Why the Purity of the Water in Your Skincare Matters

by Deborah Duffey, Chief Product Development Officer and President    October 14, 2022

If you read the ingredients label of your favorite skincare products, you’ll see that water tops the list of nearly every one. In fact, it can make up around 60 to 80 percent of the entire formula. Water plays a very important role in skincare. It helps dissolve other ingredients, emulsifies everything together to create a cohesive formula, and improves the consistency and feel of a product. It can even improve the effectiveness of water-soluble ingredients.

If water is such a vital part of your products, doesn’t it make sense that it would be the purest, cleanest water possible? Despite the logic behind this, many skincare manufacturers do not test the water that is used in their products. This can be a big problem when it comes to the safety of skincare products. After all, products that are free of contamination are a must in order to prevent skin irritation and infection.

Why Kara Vita Tests the Water in Our Products

Water acts like an ideal growing environment for bacteria and other microbes, and if water isn’t pure to begin with, all of those bugs can end up in the final skincare product. We found this out firsthand. Prior to 2006, we used cosmetic manufacturers to test manufacture our products. The water quality was an issue every single time. We realized that to have the highest quality products, we needed to start with the highest quality water.

Read More: How we test our products for a two-year shelf life

Now, we use the very purest water. The same standard of water required for pharmaceutical products. This water is highly purified and maintained in a manner prevent any bacteria, yeasts, or molds from growing in the first place. The equipment that produce this water require rigorous maintenance and frequent testing, and create water at USP (United States Pharmacopeia) standards. . None of this is a requirement for skincare products, but in order to deliver super pure products to our customers, we choose to do it anyway.

Skincare products are frequently exposed to microbes and are prone to contamination, especially when those products are filled with potent botanical ingredients like ours. To ensure our products stay free of contamination and maintain a long, two-five year shelf life, we go above and beyond what’s required of skincare manufacturers: from testing the water that goes into our products, to putting the final formulas through rigorous, pharmaceutical-level testing. While this might mean more work for us, it means a better product for you, the customer.