What are waterless skincare products and why do we make them?

Anhydrous, waterless skincare products are good for the planet and for you.

Nowadays, waterless skincare products are becoming more and more trending due to increasing environmental concerns and consumer awareness. Traditional cosmetics relies heavily on water in the formulation of their products. Take a look at the beauty aisle next time you are in a cosmetic store -thousands and thousands of bottles, all mainly containing...you've guessed it, good freshwater! Grab a skincare product and you will notice 'Aqua/Water' sitting firmly at the top of its ingredient list. This means that water makes up the greatest part of the volume compared to other ingredients leaving little room for valuable rich ingredients.

As a matter of fact, most creams, lotions, masks, shampoos and conditioners contain 70% to 90% water and 10% to 30% active and functional ingredients. Individually, we might look at the beauty products in our bathroom and think that the quantity of water contained in each one is tiny. But scale that up to all beauty products in the stores, the city, the world - and you can see how quickly that negligeable amount of water becomes a rushing torrent. All of it high-quality purified freshwater. Do we really need that huge amount of water content in our skincare products?

Sit back, relax and read our blog to learn more about waterless skincare products, why should we use them? And more importantly what impact water-filled products can have on the environment? What are the main objectives of Matia Natural products being most of them waterless?

Blog Content

What is meant by waterless skincare and what are they?

Freshwater scarcity on earth and water conservation

Benefits of waterless skincare products

How Matia Natural products contribute to water conservation and sustainability

Summary

1. What is meant by waterless skincare and what are they?

Waterless skincare beauty trend originally started in South Korea, and now it's becoming a trend that the mass-market and many consumers have embraced. The concept was. at first mainly about increasing the potency of skincare to be more effective on skin. But nowadays because of water scarcity, it has become more about sustainability.

Waterless skincare products come as bars, powders, sheets and sticks which either eliminate the need for water or allow you to add the necessary amount at home to activate the product. Waterless products also come in form of oil based serums and water free masks like our nourishing and rejuvenating face masks. Since waterless skincare products, obviously contain no water content, instead 100% actives, botanicals and natural oils, they are more concentrated and effective to skin. Check out our diversified range of waterless body scrubs, body oils, body butters, and face serum.

On the counterpart, traditional water-filled skincare cosmetics that contains 70% to 90% of water content, which is the normal average range of water used in order to create emulsions (creams, lotions, etc..) are creating the illusion of value, added to the fact that water is an inexpensive ingredient in the formula. As a matter of fact, replacing water - which tends to dehydrate skin - with pure botanicals, natural oils and butters, will increase the efficacity of the product, allowing for more moisturized and glowing skin.

2. Freshwater scarcity on earth and water conservation

Water is a scarce resource and to keep using it unnecessarily as the biggest ingredient in skincare formulation isn't sustainable. Only 3% of all water on earth is freshwater. Most of this freshwater is locked away in the form of ice caps and glaciers located in the polar regions. Only about 1% of all water found on this planet is easily accessible for human use. What does that mean for us?

Basically, it's important to remember that we humans rely on freshwater for our survival, and with the population increasing rapidly worldwide, we are placing an even greater strain on our finite supply of freshwater. Unfortunately, we are very inefficient water users! Our water use is growing at more than twice the rate of population.

According to researchers, around 1.8 billion people will be facing water scarcity in 2025, and with the high amount of water used in the making of beauty products, water free skincare is a great place to start. With the prospect of water scarcity in the world, the demand for more sustainable choices is growing.

3. Benefits of waterless skincare products

Well, besides not containing water, waterless skincare products have other benefits beyond water conservation. Instead of water - based formulation, that relies heavily on cheap fillers (water is considered a filler), waterless beauty products are formulated with active ingredients and botanical oils which make of these products more concentrated and effective than beauty products with water because the active ingredients have not been dissolved or diluted by water.

Water based products require high amount of preservatives since water breeds bacteria. A water - free product, in most cases, requires no preservative if not in contact with water while using or can be preserved with more natural earth-friendly preservatives. Moreover, waterless products have a higher shelf life since they are mainly made with botanicals and oils, they also last longer since you can get away using less.

4. How do Matia Natural waterless skincare products contribute to water conservation and sustainability?

At Matia Natural, we are aware of the huge impact beauty, specially water -filled products, has on our earth. We are well conscious that actions we take today, even small, can affect us now and the generations to come. We choose to live in harmony with nature and focus mainly on making and selling natural, plant-based skincare products that do not contain water. This remains our main objective and our humble contribution to a sustainable environment.

We strongly encourage consumers to look for personal AND environmental benefits to their beauty regime.

5. Summary

Waterless skincare products, not only address water scarcity concerns, but also ingredients are more concentrated which make those products extremely beneficial and efficient to skin and need fewer preservatives. To conclude, the climate crisis, water scarcity, and consumer's increase awareness on what benefit versus harm skin and the environment, is driving the new trend in the cosmetic industry, a change that will probably change the look of your bathroom cabinet: waterless products.