Music festivals, camping and cycling to work can be smelly and grimey affairs, especially if there are no showers in which to get washed. Wet wipes are an alternative, but are so small they're hardly effective. Epic Wipes, however, are towel-sized wipes designed especially for body cleansing.
The idea for Epic Wipes was conceived by company founder Dr. Aeneas Janze for soldiers in Afghanistan who had no access to showers, although body-sized wipes do exist elsewhere already. Janze saw that soldiers needed a portable yet effective means of cleaning themselves up.
He felt that normal wet wipes were too small and flimsy for effective body cleansing. In addition, he viewed the resealable packages as being less hygienic than is ideal and found that many wipes contain ingredients that aren't actually good for people to use, such as endocrine disruptors and carcinogens.
A three-year development process ensued, during which Janze tested multiple formulas and materials. The resulting product measures 31.5 x 19.7 in (80 x 50 cm), and folds down to fit comfortably in pockets. The company says this is sixteen times larger than a typical wet wipe and is able to be used with two hands, with users even able to clean their backs in the same way they'd dry them with a towel.
Epic Wipes are made from bamboo fibers processed into viscose and are 100 percent biodegradable, with recyclable packaging. They also contain ingredients that rank among the safest on the non-profit Environmental Working Group's (ESG) Skin Deep database, including chamomile, calendula and eucalyptus.
A Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign for Epic Wipes is ongoing. Pledges from US$14 will be rewarded with four of the wipes, and higher pledges will get you more, assuming all goes to plan with the roll-out. Delivery is expected to take no longer than 6-7 weeks.
The video below is the Kickstarter pitch for Epic Wipes.
Sources: Epic Wipes, Kickstarter
I totally understand the need for this product for soldiers in the field, but consumers here at home should be looking for a more environmentally friendly way of staying clean.
When we started researching the ingredients found in other wipes on the market, we were alarmed to discover just how many chemical toxins are actually the norm. For a wipe that is supposed to be used over the entire body for possibly days to weeks at a time we thought it crucial to find a formula that was both nutrient rich and toxin poor rather than the other way around. We literally went through dozens of iterations before finally finding a formulation that works well, smells and feels good, and most importantly, is safe for you and the Earth.
Though it added significantly to our costs we chose bamboo viscose as our fabric material because we wanted to use a material that was both sustainable and biodegradable. To your point, we are currently conducting biodegradability testing through a US based lab to learn the exact amount of time it will take one Epic Wipe to biodegrade under landfill conditions. We will share those results on our website as soon as they are available.
That said, we have had extensive conversations with various scientists who work in this field and the unanimous consensus has been that viscose, regardless of its source, is highly biodegradable even when buried in a landfill (anaerobic conditions with little water). Viscose is essentially the fabric form of cellulose which is the fiber found in the vegetables that we eat. Regardless of the form that it happens to be in, viscose for all intents and purposes, behaves like cellulose in nature and degrades almost as quickly (if not just as quickly) as powdered cellulose, which is what most biodegradability experiments use as their control. In the experience of the scientists we talked with, when subjected to landfill conditions, complete biodegradation occurs for viscose in less than 45 days. If composted it usually takes days to weeks.
Maintaining health and hygiene in austere conditions is what sparked the creation of Epic Wipes. In a world on track for unprecedented shortages of fresh water in the coming decades, we hope that Epic Wipes can actually be part of the solution: providing a hygienic option to help prevent the spread of disease and infection in disaster relief zones and in parts of the world with the poorest sanitation, before returning to the Earth.
We are trying to build a company that is profitable for our investors, but our core values demand that we only do this in such a way that also contributes to a better future. We also hope to serve as an example to consumers worldwide, that if a company as small as ours is able to achieve profitability without eschewing global responsibility, what excuse do our much larger competitors have?
Sincerely,
Aeneas Janze
Founder, Epic Wipes