5 reasons why waterless skincare is better for your skin and the planet

We are delighted to present Coraline Skincare’s very first blog to coincide with Earth Week and Earth Day on April 22nd 2023. And to launch the first in our series of videos with Superreel Productions, shot on location in Topsham, Devon, where our Coraline Skincare store is based.

Did you know many mainstream skincare products can contain up to 90% water; meaning the active (aka the beneficial) ingredients in your products make up only 10% of what you are actually paying for?

Watch our video from Coraline Skincare’s founder and product formulator, Kevin, to learn more about why many beauty brands add water to their products.

Convinced to go water-free with your skincare now? When you opt for waterless skincare you are not only ensuring that every drop you pay for has skin-boosting benefits, but your beauty regime is helping to conserve the earth's precious natural resources too. Here are 5 reasons why waterless skincare is better for your skin and the planet:

1. It's not just the water...

Whenever a skincare formulation contains water and oil together it immediately means you need to add chemical preservatives, stabilisers and emulsifiers. The emulsifier enables the oil and water to blend together and be shelf stable. Not to mention fillers and texture enhancers. These are not beneficial for, and can irritate, the skin.

Not only are you paying a premium for one of the cheapest ingredients around, but your water-based skincare needs these petro-chemical emulsifiers and stabilisers to keep it safe, ensure that bacteria doesn’t grow and give it a longer shelf-life. By ditching water-filled skincare you are also ditching the chemicals that go along with it.

That’s doubly important because of the compound effect. When a product is formulated and presented for certification, it is allowed to contain ‘safe’ levels of different chemicals, and these will be checked carefully. What this cannot know or calculate, is that if the typical person is using e.g. half a dozen or more different products per day, many will have the same, or similar, chemicals in them. Many of these companies also use different types of preservatives and emulsifiers in the same product in order to get around these limits. Look out for our upcoming video on this entitled, "Are you exceeding chemical safety levels?"

2. Less water leaves room for the good stuff

Loving your skin and working with its natural oils is the key to happy to skin.

As a trained chef Kevin has worked with the best quality ingredients over the last 25-30 years and his philosophy has always been what he likes to call ‘ingredient-led simplicity’. You only need a few carefully chosen ingredients to create the best dishes in the kitchen, and we apply the exact same philosophy in our range of skincare and soaps.

When 100% of your skincare formula contains ingredients that have been chosen solely with your skin in mind (not profit, or product stability) you know that every drop is going to be beneficial. All our ingredients are 100% organically grown or sustainably wild, chosen by Kevin to bring specific, therapeutic properties to each product. We make every single product by hand ourselves, so we know precisely what is in them. 

All of our oils are cold-pressed and unrefined to fully preserve the beneficial and healing fractions within the oil, and all of our plant butters are also unrefined. None of our ingredients are extracted or produced using any chemical solvents or other synthetic means.

This ensures that you can relate to it as a customer. If you can see it growing in the ground, and it is free of potentially harmful pesticides and other chemicals, then you can trust that it is as safe as can possibly be for your and your family's skin. Our oil-based products are free from any and every known toxic chemical and they make a difference to dry and sensitive skin by working with your skin’s natural oil production to balance out your beautiful complexion and give you happy and glowing skin.

You can learn about our ingredients, their origins and benefits here.

3. More concentrated formulas last longer

From a sustainability perspective, waterless skincare by its nature will last a lot longer than one filled with water, as you need a fraction of the amount on your skin, as it is so concentrated. Each bottle or pot of oil or balm will last months, meaning less packaging for us to create and for you to recycle. Our waterless skincare routines are designed to contain fewer, more nourishing, concentrated steps - rather than a bathroom cabinet filled with 6-8 products, meaning even less packaging.

You can get water from your tap at home for free. We often say wet your face first, then add our facial oil.

Organic raw ingredients are many times more expensive than their non-organic alternatives. A little goes a very long way. Think of our skincare as a concentrated nutrition for your skin. The products actually soothe and restore the skin barrier, they sink in, don't sit on top and truly nourish our skin on a deep level.

Our Miron Glass Violet bottles are biophotonic; which means they protect our products’ natural ingredients and preserve their potency. Miron Glass even filters the sun’s rays; allowing the rays which are good for the product in and keeping the rays which could potentially damage a product out.  The glass includes special minerals which naturally enhance the product’s ingredients. 

4. Water is dehydrating... say what?

Yes, it may seem strange but water is actually dehydrating as an ingredient on the skin as it strips off the skin's protective natural oils leaving it dry. Waterless products are often recommended by dermatologists for those with conditions such as psoriasis, ezcema and rosacea, and they can benefit anyone who has dry, itchy skin.

Our entire range of skincare products is what is known as ‘anhydrous’ which means it doesn’t contain any residual water.

5. Treading more lightly on the planet

We expect you to be shopping with us less as each product you buy will last longer than its water-filled counterpart. Think of it this way: the higher the concentration, the less product you need, and the longer it lasts. That’s a win for your pocket.

This also means less shipping of raw ingredients to begin with, then less packaging materials being manufactured and shipped and less deliveries to you - reducing our carbon footprint even further.

All of this allows us to tread even more lightly on our planet.

Shop our water-free skincare here

Video transcript:

Kevin Troy, Coraline Skincare Founder

"Want us to let you in a little secret? When you buy any skincare product, you're usually paying for around 70 to 90% water. In addition to that, your skincare product usually contains lots of different chemicals, preservatives, stabilizers, emulsifiers, many of which derive from petrochemicals.

Why do they put so much water in your skin care product? Well, quite simply, water is a really, really inexpensive filler.

So if 70 to 90% of your product is water, that's a lot of profit for big companies. See for yourself. Take any of the skincare products in your house and look at the ingredients. The chances are aqua is going to be the first ingredient. And legally, any skin care product has to list the ingredients by order of concentration.

At Coraline Skincare, we believe in doing things differently, which is why we don't use any water in our products. This means you don't need to use any chemical preservatives or stabilizers or emulsifiers or anything that the skin doesn't actually need. You're just using the oils which work directly with the skin to deliver focused and targeted nutrition; because the ingredients are so concentrated, a little goes a really long way. You really need to use a tiny amount, four or five drops in some cases. So that product is going to last you a few months.

And the added bonus is you're not putting lots of chemicals on your skin that it doesn't need."