Which of these two water is better for cosmetic use? Unfiltered or reverse osmosis waste water

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Which of these two water is better for cosmetic use? Unfiltered or reverse osmosis waste water

Posted by Abdullah on April 9, 2022 at 12:26 pm

The water we use in our products come from 100m water well. We filter the water with reverse osmosis filter that are for home use. This system has three more filters before reverse osmosis. Because of these filters i think waste water from reverse osmosis may be cleaner and better suited for cosmetic use compared to unfiltered water.
Recently as our sales has increased we sometimes face shortage of filtered water.

So in such times if i have to use one of these two waters, which one is better to use in cosmetic products?

Unfiltered water that has come from 100m water well not more than 24 hours ago
Or

Waste water from reverse osmosis filter?

Abdullah replied 2 years ago 5 Members · 13 Replies
13 Replies

PhilGeis

Member
April 9, 2022 at 12:55 pm

Waste water from RO will have concentrated ions and and particulates that passed filters from the entire volume of water treated.
Abdullah

Member
April 9, 2022 at 2:37 pm

PhilGeis said:

Waste water from RO will have concentrated ions and and particulates that passed filters from the entire volume of water treated.

Thanks

What about impurities other than metal ions like bacteria and other undesirable things compared to unfiltered water?
PhilGeis

Member
April 9, 2022 at 10:28 pm

“3 more filters” - don’t know their construction or exclusion but figure they’d remove bacteria - water would still not be sterile. How are they maintained? If left wet - bacteria will populate.
Abdullah

Member
April 11, 2022 at 2:12 am

PhilGeis said:

“3 more filters” - don’t know their construction or exclusion but figure they’d remove bacteria - water would still not be sterile. How are they maintained? If left wet - bacteria will populate.

Other three filters are sediment and carbon block filter.

They are filtering nonstop.
Rafacasti

Member
April 11, 2022 at 12:13 pm

Could you explain what exactly you mean by “waste water” from reverse osmosis? I don’t know if I understood.

Anyway. I think the well should not be an option, as this type of water can naturally contain heavy metals and pollutants, among other things. I’ve read many case studies about tap water from homes (from well sources) making people sick and turning pipes green. Of course, the exposure time in this case is so much longer than the application of cosmetics, but it can make your formulas more unstable even with the use of chelating agents.

Does your company’s tap water come from the same source (the well)? As tap water is treated to be usable on a daily basis (but not exactly consumable), I think it would be a better option (although perhaps not as suitable).
PhilGeis

Member
April 11, 2022 at 1:04 pm

Reverse osmosis uses pressure to push water through a membrane - leaving ions, impurities and fine particulates on the “waste water” side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reverse_osmosis

Well water is ok but requires appropriate treatment as does tap water, and treated water form both requires some degree of microbiological control.
Abdullah

Member
April 11, 2022 at 1:05 pm

Rafacasti said:

Could you explain what exactly you mean by “waste water” from reverse osmosis? I don’t know if I understood.

Anyway. I think the well should not be an option, as this type of water can naturally contain heavy metals and pollutants, among other things. I’ve read many case studies about tap water from homes (from well sources) making people sick and turning pipes green. Of course, the exposure time in this case is so much longer than the application of cosmetics, but it can make your formulas more unstable even with the use of chelating agents.

Does your company’s tap water come from the same source (the well)? As tap water is treated to be usable on a daily basis (but not exactly consumable), I think it would be a better option (although perhaps not as suitable).

Have use used reverse osmosis filter?
When It filters the water it wastes a lot of water. I don’t know how to explain that 😁.

TDS of our well water is around 700ppm.
Filtered water is around 50-55ppm.
And that of waste water from RO is around 1200ppm.
amitvedakar

Member
April 14, 2022 at 5:42 am

Ro plant give you 30% output. So other 70% have higher than normal levels of contaminants. It also depends on your source water & your RO system what your waste water contains. may also have bacterial load. because membrane filter also remove some bacteria.
Abdullah

Member
April 14, 2022 at 8:58 am

amitvedakar said:

Ro plant give you 30% output. So other 70% have higher than normal levels of contaminants. It also depends on your source water & your RO system what your waste water contains. may also have bacterial load. because membrane filter also remove some bacteria.

Thanks
mikethair

Member
April 15, 2022 at 6:29 am

We have a RO unit. But we test regularly in our lab to maintain quality.
Abdullah

Member
April 15, 2022 at 7:01 am

mikethair said:

We have a RO unit. But we test regularly in our lab to maintain quality.

mikethair said:

We have a RO unit. But we test regularly in our lab to maintain quality.

Sorry, you test what? Filtered water or something else?
I couldn’t get it 🙂
PhilGeis

Member
April 15, 2022 at 1:51 pm

You need to qualify your systems. Water is the one ingredient whose quality is known only after the product is made.
Abdullah

Member
April 16, 2022 at 12:33 am

PhilGeis said:

You need to qualify your systems. Water is the one ingredient whose quality is known only after the product is made.

Got it
Thanks