✨ New: Hand Soap and Laundry Perfume — December 2025

The hand soap that only starts at your home.

This hand soap does not come as a watery liquid, but as acompact powder. Add water at home, shake or stir briefly, and the powder turns into a soft, fresh gel that thoroughly cleanses your handswithout drying them out.

The formula is made up ofmild, sulfate-free cleansers that effectively remove dirt and bacteria, but respect the natural skin balance without allergens. Thanks to caring ingredients such as panthenol and aloe, your hands remain soft, even after frequent washing.

The gel structure is creatednaturalmanner, without synthetic thickeners. This provides a pleasant, light foam and a supple skin feeling, no sticky residue, no tight feeling afterwards.

Because we only add the water at your home, we save on transport, packaging and unnecessary emissions. Less volume, less waste, same quality.

Asmart hand soapwho does what he has to do, and nothing more. Made in Holland 🇳🇱 in our own factory in Velsen-Noord.

Use your own bottle (250-300ml) or buy the nice optional glassesCosmeau hand soap bottle(250ml) with stainless steel pump.

Buy them with a nice introductory discount of 25%. Discount has already been automatically applied.

Wash perfume produced inThe Netherlandsin our own factory! 🇳🇱

In a handy bottle withpump, in fun colors in your favorite Cosmeau scents! The cheaper onerefillyou buy loose in a bag so you can refill your dispenser twice.

Ourscented pearlsto perform​less well at high temperatures or if they have been in the dryer.

Washing perfumeperforms better than fragrance beads belowhigh temperaturesso your laundry or towels that you wash at 95 degrees will still smell wonderful.

In addition, all our fragrances containnot carcinogenicsubstances at oil level (GHS08) as you are used to from us.

We start with the following 4 scents:🌿Pure,🌱Spring Fresh, 🌸Cherry Blossom, and 🌊Sea Breeze.

The other Cosmeau fragrances will be released in January and February.

Buy them with a nice introductory discount of 25%. Discount has already been automatically applied.

I would like to respond to the Keuringsdienst van Waarde episode about wax strips. Although we were not approached by the editors, I did feel the responsibility to explain our story, because Cosmeau also sells wax strips and our packaging was shown.

Why was our packaging on display?

Inspection Service of Value has aold batchof our packaging, because we purchase for months and changes become visible much later.

Important to emphasize: on our product pagewe never do withoutexplanation claims that this is a completely plastic-free detergent. The product pages were updated around the summer. Because PVA degradability is a gray area, we are correctmultiple perspectives shared,including that ofECHA (the European Chemicals Agency) and thePlastic Soup Foundation,so that customers could make an informed choice for themselves. We have this productnot sold as 'plastic-free' to Keuringsdienst van Waarde.Very unfortunate that they have old packaging, we were not contacted to request additional information or context.

Transparency about PVA

We have been open about the use of PVA and the associated uncertainties for a long time. OnOctober 2we have an extensive article about thismailshared on our socials, in which we also indicated that we have been working on an alternative for months. This message has also been shared via our newsletter to customers.

Why are so many people shocked and angry?

Despite this transparency, we receive many angry and sad reactions. I completely understand that.

My guess is that this is because wax strips have been positioned as plastic-free for years by many brands. That message stuck:wax strips = plastic-free.

We have been deliberately advertising here since the beginning of this yearno moreas soon as it became clear that this cannot be stated in black and white. We shared this via mailings and social media, but not everyone actively follows us there. For customers who have been buying from us for some time and have not followed this topic anymore (which is very understandable), this may come as a shock.

I honestly don't know how we could have communicated this better. If you have any ideas about that, I'd love to hear them.

Then the second point: what exactly is PVA?

When selling this product, certificates, tests, and studies have shown that PVAbiodegradable(certain grades and brands such as Kuraray that we use). It still is, only under certain circumstances that do not always apply in Dutch water treatment plants. This depends on the bacteria present, which can differ per installation and region.

When this became clear and therefore not the sustainable endpoint we hoped for, we havetook immediate action. Not only in communication, but also in terms of content.

We accelerated our planning and decided ourown detergent production a year earlierto be realised. As is known, we already produce our scented pearls in the Netherlands (without PVA and microplastics), and one is currently being built next to our officenew production hall of 2,500 m² built.

Our goal is a next generation detergent that meets all these requirements:

• plastic and microplastic free
• biodegradable
• easy to dose
• preferably not liquid
• no (recycled) plastic bottle
• not as heavy as powder
• high washing power
• strong odor
• scalable with limited resources
• ingredients largely from the EU
• no fabric softener needed (optional)

Such a product does not yet exist, but we are making clear progress. We will continue to communicate transparently about this in the near future.

