Honeycomb paper starts as ordinary kraft with a pattern of short slits cut across the web in offset rows. Flat, it looks like perforated paper and has no cushioning value at all. Pulled along its length, the slits open and the material between them rotates out of plane, forming hexagonal cells.

Those cells are what absorb energy. An impact deforms the cell walls, and because the walls are made of paper standing on edge rather than lying flat, they resist far more than the same paper would unfolded. This is the same principle that makes corrugated board stiff, applied in three dimensions instead of one.

The trade is length. A web that expands sideways into cells necessarily contracts along its length, so a metre of flat honeycomb does not deliver a metre of expanded material. That ratio depends on the slit pattern and is the number most new converters miscalculate when they estimate output.

The other property that matters in use is grip. Expanded honeycomb has an open, textured surface that catches on itself, so a wrap holds without tape. That is why it substitutes directly for bubble wrap in hand wrapping, where plastic needs a tape closure and paper often does not.