Inside The My Soda Factory: How It’s Made
Welcome to the My Soda factory! If you're like us, you're always curious about how things are made, so we’ve devised a tour of how we make My Soda refillable shampoo and conditioner. Cruelty-free, plant-based haircare and a better-for-environment promise with clever refill packs designed to reduce plastic waste by 80%, step inside My Soda and see how it’s made.
Where does My Soda source its ingredients?
We cast our eyes worldwide for the best quality ingredients available. Searching high and low, we seek out the very best for each of our products. Some grow and maintain nutrients best in a warmer climate, while others prefer colder weather. Then there are those pesky plants that can’t be grown in either, requiring a particular environment to flourish and propagate.
As we all know, Australia’s harsh climate makes it almost impossible to grow and harvest all of our ingredients here. It’s also no secret that climate change has impacted crop yields worldwide. With demand increasing, My Soda ensures those we work with pay close attention to local supplies so that ingredients are not entirely wiped out from a particular region. That way, crops are shared amongst many areas and are given time to replenish, ensuring we are not negatively impacting the supply chain and environment.
Where do you make your shampoo and conditioner?
Our products are made on-site at our Ferntree Gully factory, situated southeast of Melbourne, Victoria, at the foothills of the beautiful Dandenong Ranges. As part of the Natures Organics family, we are powered by 5,000 roof-mounted solar panels. This investment into sustainable energy has dramatically reduced our impact on the environment and has cut our carbon emissions by around 1,000 tonnes each year.
How is it made?
Raw materials are ordered and delivered to our compounding team to be placed in large tanks, where just like any recipe, ingredients are mixed together following a specific method. If you’ve ever been to a brewery before, you’ll know what we’re talking about.
The ingredients are then mixed together into what manufacturers call ‘bulk’. Free from parabens, SLES, propylene glycol and other harsh chemicals, we avoid damaging your hair and the environment by using plant-based ingredients.
From here, the ‘bulk’ is then pumped from the compounding area to our filling lines. Our My Soda bottles are placed onto a conveyor belt and then filled, caps screwed on, and then are put into cartons ready to be loaded onto pallets and shipped directly to Woolworths.
Shampoo
We manufacture our My Soda Shampoo using a one-pot and greener process. We start at lower temperatures, which consumes less energy, to disperse our polymers and dissolve our surfactants.
Once everything is uniformly dissolved, and the temperature is more ambient, we add in our auxiliary ingredients; botanical actives, extracts, preservatives and fragrance.
Conditioner
To create our conditioners, we start with our two phases; an oil and water phase. We add our waxes, oils and conditioning agents during the oil stage, followed by our water-soluble ingredients during the water stage.
Although water and oil don’t naturally mix, the two phases combine to create an emulsion thanks to the addition of natural waxes. This emulsion process is usually conducted at a hotter temperature, and once cooled down, we add in our auxiliary ingredients; botanical actives, extracts, preservatives and fragrance.
How is it delivered?
Delivering directly from the factory allows us to reduce transportation needs, reduce carbon emissions and further adds to our positive impact on the environment. Many brands need to ship packaging to a third party manufacturer, where the finished goods are shipped back to the brand's premises than to the retailer. That’s a lot of unnecessary transportation. We omit these steps as our products are warehoused and shipped directly from the manufacturing plant to the retailer.
Are shampoo bottles recyclable?
We often get asked whether our shampoo bottles are recyclable. Keeping in line with our circular reuse and recycle philosophy, our good friends over at Visy supply recycled HDPE plastic bottles for our conscious haircare products in Australia and are fully recyclable. Produced by a local Melbourne based manufacturer, both My Soda and Visy are able to cut transport emissions. Oh, and even the pallets they arrive on are made from recycled HDPE plastic. Amazing!
How we recycle plastic bottles?
Together, we’re reducing the impact on our precious environment. From manufacturing our shampoo and conditioner at our solar-powered production facility, to the conscious disposal and recycling of plastic in Australia and around the world. Recycle your shampoo bottles. Switch to My Soda today!
Join My Soda Australia and #kisstheplanet with our refillable shampoo and conditioner bottles. Browse our website to learn more about our passion for sustainable hair care.
