Soap is one of those everyday products most of us don’t think twice about. It’s familiar, functional, and easy to overlook. But when you start reading ingredient lists a little more closely, palm oil shows up — often more than once, and often under names that aren’t immediately recognisable.
Palm oil can sound deceptively benign. A tropical oil. Familiar. Even comforting — the kind of ingredient name that feels more at home in sunshine and skincare than in a serious conversation about impact.
In reality, palm oil is one of the most widely used vegetable oils in the world. It appears quietly in everything from food to cosmetics — including soap — because it’s efficient, inexpensive, and highly versatile. That efficiency is exactly why it’s become so common.
Palm oil is used in soap for practical reasons. But understanding why it’s there, how it’s produced, and what alternatives exist can help you make more informed choices.
What is palm oil and why is it used so widely?
Palm oil is the most widely used vegetable oil in the world. It appears in food, cosmetics, cleaning products and personal care items because it’s inexpensive to produce, highly versatile and performs reliably at scale.
Most palm oil is produced in Indonesia and Malaysia, where it has contributed significantly to economic growth. Demand continues to increase because palm oil yields more oil per hectare than many other crops — a factor that makes it especially attractive to large manufacturers.
The challenge isn’t that palm oil exists, but that the scale and methods of production have created impacts that are difficult to ignore.
Why palm oil raises environmental and social concerns
To meet global demand, vast areas of rainforest have been cleared to make way for palm oil plantations. This deforestation contributes to climate change and permanently alters ecosystems that once supported extraordinary biodiversity.
Wildlife such as orangutans, elephants, rhinos and tigers are among the species most affected, losing critical habitat as forests disappear. In some regions, local communities have also been displaced from their land, disrupting livelihoods and cultural connections.
These impacts are well documented — and ongoing — particularly where supply chains lack transparency.
Why palm oil is commonly used in soap
Palm oil is popular in soapmaking because it performs well. It helps create a hard bar, produces good lather, and extends shelf life. From a manufacturing perspective, it’s reliable, stable and cost-effective.
The issue isn’t whether palm oil works in soap. It’s whether the way it’s produced — and how traceable it is through complex supply chains — aligns with environmental and ethical values.
How palm oil appears on soap ingredient labels
Most commercial brands of soap contain palm oil. One of the biggest challenges for shoppers is that palm oil rarely appears on labels simply as “palm oil”.
In soaps and personal care products, it may appear as:
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sodium palmate
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sodium palm kernelate
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palmitate
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palmitoyl
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glycerine (plant-derived)
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or simply “palm”
Palm oil can also be present within other commonly used ingredients, making it difficult to identify even when reading labels carefully. This complexity is one reason many people feel overwhelmed trying to avoid it.
Is all palm oil the same? A note on sourcing and traceability
Palm oil can be produced in different ways, and certification schemes exist to improve industry practices. However, palm oil supply chains are complex, and tracing ingredients back to their source isn’t always straightforward — particularly once derivatives are involved.
For some brands, this uncertainty is enough to step back and reassess whether palm oil is essential at all, especially when alternatives exist and ingredient transparency matters.
Palm oil-free soap: what’s used instead (and why it matters)
Palm oil isn’t the only way to make a good bar of soap. Bar soaps can be made using a range of other fats and oils that deliver cleansing, hardness and lather — but with supply chains that are simpler to understand.
Common alternatives include:
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Olive oil — gentle and conditioning
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Coconut oil — good lather and cleansing strength
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Shea butter — rich and moisturising
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Castor oil or other traditional soapmaking fats — support texture and glide
Each of these ingredients brings its own qualities to soap. No ingredient is impact-free, but many soapmakers choose these options because they’re easier to trace and better suited to smaller-scale, transparent production.
Why Biome chooses palm oil-free soap (and how to choose without the overwhelm)
In 2017, Biome made the decision to remove palm oil and palm oil derivatives from all products we stock. This wasn’t a campaign or a trend response — it became a buying standard.
You can read more about our broader approach here:
👉 Our stance on palm oil
For soap, that means every bar on our shelves is chosen without palm oil, reducing the need for customers to decode long ingredient lists or second-guess unfamiliar names. It’s one less thing to navigate in everyday shopping.
Biome stocks only the best in natural soaps. Happily, there are quite a lot available.
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