Custom tissue paper vs butter paper vs honeycomb paper: which inner wrap do you need?

How do tissue paper, butter paper and honeycomb paper compare side by side?

When founders browse our /inserts-and-extras catalog, the fastest way to narrow down your inner wrap is to ask what threatens your product between your packing table and the customer's front porch. Does your product need protection against surface scuffs and folding creases (like a cotton t-shirt or matte carton)? Does it contain natural oils, cocoa butter or fragrance wax that could stain porous paper (like cold-process soap or cookies)? Or is it a fragile 12 oz glass vessel that could crack if the parcel drops 36 inches onto concrete? Use the comparison table below to evaluate custom printed tissue paper, custom butter paper and custom honeycomb paper across fiber feel, moisture resistance, drop protection and custom printing.

When is custom tissue paper the right inner wrap for your brand?

Custom tissue paper is engineered for drape, sound and visual ceremony. Because its fibers are lightly pressed at 17 to 28 gsm, a 17 × 23 inch or 20 × 30 inch sheet conforms around soft knitwear, silk scarves, shoes and handbag hardware without leaving sharp, stiff paper ridges. When you puff two offset 20 × 30 inch sheets inside a retail shopping tote, the lightweight fibers stand upright in an eight-point crown rather than slumping under their own weight. Tissue paper is also the most versatile canvas for edge-to-edge branding. Whether you print a 1-Pantone monogram at 1.5 inch width across natural white tissue, opaque white ink on brown kraft tissue, or a 4-color CMYK holiday pattern, the sheet folds flat down the center of your mailer and seals cleanly with a 1.5 inch custom circle label. For sterling silver jewelry, leather wallets and bridal textiles, specify neutral-pH acid-free tissue so long-term closet storage never yellows fabrics or tarnishes metal.

When should you step up to custom butter paper instead of tissue?

If you wrap an unwrapped cold-process soap bar, a soy wax candle melt, a bath bomb rich in shea butter, or a fresh chocolate pastry in standard porous tissue paper, essential oils and lipids will wick into the fibers within 24 to 48 hours, leaving dark translucent grease spots on the wrapper. That is exactly where custom butter paper shines. Butter paper (often called glassine or parchment-style wrapping paper) is supercalendered between heated steel rollers until the cellulose fibers lie flat and dense at 35 to 55 gsm. That smooth, vellum-like surface resists oil wicking, wax rub-off and bathroom humidity while offering afrosted, semi-translucent look that lets customers see the color of a soap bar or loaf cake underneath your printed 1- or 2-Pantone logo. Because butter paper has higher tensile stiffness than tissue, it also folds with razor-sharp hospital corners around rectangular soap bars, tea bricks and solid shampoo blocks.

How does kraft honeycomb paper replace plastic bubble wrap for glass?

Neither tissue paper nor butter paper is thick enough on its own to stop a heavy 14 oz glass candle jar or ceramic olive oil bottle from cracking during a 3-foot parcel drop. When you need true shock absorption without plastic bubble wrap or foam peanuts, custom honeycomb paper (or die-cut custom box inserts) does the heavy lifting. As your packer pulls honeycomb paper from a tension dispenser roll, the slit kraft sheet expands by 1.5× to 1.7× its flat length, popping thousands of angled hexagonal paper cells upright to form a 0.25 inch thick cushioning blanket. Wrapping two revolutions of expanded honeycomb around a 9 oz candle tumbler or 500 ml glass bottle creates a self-locking 0.5 inch paper buffer whose cells interlock with each other so no plastic tape is required to hold the cylinder shut. Because a single compact roll of unexpanded honeycomb paper replaces several bulky bags of plastic air pillows at the packing station, fulfillment warehouses also cut under-table storage volume by more than 70% while keeping the entire package curbside paper-recyclable.

How do luxury brands layer two inner wraps inside one mailer box?

You do not have to pick just one paper for your entire unboxing stack. Many high-repeat candle, apothecary, ceramic and gourmet gift brands combine a functional inner barrier with an outer presentation liner inside the same mailer box. For example, a home-fragrance brand shipping a 10 oz glass candle and a handmade soap bar will wrap the soap bar in a 10 × 15 inch sheet of grease-resistant butter paper, sleeve the glass candle tumbler in a 12-inch strip of expandable honeycomb paper for drop protection, and then line the entire 9 × 6 × 3.5 inch mailer box with a single 15 × 20 inch sheet of 1-Pantone custom tissue paper sealed with a 1.5 inch sticker and topped with a 4 × 6 inch custom thank you card. Similarly, boutique ceramic and olive oil shippers often line the outer corrugated carton with expanded honeycomb first, then lay a crisp 17 × 23 inch white printed tissue sheet over the honeycomb nest so the bottle rests on a soft branded bed. The customer sees the branded tissue reveal first, and every item underneath arrives spotless and unbroken.

1. Apparel, shoes, leather & boxed cosmetics: 17 × 23 in or 20 × 30 in custom tissue paper sheet.
2. Handmade bar soaps, wax melts, balms & bakery treats: 10 × 15 in or 15 × 20 in custom butter paper.
3. Fragile glass candle jars, ceramic mugs & olive oil bottles: expandable kraft honeycomb wrap.
4. Two-layer gift combo: honeycomb sleeve on the glass jar + custom printed tissue liner across the outer box.

What mistakes do brands make when choosing between tissue, butter and honeycomb paper?

Matching the wrong paper weight or surface finish to your product can cause oil staining or broken glass in transit. Avoid these five mistakes

1. Wrapping oil-rich bar soaps, bath bombs or butter cookies in porous 17 gsm tissue paper instead of grease-resistant butter paper.
2. Relying on a thin single sheet of tissue paper as the only cushioning around heavy 12 oz glass jars in a loose shipping carton.
3. Using stiff, heavy 50 gsm butter paper as a retail shopping bag stuffer where soft 20 × 30 inch tissue paper is needed for an airy crown.
4. Forgetting to pull kraft honeycomb paper under full tension on the packing table so the hexagonal cells stay flat instead of popping open.
5. Taping honeycomb wrap with clear plastic packing tape instead of letting the expanded hex cells interlock or sealing with a paper sticker.

Packaging for this

Custom Tissue Paper

Custom Butter Paper

Custom Honeycomb Paper

Custom Box Inserts

Custom Circle Labels

Custom Thank You Cards

More guides