Ionic liquids, organic room-temperature molten salts have percolated into many fields of science. A major problem for many applications, however, is caused by the commonly fluorinated anion, that on contact with water decomposes to release HF. Ionic liquids with hydrophilic anions do not have these problems. In addition, because of their tuneable hydrophilicity, they interface better with biotechnology, providing a route to truly ‘tuneable water.’ Currently available synthetic routes, however, contain strong disadvantages which may have caused the underexposure of this class of ionic liquids. In this manuscript, we provide a novel facile route to ionic liquid crystals with different hydrophilic anions, yielding pure materials as a result of our very mild reaction conditions. Our generic approach may be used to prepare conventional ionic liquids, but also provides access to functionalised ionic liquids.