Water - No longer the Cheap, Limitless ingredient

As populations grow, consumption increases, the impact of climate change takes hold and the personal care industry experiences rampant growth, demand for water is outpacing supply.

On average, every person in the Western world consumes 140litres of water a day [per SW Water, UK  https://www.southwestwater.co.uk] and until recently, water has been seen as a cheap, limitless resource. It’s been seen as ideal for ‘bulking out’ foodstuffs and other commodities, to try to fool consumers into thinking they’re getting more for their money.  

Liquid soaps, shampoos, conditioners, detergents and many moisturising creams are mostly comprised of water. You can tell this by taking a look at the ingredients panel. You will frequently find ‘aqua’ listed first. The standard convention in labelling is to list ingredients in the order of their concentration in the product. Liquid soaps are typically made of 50% or more water and it’s a similar picture with water based conditioners, cosmetics and moisturising creams.

You will be delighted to hear that at Cosy Cottage, we have never created water based products and we never will.

• We have resisted the trend in liquid soaps, focusing instead on solid bars for several reasons. Water conservation is one of our motivators as is the need to add a heavy preservative load to anything that’s water based. We avoid preservatives at Cosy Cottage
• Our creams, deodorants, balms and scrubs are not water based. We use luxurious shea butter, coconut and sweet almond oils, and other goodies, instead. This means no drain on the world’s water, no need for heavy preservatives and a much longer lasting and more effective product too.  
• Our solid shampoos and conditioners buck the trend. They’re not made of water, like the majority of products on the market, they don’t contain detergents or artificial surfactants and they are fragranced only with essential oils derived from plants. Our many thousands of happy customers tell us repeatedly that since adjusting to our products, the condition of their hair improves, their itchy scalp is ameliorated and they need to wash their hair less frequently.

We are delighted to be an independent company, leading the way in the personal care industry. We hope that others in our own industry and across the board will recognise the need to conserve this seriously undervalued commodity, to protect our futures and those of our children and grandchildren.