You might know this. In the drugstore you turn a cream around and read the INCI. Over the years you have learned what you want in it and what you would rather avoid. And then you come home, pick up the cleaner for the kitchen counter and find that you do not know what you are using to wipe the board on which you will soon be slicing bread.
This question kept us awake at night. And the answer to it is the reason why Handymade is entering the world of eco-friendly household care.
It started with cosmetics
You have known Handymade for years as a world of cosmetic raw materials. We sell oils, butters and active ingredients, and from the beginning we have added something extra: an explanation. We taught you to read INCI and to understand what each ingredient does in a formulation. Many of you now blend your own creams and can no longer be fooled by marketing tricks in the drugstore.
One firm principle grew out of this work. A product is only as good as its formulation is honest. Not the packaging. Not the advertising. The formulation.
A cream has to tell you everything. A cleaner does not.
When we looked at the shelf of cleaning products with this principle in mind, a surprise was waiting for us. The difference you feel when you turn the bottle around is not a coincidence — it is how the rules are set. European legislation requires cosmetics to state every single ingredient on the packaging. For cleaning products, categories and percentage ranges are enough, something like “less than 5% non-ionic surfactants”. The manufacturer is obliged to publish the full list of ingredients on their website, but hardly anyone looks for it there and even fewer people actually find it.
The result? You know everything about the cream you apply to your face. About the product you use to wash the dishes you eat from, you know almost nothing. Yet dishes from the dishwasher are the only surface in the home we eat from directly. Clothing washed in a laundry gel sits on your skin from morning to evening. We sleep in our bed linen all night.
For us, this difference stopped making sense. There is no good reason for it. Only habit.
The same philosophy, a new category
We have been working internally on the development of cleaning products in our laboratory for two years now. And we did not start from zero: the chemistry of cleaning is closer to the chemistry of cosmetics than it seems, and we know many of the ingredients intimately from our own formulations. The mild surfactants that clean gently and are biodegradable also go into our new household products. Ingredient compatibility, chelating systems, stable pH and preservation at exactly the dosage the product needs: principles we have applied in cosmetics for years are now moving into household care.
In practice, this means three commitments. With every product you will find a complete list of ingredients with an explanation of why each one is there — not buried in a PDF at the far end of the internet, but right next to the product. We put nothing into a formulation without a real function, no ingredients just to make up the numbers. And if a product contains a preservative, you will see why right there: a water-based product would spoil without it, so we preserve at exactly the dosage that is necessary, and we always name the ingredient.
One word on the label is not always the same thing
When reading a composition, it is good to know one more thing. Even if two products list the same ingredient, it does not mean the same thing is in them. The same raw material is produced in different qualities: technical grade from large-volume chemistry and premium quality with documentation look exactly the same in the ingredient list. They differ in purity, in the origin of the inputs and in the impurities they contain. One word on the label, two different worlds in the formulation.
Raw materials are our home turf. We have been buying them and comparing suppliers for years, so for each one we know what is standard and what is top of the range. For our formulations we choose the latter: pharmaceutical-grade glycerine, mild sugar surfactants, enzymes from a world-leading European manufacturer. And for every raw material we have documentation down to the specific batch.
Many of these raw materials can also be bought from us individually. So our cleaning products are not made from whatever was cheapest on the price list, but from what we trust enough to sell under our own name. That is added value you cannot buy in an ordinary drugstore.
Why every line has a Pure version
Try counting how many scents you have already encountered today. Shower gel, shampoo, fabric softener on your T-shirt, the cleaner in the kitchen, a candle in the living room. Each one is pleasant on its own. Together, though, they create a constant noise we no longer even notice — and yet it accompanies us all day and affects how we feel.
That is why we decided that every one of our lines will have a Pure version, completely without fragrance. For people who want fewer scents. For sensitive households. And for those who simply want their perfume to have no competition in the wardrobe. Where we do add fragrance, we dose it sparingly and thoughtfully: with the ironing spray we tuned the fragrance so that fragrance allergens stay below the threshold of mandatory declaration.
Fragrance should be a choice, not a default setting.
Why we started with the ironing spray
The new category opens with the ironing spray, and it is not a random choice. This type of product is growing in popularity, and of all cleaning products it comes closest to you: you spray it directly onto textiles you then wear on your body all day long.
Textiles · Easier ironing · Fragrance-free
A fine mist with a wheat protein copolymer smooths the fibres, the iron glides more easily and ironing takes less time. The entire composition fits into one sentence: demineralised water, a protein ingredient that does the main work, plant-based ethanol for quick drying, a citrate system for stable pH and a preservative.
Available in three versions: Pure without fragrance, Cotton Dream and Summer Vibe.
That is exactly why we took such care with it. We are the only ones to bring you an ironing spray with 98% ingredients of natural origin — the Pure version even has 99%. For every ingredient, we can tell you why it is there. This is exactly what cleaning chemistry according to Handymade looks like.
This is just the beginning
We have a complete range of household cleaning products ready in the laboratory. We will be launching and presenting them gradually — next we will look at the dishwasher and at laundry. We will show you each product together with the raw materials it was made from: ingredient by ingredient.
Frequently asked questions
Why does Handymade make cleaning products?
Because the composition of cleaning products determines what your household is in everyday contact with, and yet manufacturers do not have to state it on the packaging. For years we have been teaching customers to read the INCI of cosmetics. Now we are bringing the same transparency to a category where the law does not require it and almost nobody offers it.
How do Handymade products differ from ordinary drugstore products?
Because the composition of cleaning products determines what your household is in everyday contact with, and yet manufacturers do not have to state it on the packaging. For years we have been teaching customers to read the INCI of cosmetics. Now we are bringing the same transparency to a category where the law does not require it and almost nobody offers it.
What household products does Handymade offer?
The first is the ironing spray in three versions, including a fragrance-free Pure version, with 98% ingredients of natural origin. A complete range of cleaning products is ready and we will be launching it gradually, with products for the dishwasher and for laundry coming next. We will present each new product on the blog together with a breakdown of its composition.
A promise to finish
We will not be the cheapest shelf in the drugstore, and we do not want to be. We promise something else: with every bottle from Handymade, you will know what is in it and why. Feel free to start with a small step, even a single product, and judge for yourself whether an honest formulation shows in the result. And do let us know how you get on with it.
