AbstractThe tightness of retail packagings and of their closures is of primary importance both for domestic and industrial products. For this reason, a research programme designed to establish proper testing methods for a wide range of ‘packaging + product’ combinations, in order to check their tightness or permeability, was set up.All the available testing methods were reviewed, the most reliable ones selected and their sensitivity determined. More than 200 combinations of ‘packaging + product’ belonging to five families of consumer products were examined and their tightness/permeability problems noted.Finally, specific testing methods were assigned to each combination of ‘packaging + product’. All these examples are currently in use in the packaging laboratory as a guideline for the testing of every kind o