What is Palm Oil?
Palm oil is the oil extracted from the fruit of “oil palms”. Yes, it really is that simple, like coconut or olive oil. Palm kernel oil is extracted from the kernel inside the fruit.
Specifically, the fruit from three basic types of trees are used. The African Oil Palm is most common, but the American Oil Palm and the Maripa Palm may also be used. The fruit is then mashed, bashed, and mangled. The resulting pulp is placed in a centrifuge or other extractor. The extracted oil is sent to a refiner to eliminate any remaining pulp or impurities. It can now be used for a host of products, including as food oil and a soap ingredient.
The US uses between 3% and 4% of the current supply of palm oil. It is approved for use in both cosmetics and food. From hand lotion to salad dressing, it’s pretty likely you’ve used palm oil recently. Most of the world’s palm oil is used in countries like China and India for use in cooking and other products.
What Does Palm Oil Do for Soap?
Ah, what palm oil does for soap! It’s known to create the perfect lather – not too tight and foamy, not too bubbly and short-lived. It creates a soap that is both cleansing and moisturizing. It’s color is fairly consistent, so it’s easier to create products with color. Palm oil works well both in the soaping process to make beautiful designs, and in the shower to create cleansing lather.
Palm oil is frequently the best possible replacement for the traditional fats used to make soap – lard and tallow. While it can be reasonable and responsible to use those fats as well, our vegan and vegetarian friends obviously prefer something else.
Why Wouldn’t You Use Palm Oil?
Palm for palm oil is grown on large plantations. The bulk of the plant matter comes from places like Indonesia, Malaysia, and many countries in South Asia and Africa. Larger producers, which make up more than 50% of the business, have caused some deforestation. Orangutan habitats are destroyed, and rain forests cleared.
Property rights of local communities have also been violated, with some companies taking over land without permission from local communities or traditional landowners. These things are all quite bad.
Um, That Makes Sense. Then Why Use It At All?
Because there’s more to the story! Remember, the US uses only a very small portion of the palm oil produced in the world. And remember, not all of those palm plantations are run by giant corporations. About 40% palm producers qualify as “small farms”. Not all producers ruin the rain forest or use unscrupulous business tactics. Let’s take a closer look at the other side of those environmental and economic factors, and responsible sourcing of palm oil.
Evnironment
Since palm oil is currently in use around the world, “simply” switching oils en masse could cause deforestation and the exact same problems in the areas that grow those oils. Since those include shea, castor, and cocoa, we’re talking about much of the same areas used to grow palm. Just as it happened with palm oil, larger companies could buy or take large swaths of land, leaving the same devastation. A large shift in the oils used could actually cause problems rather than solving them.
In using current palm farms, we help to prevent land being cleared for the making of other oils.
Economics
With the US using less than 5% of the world’s palm, let’s look at what would happen if we stopped using it. When a product’s sales slow the first to feel it are the small businesses. If 5% of the US suddenly stopped buying toilet paper, it wouldn’t put Charmin out of business. It would put some small-time dude making all-natural recycled tp in his garage out of business. Unless China, India, and other countries were to also stop using palm, we can’t touch the “big guys”.
What we CAN do is ruin the small farms, the small local economies, and the emerging middle classes that didn’t exist in some places before this massive worldwide need for palm oil. We’d take away the livelihood of the bottom 5%, never making a single dent in the companies doing the harm. And that’s if every company in the US, large or small, food or cosmetics, stopped using palm oil.
Private Property Use
In the most remote areas, these plantations are now bringing new life to stagnant generational lands. The people now have new access to money and opportunity never previously considered.
It’s our stance that these rightful owners should be able to use what they have to earn an income. In fact, we like it so much that it’s the real reason we chose to use palm oil in some bars. To support those people who use their land to responsibly earn a living.
This brings us full circle, because those folks want to carefully maintain the eco-system that allows them to have this business. Larger or unscrupulous companies can just clear more land. Private landowners must care for that which they have.
How We Source Palm Responsibly
We source palm oil only from members of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, or those who follow other strict rules for sustainable growth. They use a program that tracks individual batches of palm oil directly back to the farms and refiners. The farms must adhere to local laws and property rules. No human rights violations allowed – people must be paid a fair wage and farmers given fair value for their palm.
This system allows us to know for sure that we’re making a difference, even if it is small. Some family somewhere has a little bit more than they did the day before. Some farmer can keep his inherited land, and provide income for future generations.
Our Choice
When we first began this journey, we were well aware of the environmental impact palm oil could have. We were determined not to use it at all. But upon further study, with the knowledge that palm could be acquired responsibly, we decided to go ahead.
We give customers the option of using responsibly-sourced palm oil, and offer many soaps with no palm at all. We also give the farmers more options – options to send their kids to college or hire more workers. With our company values of liberty and self-reliance, it just made good sense!