Celebrating 2 years of palm oil free soap

Welcome to YouChoose, a blog where we explore ways of living sustainably. This week I would like to share a small victory in my effort to free myself of palm oil (and plastic bottles).

It has been about two years since I bought my last bottle of liquid soap. The original intention was to reduce the use of plastic bottles, after all there are plenty of soap bars that can be used as alternatives. However, as I learned more about the ingredients in common soap bars and how they contribute to deforestation I decided to look for soap without palm oil.

That is where the real challenge began. I naively went around looking for palm oil free soap and realized that it is virtually impossible to find one. Now you may look at the ingredients in the soap (liquid or solid) in your home and be at peace because you won’t see a single mention of palm oil, still you’ll see seemingly innocuous ingredients such as: Sodium laureth (lauryl) sulfate, glyceryn, sodium kernelate, or additional names containing the palm suffix. These ingredients signal the presence of palm oil in the product. For example components such as laureth sulfate can be produced synthetically from petroleum oil or made using coconut or palm oil. Unfortunately, unless it is clearly stated that the product is palm oil free, you can be 99% sure that it is produced using palm oil. Note that many of these products are advertised as “natural”, “vegan”, “green”, which of course technically they are, except that their production brings devastation and deforestation.

Having failed hard on my attempt to purchase a palm oil free soap bar locally I turned my attention to the web. There are online several companies that produce really great palm oil free soap bars, the prices are also quite steep. It is understandable how these products may not be for every pocket, which brings us to the more general question of whether one has to be wealthy to be able to afford sustainable products. As it happens some of these products were too pricey for my pockets as well.

At the end of the day a compromise had to be made. I had to give up a luscious, foaming, creamy soap and fall back on a 100% olive oil soap bar. I resolved to use the scented ones for hands and shower, and the unscented ones for dishes. The price is very reasonable, they come in a paper box and wrapped in paper. They however don’t make a nice rich foam and come in limited scents. In the end for me this is a small price to pay to avoid palm oil and all the trail of destruction that comes with it.

I make liquid soap from the olive oil soap bar this way:

• Bring 6 cups (or about 1.5 liters) of water to a boil
• Grate 1 bar (or 3.5 ounces) of soap. Cutting the soap in small pieces also works

• When the water is boiling lower the heat and place the soap in water
• Turn off the heat and let the soap melt

• Let it cool off
• Transfer to a bottle, it is liquid at the beginning, but becomes dense later

The amount of water may vary depending on the soap and on personal preferences so one may need to experiment a little. One can also add essential oils for specific fragrances. On my part I now use basic olive soap also for dishes and found it to be fairly good.

Perhaps in time I’ll find better alternatives, I recently found a possible substitute for the dishes, but haven’t tried it yet.

At the end of the day I have come to a conclusion that we can’t keep the same habits and hope that the outcome will change. We have to give up some things we like to switch to more sustainable products. We can argue that all these efforts are just a drop and don’t make a big difference, but if more people say no to products derived from palm oil the outcome may actually change.

The YouChoose app provides several links and information on beauty products and cosmetics ingredients that are unsustainable and bad for the environment.