Better By Less

Better By Less is a German body-care company based in Hamburg that sells soap, shower foam and shampoo as dry powders, which customers mix with water at home in a refillable foam dispenser. The idea is to stop shipping water in single-use plastic bottles: the product only becomes a liquid, and then a foam, once it reaches the customer's bathroom. Independent sources date the start-up to 2019.

The company is a small business operating through its own online shop, with retail and hotel customers as a second channel. It describes its range as natural, vegan and biodegradable, and has built its identity around a short motto: less, but better.

Better By Less presents itself as the product of a single conviction. In the company's own words, it grew out of the belief that real personal care needs nothing superfluous, only clarity, quality and responsibility. Its answer was to strip everyday washing products down to a few plant-based ingredients in powder form, and to replace the throwaway bottle with a dispenser designed to last.

The founders are not named in any published account of the company. The Hamburg start-up directory Startup City Hamburg lists four founders without giving their names [14]. The brand's own website introduces two people, Lea and Robin, as the pair who now run the business together, with Robin identified as chief executive. The company's legal notice names Robin Konow as managing director (Geschäftsführer) of Better by Less GmbH [7]. Whether either of them was among the original founders is not stated.

The founding year is likewise not given on the company's website. A 2023 article in the German magazine Nachhaltig Leben describes it as a Hamburg soap start-up active "since 2019", and two business directories, CB Insights and Startup City Hamburg, both record 2019 as the year it was established [9][13].

Nachhaltig Leben framed the start-up's aim as changing the ritual of hand-washing by combining natural plant ingredients with lower water use. Today its powder range covers hand soap, shower foam, shampoo and conditioner, and shaving foam.

In November 2023 the magazine published a product test of the hand soap scent "Pomegranate Passion", which it said had been developed in Grasse, the French perfume town. More recent additions extend beyond personal care: a dish-washing foam called "Herbal Clean" and a range of coloured dispensers, the Monocolor Collection, were both marketed as new on the company's website in 2026.

The company's website also runs a lifestyle blog, with articles on bathroom interiors, seasonal decoration, travel and everyday rituals.

Better By Less operates as Better by Less GmbH, a limited company registered at the district court in Hamburg. No parent company or acquisition is documented. CB Insights lists the start-up accelerator Entrepreneurs First as an investor and places the company at the incubator or accelerator stage, without disclosing funding amounts [13]. Startup City Hamburg describes it as a business-to-consumer company in the "Early Growth" stage with eight employees.

Sources disagree on the company's street address, though all place it in Hamburg. The legal notice gives Pickhuben 6 in the city's 20457 postal district. CB Insights records an address on Koppel, while Startup City Hamburg lists Harald-Stender-Platz; these may be earlier office locations [13][14].

The company sums up its approach as "less but better". According to Better By Less, that means fewer ingredients that still care for the skin, less packaging waste and more uses from each product. Its mission statement, written in the names of Lea and Robin, is to radically simplify sustainable body care without compromising on effect, design or experience.

The chief executive is quoted on the website as saying the company does not believe in going without, but in conscious choices. Better By Less frames its products as improvements to things people already use every day, rather than new needs, and says it questions habits and rethinks products from the ground up. Its stated values include "quality instead of quantity" and "conscious rituals instead of blind habits". The tagline on its homepage reads "Nachhaltig. Individuell. Better." (Sustainable. Individual. Better.)

Design is a large part of the pitch. The company describes its dispensers as customisable bathroom objects and says customers can choose from more than 700 combinations of bottle and pump to suit their room.

The core of the range is the powder. Each sachet holds a dry concentrate that the customer pours into the dispenser, tops up to a fill line with lukewarm water and shakes. According to the company, the powder dissolves fully in about ten minutes, and the mixed product keeps for at least three months. Better By Less says its powders and dispensers are matched to each other, and that ordinary soap dispensers may not work with its soaps.

The dispenser's foaming pump whips the liquid with air on the way out. The company says this lets it leave out the thickening and binding agents a conventional liquid soap needs, and that the foam makes each fill go up to twice as far as standard products. Nachhaltig Leben described the products as more than twice as economical as conventional liquid soap.

The refillable dispenser, which the company calls the Better Bottle, comes in glass and PET plastic. A travel version, "Squeeze & Go", is also sold. The powder range covers:

- Hand soap, in scents including Citric Zest, Velvet Care and Woody Spice - Shower foam, including Pure Bergamot and Green Gratitude - Shampoo, including Clean & Fresh, Orange and a volume variant, alongside conditioner - Shaving foam - Dish-washing foam, the household product Herbal Clean

Fragrance is a selling point. The company says its scents are complex, nature-based compositions created by perfumers in Grasse, and groups them into a "Parfum Selection" and a lighter "Care Selection". Nachhaltig Leben described the Pomegranate Passion scent as having a floral heart of jasmine, iris and orange blossom over a caramel-sweet base.

Customers can buy refills one at a time or by subscription. The sustainability blog gorilla.green noted that refills are posted as letters and that the dispenser, once bought, is meant to stay in use for life.

Better By Less markets its range as "100% Naturkosmetik", vegan and biodegradable. The goodbrands.love portal also lists the products as free from animal testing [11]. Nachhaltig Leben described them as COSMOS-certified [9]; the company's own website does not mention a certification body.

The business model is built around cutting packaging and transport weight. Better By Less points out that conventional liquid soaps are around 90% water; by selling only the concentrate, it says it saves packaging, space and weight in transit, and with them carbon emissions. Its principle is to avoid first, reuse second and recycle only last.

The figures quoted for these savings differ by source. The company's homepage claims 92% less plastic [1], while its mission page speaks of up to 90% less packaging material than conventional care products [2]. The natural-cosmetics retailer Belladonna states that packaging and transport volume are reduced by up to 95% [12]. The figures measure different things and are not directly comparable.

According to the company, one Better Bottle replaces about eight single-use plastic bottles a year [3], and both the glass and PET versions are fully recyclable at the end of their life. The powder sachets are made from a single type of plastic, polyethylene, so that recycling plants can identify and process them. Better By Less says it tested compostable and paper-based materials but found they did not protect the powder well enough against humidity.

Parcels are shipped carbon-neutral through DHL GoGreen, and refill envelopes are made from recycled paper with their shipping emissions offset. The company says it follows a "triple bottom line" approach that weighs economic, social and environmental goals equally. It also acknowledges it has not yet reached zero waste and describes that as a goal it is working towards with its customers.

Coverage of Better By Less comes mainly from German sustainability media. Nachhaltig Leben's 2023 product test scored the hand soap 5.0 for scent and texture, 4.5 for design, 4.5 for sustainability and 4.7 overall. The blog gorilla.green included the company in a roundup of six German brands of mix-at-home body care, describing it as a young Hamburg start-up. On the goodbrands.love portal, the starter kit carries an average rating of 4.8 out of 5 from 16 reviews. No awards are documented.

Better By Less is active. Its online shop is live with a current product range, and new products were being introduced in 2026. The company sells mainly direct to consumers through its own German-language shop, which ships to all EU countries and Switzerland, and also supplies retail and hotel customers.