Lavender Soap

Plastic hand wash bottles and bar soap that always comes packaged in plastic. (Even if you think you’ve found one just in cardboard, the soap inside still has a plastic wrapper on. Much frustration.)

No plastic packaging! Just a cardboard box. It also contains no palm oil, and has only a few ingredients unlike most mass-produced soap. Why do you need a list of 20 odd ingredients for soap? You don’t. It’s ridiculous. Much better for your skin this way.

You can buy handmade soap with no packaging in quite a few places, soap making as a hobby and therefore a business is on the rise. Unfortunately, it tends to be really expensive. In my research for a soap company that didn’t charge extortionate prices, I found that the average price of a bar of handmade soap tended to be around £3.95. Don’t get me wrong it’s all beautifully handcrafted, but as it is mainly marketed as a luxury item, I imagine that they sell well as gifts more than anything. I wanted to find a company that made soap that was more affordable for everyday use …and didn’t use palm oil.* Then I found the Friendly Soap Company, which proudly has no palm oil in its products and at £2.95 a bar is definitely one of the best-priced options.

 

*That was hard work. Palm oil is in everything, try looking at the soap in the supermarket and find me one without palm oil. Even the handmade soap makers chuck it in. Palm oil is bad. Even ‘responsibly sourced’ palm oil doesn’t really cut it, as the certifications are not really regulated yet. Forest fires that burnt for months in 2015 in Indonesia were partly due to palm oil plantations, as the farmers engage in slash and burn tactics to grow new crops, which obviously gets out of hand. These fires are happening more and more frequently, destroying the precious rainforests and endangering animals such as orangutans.

What is the soap made from?

INGREDIENTS: Sodium Olivate (Olive Oil), Sodium Cocoate (Coconut Oil), Aqua (Water), Butyrospermum Parkii Butter (Shea Butter), Lavandula Angustifolia essential oil, (Lavender Oil, contains Linalool, Limonene and Geraniol which are all chemicals which come from the plant itself) Lavandula Angustifolia (lavender) flowers.

 

That’s it. Six ingredients, one of which is water. If that’s not pure and natural I don’t know what is. Keeping your hair clean doesn’t have to be complicated after all.

 

Where does the soap come from?

Made in the UK.

 

Is it sustainable and environmentally friendly?

Olive Oil does have some environmental issues within its production, mainly due to intensive farming methods. However, a lot of olive oil farming is still done by small scale farmers using traditional methods, which is much better environmentally.

 

Coconut oil seems to be ok. 

 

Shea butter is great. It is a very sustainable and environmentally friendly in production, because it does not grow in plantations, (it is therefore wild) and has no need for irrigation or pesticides. Unrefined shea butter is best.

 

Lavender is considered a sustainable crop as it doesn’t need pesticides or fertilizers to grow. English Lavender is the hardiest, (of course, look at our ridiculous weather! You’d have to be a tough little plant to survive here.) and apparently the most fragrant. Despite this, the Lavender in the products we use is probably not actually grown in the UK.

 

Essential oil production generally uses steam distillation which has no environmental concerns, but it takes a lot of plant to make only a small amount of essential oil.

 

How about ethical?

Made in the UK by a small handmade soap business, so ethically we are all good here.

 

Extra good stuff:

Vegan, not tested on animals, free from palm oil and known skin irritants such as Sodium Lauryl Sulphate’s (foaming agent) and parabens (preservatives). Ooo and this one has an Ethical Consumer ‘Best Buy’ seal of approval. Get in!

 

Conclusion –

Shampoo with no plastic, palm oil and good ingredients? What more could you want!