Have you seen PALM OIL in the shops? It's hard. And cheap. Very cheap. 500ml of PALM OIL will set you back about £3. The same volume of cocoa butter will cost around three times that price.
The cheapest way to produce hard soap?
PALM OIL (aka Elaeis guineensis) has other qualities too, but most soaps that still rely on it do so because it's the cheapest plant-based way to produce a hard bar of soap. The other cheap way is to use lard, which you may know as tallow, or dripping.
Why must soap be hard?
If soap's not hard, it won't last as long. It will go soft, and soggy, and won't feel as nice. Even if you keep it in an appropriate soap dish that allows for drainage (you should always do this with soap), it just won't be as hard, or as good, as a nicely cured, well-balanced hard soap, such as Big Cojones, by Clean Alibi.
Did you know that SLS is a common PALM OIL derivative?
Hard soap aside, you'll mostly find PALM OIL derivatives rather than the whole oil in your beauty products. It's used for its foaming agents (eg Sodium Lauryl Sulfate/SLS) as well as its emollient properties (eg Cetearyl Alcohol).
SLS is an anionic surfactant, not a soap. It acts as a wetting agent and detergent, which is why it helps with the lather. It's also an emulsifier, which acts to bind oils/fat to water. Soap isn't a mere emulsifyer. It's far more spectacular: soap is amphiphilic.
To make a plant-based hard soap without resorting to PALM OIL, there's no way around it. You need to indulge. And that's where precious butters like Cocoa, Mango, and Shea come in. The balance of oils also matters, which is why we include a good amount of Coconut Oil, which has a high Saponification Value, and helps with a nice clean lather without going soft.
Trusted facts about the harms of PALM OIL: Ask the WWF
The World Wildlife Fund is a far better source for information on the disastrous impact of PALM OIL than we could ever be. Check out their page here for all the facts you can trust.
