As anyone who has been to our Saltcote or done one of our tours probably knows, by far the biggest by-product of our famous sea salt is distilled water. When we harvest Halen Môn salt from the sea we are left with the purest form of liquid.
The water wasn’t what we originally set out to produce. We wanted the glistening, perfect white flakes of salt. But the older we get as a company (and as people), the more we realise that it makes sense to look at things as a whole. Why go through a laborious process of boiling so much seawater and condensing it only to then discard it?
We decided to learn more about distilled water. We learned that whilst it didn’t taste very nice, its purity was extremely useful across a whole host of industries. And so, a few years ago, as an experiment of sorts, we began to bottle it.
Sure enough, slowly at first, people began to buy it. And now, a few years on, we have an established customer base who know us as the people who sell water, not sea salt. And the uses are pretty fascinating (at least to salt/ water geeks like us)
There are the more expected uses of the water of course, like filling your iron with it to prolong its life, but there are a whole host of unexpected uses too. Here’s a few of our favourites:
- Those who prefer the authentic sound of vinyl stock up on our water to keep their records squeaky clean
- A gentleman buys it regularly for his cigar humidor – a box which maintains the optimum humidity for his cigars
- Several people with miniature trains use it for the very best quality steam
- A customer who wanted Hollywood white teeth used the water with a whitening kit for a sparkling smile
- An artist uses the water to dilute her acrylics and achieve the perfect hues
- A couple of people who make their own cosmetics dilute them with our pure water
- Our friends at Dr Zig’s use our water to make their brilliant gigantic bubble kits (pictured above)
- Our water is even credited with bringing the stars closer to earth, as we know several people who buy it to clean their telescope lenses with
Perhaps our very favourite use though is our customers who feed it to their Venus fly traps. Apparently, they lap it up. One online reviewer wrote ‘my plant gained a few traps since using it (which might also be increased sunshine) and looks very healthy all over.’
We do like a happy venus fly trap.
Landscape: Jess Lea-Wilson
Bubbles: Matt Russell