If you’ve been reading along, you know that we love to break down buzzwords and viral ingredients.
Palm oil has been top of mind for years, across industries. Much like parabens and phthalates, it’s an ingredient that has sneaked its way into a huge amount of our daily goods. It’s one of the most versatile vegetable oils in the world, with a massive effect on the global economy and environment.
We’re here to answer all your pressing questions about palm oil, and explain why it doesn’t fall in line with our definition of clean skincare.
What is Palm Oil & Why is it Everywhere?
Palm oil is an absolute powerhouse ingredient in everything from skincare to food products to biofuel. It is incredibly easy to harvest, making up 30% of the global oil market, and representing tens of thousands of jobs across the world, especially in Southeast Asia. As a goods manufacturer, it can be hard to resist. As a consumer, it can be hard to avoid.
You can find palm oil in more than 70% of all cosmetics products. It’s a hugely popular skincare ingredient for a variety of reasons:
- It’s affordable.
- It contains Vitamin E and moisturizing components.
- It has no smell or colour, so it doesn’t need to be modified before being added as an ingredient.
- It has a long shelf-life.
It creates jobs, it’s versatile, and readily available—you know there’s a catch coming somewhere.
So, why don’t sustainable beauty brands (like Lake+Main) use palm oil in their products?
The Environmental Toll of Palm Oil Production
In the age of climate change, deforestation is a concept we know all too well—it can feel easy to become desensitized to it. The palm oil industry is the perfect opportunity to put the damage back into perspective.
Palm oil producers often clear land for plantations by using large forest fires that release huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. For example, Indonesia produces more than half of the world’s palm oil, and (by no coincidence) ranks number eight on the list of largest greenhouse gas emitters in the world.
Over 27 million hectares of forest (more land mass than New Zealand) has been cleared to farm palm oil.
These plantations reduce some of the most biodiverse jungles in the world into monocultures that disrupt local environments on a massive scale. To give one example, palm oil is regarded as the leading cause of orangutan extinction, killing up to 5,000 of the endangered animals every year.
More Sustainable Alternatives
Rather than boycotting the ingredient altogether, certain companies have joined initiatives like the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, who are working to stop deforestation and protect wildlife.
If you want to avoid palm oil altogether, it can be difficult to identify it in your products, even for eagle-eyed label-readers like ourselves. Just as “fragrance" can refer to dozens of different chemicals, there are thousands of palm oil derivatives that go by many names.
Rather than scouting your products for “fatty methyl esters” and “fatty alcohols”, it can be easier to opt for products that straight up avoid the ingredient altogether.
For us, avoiding palm oil doesn’t feel like a compromise. We use these amazing alternatives:
- Virgin Olive Oil: Palm oil’s richer, cooler older sister. We love it for its deeply moisturizing and nourishing properties.
- Apricot Oil: A lightweight alternative to palm oil that we use for its hydrating qualities.
- Evening Primrose Oil: It’s as luxurious as it sounds. We use this ingredient for its anti-inflammatory and skin-soothing benefits.
What Clean Skincare Means to Lake+Main
The first step towards clean and sustainable skincare is transparency. We work to make our labels as simple to read as possible—which is pretty easy for us, because we designed the products ourselves, ingredient by ingredient.
During the development process, we did our own research. While ingredients like palm oil, fragrance oil, mica, and retinol aren’t “evil”, you won’t find them in our products because they simply don’t align with our definition of clean skincare.
You will find ingredients that serve a purpose, and make a real difference in your routine without the environmental cost.
