As a dentist, as well as someone who likes to work out outdoors, I keep a ton of hand sanitizer in my car. I use it constantly day in and day out. When a local RI couple reached out to me about Nowata, I was deeply intrigued!
Here is the story of how Nowata was developed:
During the pandemic, my wife and I became addicted to hand sanitizer.
But we quickly realized we could do better.
We’re nature lovers – which is what inspired us to move from Northern California to North Kingstown, Rhode Island in 2020 (and then to Stonington, Connecticut last year.) When our hands got dirty hiking, sanitizer wasn’t helpful; we needed soap. But to wash soap off, we needed water, which isn’t always available outdoors.
So we got to work. I majored in chemistry at UNC Charlotte, which – after about a year of experiments – allowed me to develop a prototype for a soap that, upon extended contact with the skin, evaporated and turned into dirtballs that fell away. Our friends loved it; so did the customers at our the Newport Dunkin who sampled it after we bribed them with free coffee.
But there was still a problem: The prototype was made of synthetic ingredients; we wanted a plant-based, natural, biodegradable, and safe-if-ingested formula. So I spent the next 3 months experimenting in my basement. After exhausting all the ingredients available to a layperson like myself, I reached out to nearly 100 different cosmetic company formulators who had access to more powerful chemicals; I contracted 6 of them. After 16 months of experimentation, one of the formulators came up with a soap that did exactly what we wanted. We then hired two separate manufacturers to produce 5,000 units. It only took us 4 years of work and $100,000.
We started selling our soap on our website last month. We named it Nowata. Why? Because we’re from New England, where people don’t pronounce the final “r”.
Nowata isn’t just an entrepreneurial venture. The core value of the product is water conservation. Believe it or not, the average person uses a gallon and a half of water every time they wash their hands. In the Midwest and Western U.S. especially, fresh water is a scarce resource. Across the globe, 4 in 10 people suffer from fresh water shortages. They are currently working towards donating a portion of our profits to charity: water.
Be sure to check out this innovative and amazing product today!
*I worked with Nowata on this post. All opinions are my own and not swayed by outside sources.*