aimed at cutting single-use plastic without asking consumers to give up the familiar “softness” positioning of the brand. The updated Velvet Toilet Tissue packs are already appearing in British retail, signaling how mainstream bathroom staples are being pulled into the broader packaging sustainability transition.

What Essity is changing with Velvet Toilet Tissue

Velvet is positioned as a premium, extra-soft toilet tissue line in Essity’s UK portfolio, sitting alongside the company’s global tissue brands such as Cushelle and Lotus. According to Essity’s brand information, Velvet rolls feature a multi-layer, “triple soft” construction that aims to combine a cushioned feel with high absorbency for everyday bathroom use. Essity’s UK brand overview describes Velvet as a soft, high-quality toilet tissue brand tailored to family households.

The core of the current update is the switch from conventional plastic outer wrap to paper-based packaging on Velvet Toilet Tissue multipacks sold in the UK. Paper packaging is easier to recycle via existing kerbside paper streams in many British municipalities, potentially improving the overall recyclability profile of a product category that has long relied on thin film plastic wraps. Essity has stated in its sustainability communications that it is working on reducing plastic packaging across its tissue brands, and the Velvet move fits into a broader push to replace fossil-based materials with fiber-based alternatives wherever feasible.

Beyond the packaging shift, the functional product remains familiar: Velvet Toilet Tissue is offered in multi-roll packs designed for standard bathroom dispensers, with the paper itself produced from fresh and recycled fibers depending on the specific variant. The brand competes in a crowded UK market where consumers often weigh price per roll, softness claims and environmental credentials. The paper-packaging rollout gives Velvet a tangible point of differentiation on shelf compared with legacy plastic-wrapped packs from some rivals, even as private-label tissue continues to pressure prices.

From a manufacturing standpoint, changing the outer wrap from plastic to paper is not a trivial adjustment. It requires Essity to adapt converting and packing lines to handle different material stiffness, sealing behavior and tolerance for moisture exposure during logistics. Those adjustments must be made while maintaining high line speeds to preserve cost competitiveness. The company has previously highlighted investments in more flexible, energy-efficient tissue production and converting assets, and the Velvet packaging change can be seen as one of the first consumer-facing outputs of those capital programs in the UK retail tissue aisle.

The UK is an important test market for packaging innovations in household paper products, given relatively high consumer awareness of plastic waste and a dense network of large supermarket chains. If the Velvet Toilet Tissue paper wrap is accepted by shoppers and performs reliably across storage and transport, Essity has the option of replicating similar packaging concepts in other European markets under local brands. In turn, that could help the group move closer to its medium-term packaging and emissions targets, which are explicitly linked to reductions in virgin plastic use and to higher recyclability rates across its portfolio. For consumers, the visible change is simple - a paper-wrapped pack instead of the conventional crinkly plastic - but it reflects more complex shifts in how tissue products are designed, produced and brought to shelf.

Essity has framed brand-led packaging changes like Velvet’s paper wrap as part of its contribution to a circular economy and lower-carbon hygiene products, alongside efforts in areas such as energy efficiency and the use of recycled fibers. In the bathroom tissue segment, where the product itself is disposable by definition, packaging has become one of the most accessible levers for improving environmental performance without compromising core attributes such as softness, strength and affordability. Retail investors watching Essity’s strategy may see the Velvet initiative as a small but concrete signal of how the company aims to defend and grow its branded tissue margins by aligning with retailer and consumer sustainability expectations.

Within Essity’s product ecosystem, Velvet remains a UK-focused, premium-positioned brand, rather than a global flagship like Tork in professional hygiene or TENA in incontinence care. However, moves such as the paper-packaged Velvet Toilet Tissue line demonstrate how the group is applying its sustainability and innovation agenda across different price tiers and regional brands instead of concentrating it solely in marquee products. Shares of Essity AB (SE0017768716) trade on Nasdaq Stockholm, where the stock closed at SEK 287.10 on 06/13/2026, reflecting investor attention on the company’s ability to balance cost inflation, brand investment and its sustainability roadmap. Nasdaq Stockholm trading data show Essity’s B share price and turnover.

Velvet Toilet Tissue with paper wrap in brief

• Product: Velvet Toilet Tissue (paper-based outer packaging)
• Manufacturer: Essity AB
• Category: New Release - consumer toilet tissue packaging update
• Launch date: 2024 (UK packaging transition, as communicated in sustainability materials)
• MSRP / Price: Varies by retailer and pack size in the UK; typically positioned as a premium-priced bathroom tissue versus private-label offerings
• Availability: Selected UK supermarkets and grocery retailers, with distribution expanding as paper-wrapped packs replace remaining plastic-wrapped stock
• Target audience: UK households looking for soft, premium toilet tissue with improved packaging sustainability
• Key differentiator / USP: Combines a softness-focused premium tissue with a paper-based, more easily recyclable outer pack to reduce plastic use

This article was a.i.-assisted and editorially reviewed. Product information without warranty; prices and availability may change at short notice. Not investment advice and not a buy or sell recommendation. Trading involves risk up to and including the total loss of invested capital.