The Philippines is a "sachet economy". Most Filipinos purchase their toiletries, with little education on the impact of single-use plastics on the environment. We are the third largest ocean polluter in the world, a terrifying statistic for a country located at the center of the marine ecosystem. And while attention has been given to plastic bags, PET bottles and single-use cutlery, shampoos and personal care packaging has escaped similar attention.

Solid shampoo bars are a great and simple solution to this problem. But after 32 years of existence, most people still think it’s a bar of soap. It’s not appealing for the hotel industry or home consumers to use. Bottles for hair. Bars for body. So by changing its shape and redesigning it, maybe we can change consumer mindset.

We redesigned the shampoo bar into the shape of a bottle to make it more intuitive. A

3D-printable mold was developed for easy replication, along with a Dissolving Font to push education on sustainability. We partnered with an FDA-approved supplier to produce shampoos with our molds, and partnered with local communities to help make them. To target the hotel industry's plastic bottle practice, we made a special mini size just for them. We marketed it as a “Dissolving Shampoo Bottle” and sent these out to hotels and influencers around the country as a pilot run. The design was also made open-source to encourage more people to make the switch to plastic-free shampoos. All by simply redesigning of a tried and tested product to make it more intuitive.

With the concerning data on ocean pollution, we targeted to distribute The Dissolving Bottle to hotels, particularly those near beaches. 80% of the country's tourist destinations are located along coastal areas. This makes the country's marine ecosystem more susceptible to plastic pollution from the tourism sector. To make the most impact, we selected Boracay Island - arguably the most popular beach location in the country, synonymous to its crystal-clear waters - with thousands of tourists every day. By targeting tourists, we wanted to change the consumer mindset to shift away from the use of the mini hotel toiletries that come in single-use plastics into something more sustainable and environmentally-friendly. Knowing full well that their reception to zero-plastic waste toiletries, can turn the tables for hotel industry's practices. With a bevy of outdoor activities, more people also shower on vacation than they do at home, making it the perfect location for

The Dissolving Bottle went through various designs to 1) make it more intuitive 2) cost-effective and 3) ensure it performs just as well as any shampoo, that leaves nothing behind. We partnered with an FDA-approved supplier to produce shampoos with our molds. Project creators worked with an organic soap and shampoo manufacturer, along with resorts, who agreed to provide the products to guests in their hotels. Including a sampling activation in Boracay, where we distributed trial sizes for tourists. Online, we promoted it as zero-plastic solution that gives you 9x more showers than a liquid shampoo for the same weight, marketing the 3 variants that address different hair conditions: Lavender Oil for hair growth, Peppermint Oil for itchy scalp, and Tea Tree for dandruff control. In retail stores, The Dissolving Bottle was placed alongside plastic shampoo bottles, letting people know you don't need a plastic bottle to shampoo your hair.

The Dissolving Bottle has struck a chord with consumers and entrepreneurs around the world. Our hotel partners and their guests have openly expressed interest due to its plastic-free packaging. Encouraging a shift in the conversation around hotel industry's responsibilities towards the environment. The local government of Boracay have also started talking about possibly regulating The Dissolving Bottle and other plastic-free toiletries and solutions for the beach hotels located there, as an effort to boost their brand image. Inquiries on the website, and downloads of the freely available 3D design, have come from countries as diverse as Brazil, India, Ireland, Singapore, the UAE, the UK, the United States, and Vietnam. The next step is to scale up operations, widen the net for target groups, and involve more local communities in making them, providing more jobs and helping the environment with every encouraging shift.