Why we don't use palm oil

I have fond memories of my late Grandma, giving me a thorough wash using palm oil as a little toddler. Palm oil for me does not bring up contention of environmental decline and devastation, rather it was a product that wove its way through my upbringing. I recall the palm oil soup, the palm oil soap and let’s forget palm oil itself. We always used to have a bottle of palm oil in the kitchen that mum would use on occasion.

Now this slowly stopped, palm oil went from being a product we had at home, to being a product that you would find in; lipstick, margarine, pizza dough and chocolate amongst a long list of things. It’s a product you will find in everything and anything these days including soap. 

Admittedly palm oil is a decent oil to use in soap however we have opted out of using it in our products, this is because we have come to the sad conclusion that we believe that, as it stands it is hard to make palm oil sustainable. This is because the current demand outpaces the growing of palm oil and forests continue to be destroyed to meet this demand, given its wide application from food to makeup, to skincare. As you know, deforestation has been linked to the death of wildlife and climate change and although we are planting trees if we continue to use such a land heavy in-demand ingredient we would be contributing to the damage not helping it.

There are better, less taxing products in our opinion, that are good quality ingredients to use. That is why we use olive oil, coconut oil, shea butter, cocoa oil and avocado oil in our products. These oils are lovely, gentle and although they all have an environmental impact, we believe it is still less than the devastation caused by the demand for palm oil. Our focus on the environment and minimising our impact on the earth is why we donate £1 to One Tree Planted and use recyclable packaging.