What’s Up with Waterless Beauty?
We’re feeling a bit like an astronaut lost in skincare space — first waterless, now freeze-dried beauty. While it might sound a little out there, waterless beauty isn’t a new trend — only now, it comes with a better sustainability story and some interesting new innovations.
“Waterless” (or anhydrous or water-free) personal care products and cosmetics are formulated without — you guessed it — water (you’ll typically see this as aqua or just water in the ingredient list). Lipsticks, pressed powders, dry shampoo, soap bars, balms, and cleansing oils are the most familiar examples, while solid formats like shampoo bars are newer to the market.
Some of the more recent hype traces back to Asian beauty innovations which featured highly concentrated formulas that were marketed as more potent or efficacious than those that use water (brands like Whamisa are a good example that uses botanical extracts instead of water).
To understand why waterless products have become popular, it helps to understand why water is so prevalent in the first place. While it is the cheapest ingredient in a formula, it works as a great solvent (which means that it helps to dissolve other ingredients), helping to create the emulsions which are the basis of so many products.
Water also isn’t just a “filler” ingredient — it plays a key role as a skin hydrator (i.e. helps retain moisture). And it often forms the bulk of formulations — a cream can contain up to 85% of water, a lotion up to 90%, and shower gel or shampoos up to 95%.
If water is important to formulations, why are we trying to eliminate it? Well, water-based formulas get a lot of flack for including preservatives, which feeds nicely into the clean beauty movement and fear-mongering around those ingredients. But just because a product is waterless doesn’t mean that it won’t have any preservatives — FDA regulation still demands that certain products be tested for preservative efficacy and so some formulas may still contain them.
Savvy marketing around sustainability, growing demand for eco-friendly products, and industry concerns about water conservation are also driving the trend. Because non-liquid formulas (such as shampoo bars) tend to avoid single-use plastic in packaging, waterless products can contribute to waste reduction. Another plus is that non-liquid formats tend to have more portability (i.e. they’re more travel-friendly).
That said, given that water is involved along the entire product development lifecycle and every product carries a water footprint, we still have a long way to go before seeing truly “waterless” beauty. Waterless products also come with some downsides on the formula side.
One challenge with creating waterless formulas is the need for products to be in a user-friendly and easy to dispense format, along with a formula that eventually does need to be mixed or moistened with water for use (like a shampoo bar).
The success and popularity of the new waterless movement lies in the art of formulation. Water cannot be easily substituted in beauty products, and replacements involve using alternate carriers, solvents, oils or oil-esters that can be more expensive and may not contribute to the same texture, smoothness, and glide that water brings. And who doesn’t love the feeling of water on their skin? The good news — research and innovation continues to explore sustainable ways of sourcing water and improving the aesthetics and functionality of solid formats.
Like with much of the conversation about sustainable and clean beauty, the waterless trend is a combination of catering to consumer perception, achieving legitimate sustainability goals, and using the latest formulation technologies. Overall, we say go for it if you’re a jet-setter in need of a portable shampoo bar, or an astronaut who needs both freeze-dried hyaluronic acid and ice-cream — but it may also be worth the wait as new innovations improve both user experience and product performance.
Photo Credit: Benjamin Behre on Unsplash