Ludwick Marishane invented a bath you do not need water for. He was 17.
South African inventor Ludwick Marishane came up with DryBath as a teenager. He turned it into a patented product, a company, and a business that sells mostly to export markets.
Ludwick Marishane was seventeen when he invented DryBath, a gel that cleans the skin without water. He went on to file a patent and, according to profiles, became one of the youngest people in South Africa to do so.
The idea matters because of where he is from. In places where running water is scarce or unreliable, washing is a daily problem, so a product that works without water is practical rather than a novelty.
From idea to formula
After school he won a scholarship to the University of Cape Town, in Cape Town. His business plan placed third in a university competition in his first year, and he used the prize money to make a first sample. The sample had problems, and Marishane brought in Dr Hennie du Plessis, a chemical engineer, who improved the formula. That detail is worth underlining: an inventor who knew what he did not know, and found someone who did.
He later earned an honours degree in business science at the University of Cape Town. During his student years he was recognised by the global entrepreneurship community and was named by Google among a group of notably promising young people.
A business, not a prize
Marishane is now managing director of Headboy, a product-development and commercialisation agency best known for DryBath. Profiles report that close to 90 percent of DryBath’s sales are made online to export markets, with more than half going to the United States. He has described business as “a hustle”, a sentiment that anyone selling a physical product across borders will recognise.
He has also been involved with the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers community in Johannesburg and co-founded an education technology company.
Why it still matters
DryBath is a reminder that innovation from Africa does not always take the form of an app. Sometimes it is a chemical formula, a patent and a hard slog to a supply chain. Marishane’s story also shows how African founders can reach customers in rich markets directly, through e-commerce, without waiting for a local distributor to believe in them.
