Products that may Contain Palm Oil Derived Ingredients

Biome no longer stocks products with ingredients that have any trace of palm oil. The 'hidden' use of palm oil has allowed the situation to get out of control.  Our aim is to bring the use of palm oil out in to the open so that we can at least confront the enormity of the reliance upon it and the decimation it is causing.

We are not suggesting that brands that use palm oil-derived ingredients are 'bad'. We are motivating brands to re-look at how they manufacture, take responsibility for the supply chain of their ingredients, and be transparent so that you can make informed choices. 

This process has already resulted in several brands reformulating. Once we were courageous to speak out about this, real change began happening!

Palm is a destructive and cruel industry that harms people, orangutans and other animals, causes deforestation, decimation of carbon-sink peat lands, dangerous fires, and global warming.

Brands often do not even know there is palm oil in their formulations, and if it is, where it came from.  With body care, cosmetics and cleaning products, the palm is rarely in the product as straight palm oil.  Palm is used to make thousands of synthetic ingredients, using other chemicals, heat and physical processes to change the chemical compound so that it becomes a surfactant, emulsifier, emolient or other, as is then labelled as that chemical.

To be on our shelves, a brand must provide written proof that the ingredients commonly derived from palm oil are guaranteed to be palm free at all times. Ingredient manufacturers alternate between palm, coconut or another oil depending upon seasonal supply and price.  Hence they are not prepared to make a written guarantee that their ingredient such as Glycerin, Glyceryl stearate or Cetyl alcohol will always be palm free.  We learned many times that a brand's reassurance is not enough.  Often the statement "to the best of our knowledge" is used, which is of course not proof at all. 

Further, claiming that any palm used is sustainable or RSPO is, in our opinion, most often misleading:

1) In most cases it is impossible to exactly trace where the palm that went into making a new chemical ingredient came from. Manufacturers use mass refined, pooled and traded palm oil from hundreds of sources to make the chemical. 

2) Even if could be traced, there is NO reliable certification scheme to ensure what went on at that plantation. RSPO has been discredited as an unreliable certification scheme by many experts including WWF and POI. Watch the videos on our palm oil page for more evidence of the disconnect between the dirty reality of what happens on the ground and the glossy 'sustainable' message on a consumer product.

Further, RSPO itself, mandates that for a claim of 'sustainable palm oil' to be made, the RSPO certified logo must appear on the final packaging.  So if there is no logo, then the retailer/brand is breaching RSPO's rules and should not be making an unsubstantiated claim.  

The only solution we believe is to change our reliance on palm oil by finding better ways of doing things.  While palm oil is supported as a solution, there will not be enough consumer pressure for brands to change.  Read more about why palm is so entrenched in natural products >

The great news is that we have found so many fabulous brands who are working without palm oil.  Please see them here in our Guide to Palm Oil Free Alternatives > 

Below are brands that have products that we believe do or may contain palm oil-derived ingredients based on information we possess at this time. We greatly appreciate the transparency and integrity of these brands in responding to our requests.  

Please note that brands may change their formulations or ingredient sourcing without our knowledge, so this list may no longer be accurate.  Please make your own inquiries to verify the facts with these brands.

TIP: We often see other retail stores claiming that a product is palm oil free based purely on "statements provided by the brand" without having done further due diligence themselves.

However, if the brand is confident that they are palm free, it is highly likely they would state this on the label or its website, as this is a feature that most brands would take pride in promoting, along with claims such as vegan and cruelty free. 

So, please do check the brand's packaging and website, and if it is not prepared to publicly make the palm oil free claim itself, then I would question why the retailer is making this claim publicly on their behalf. - Tracey