About the statements in Keuringsdienst van Waarde

The episode comes full circle14:38scientist Heather Leslie interviewed. She states that PVA only breaks down under very specific conditions, with trained micro-organisms and at 60 °C. Discussions then take place with a water treatment plant, which gives the impression that PVA does nothing there.

We do not want to question Keuringsdienst van Waarde, but this performance isincomplete**and we are happy to add to it.

Dutch water treatment plants are very modern. PVA also exists in different degrees (degree of hydrolysis and molecular weight), and no distinction was made in the broadcast. The 60 degree test is onelaboratory standard, but not the only way PVA can be broken down**. In the test report* carried out by TüV, degradability was determined at 90% over 28 days and tested at 22 degrees with a 2 degree variation.

In addition, playssludgean important role. Part of the PVA binds to sludge, which becomes sludge in the Netherlandsburned or fermented. This means that this part is actually removed from the system.

Another partcan, depending on the installation, are partially broken down by bacteria and enzymes. This varies per water treatment plant and is something I am currently investigating further. I will come back to this later.

It's true that water treatment plantsare not designed to specifically break down PVA.They are designed to remove general organic loads, nitrogen and phosphate. PVA degradation is thereforesecondary and incidental,but that doesn't mean nothing happens.

Bacteria can also produce substancesco-metabolize, change them enzymatically or partially break them down, without using them as a staple food.

About the “plastic” in the lab

The image of PVA being heated and forming a plastic-like residue is reflectivenot how PVA ends up in the environment. It gives the impression that there isa piece of plastic is discharged with every wash, and that is not correct.

Now that we know all this, what will be left behind?

Our wax strip weighs approx1.71 grams, of which15–35% PVA. In the extreme case, this amounts to approximately 0.6 grams of PVA. Some of this is destroyed via sludge and possibly some is biodegraded.

For comparison: this is in the same order of magnitude as the amount of microplastics released when washing one polyester shirt. The important difference is thatpolyester microplastics are solid fibers that persist and accumulate,while PVA is soluble and less persistent. That doesn't make PVA ideal, but it doesless harmful than classic microplastics.

Your fitness outfit or the kids' football shirts pose a bigger problem if you put this into perspective.

In summary

Harsh chemicals in traditional detergents often have a greater impact on aquatic life than PVA. If you look at microplastics, what is left behind is less harmful and also less than a football shirt or your leggings. PVA is non-toxic, is partly broken down and partly destroyed through sludge processing. It is not a perfect solution, but also cannot be compared to dumping solid plastic into the environment.

That doesn't change the fact that we are PVAwant to replaceand we are working hard on that, not in response to this episode, but six months ago since we learned more about this. We then communicated this within all our channels, adjusted our advertising communications, adjusted our packaging and decided to produce detergents ourselves in our new factory hall (completion mid-March 2026) next to our head office in Velsen-Noord.

The first version is expected to be available in Q1 2026.

If you have any questions or comments, please let us know!

Explanation (as stated on the product page since summer 2025)

Depending on the definition, the strips themselves are microplastic-free. PVA has been approved by the ECHA and is not considered microplastic, but it is by PlasticSoup Foundation. There are studies that PVA is biodegradable depending on brand and type. We have certified biodegradability of PVA based on OECD-B301. Our packaging is plastic-free and FSC certified. Research is ongoing into Cellulose-based carriers so that we can avoid this gray area. Please note: The packaging may still say "plastic free" because we are phasing out the old batch packaging. We have replaced this in the latest batch for "plastic-free packaging"

* You can download and view our test reports in the online versionhere

**The water solubility of PVOH depends mainly on its degree of hydrolysis (DH), and to a second extent on its degree of polymerization (DP) (Finch [10]). This is determined by two counteracting influences of the hydroxyl groups. On the one hand, the many hydroxyl groups cause PVOH to have a high affinity to water, which drives water solubility. On the other hand, the strong hydrogen bonding between inter- and intramolecular hydroxyl groups can greatly impede solubility in water. As a consequence, fully hydrolysed PVOH is highly crystalline and only dissolves in hot water (> 60°C), whereas 'partially hydrolysed' PVOH is more weakly hydrogen-bonded, less crystalline, and generally soluble in cold water (< 10 °C) (Monosol [16]). Finch [10] shows high water solubility at ambient temperature (20 °C) for PVOH with a degree of hydrolysis up to 90%, but rapidly dropping with further increasing DH. The observed negative effect of an increasing degree of polymerization (in the range of 500– 2500) on solubility was of limited relevance for PVOH with a degree of hydrolysis < 90%. This is illustrated in Figure 2 for a degree of polymerization of 1750 (after Finch [10]). Note that for practical detergent applications, PVOH films are modified and contain additives, to ensure that they are 100% soluble in cold water (as opposed to what is shown in Figure 2 for pure
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