Itâ€
s been a long time coming. We are officially going to rework ALL our soap formulations to completely exclude palm oil from now onwards.
For years, we at Kinder Soaps have been agonising over the use of palm oil in our soap. Weâ€ve held on to it for so long because
- it lends good lather, cleansing and moisturising properties to our soap;
- it is the cheapest ingredient we hold in our inventory;
- it is very accessible.
That is, it makes good business sense to keep using the stuff in our products.
However we can no longer turn a deaf ear, nor a blind eye to the many issues surrounding the use of palm oil globally. The ones that are of particular interest to us are
- rampant deforestation of virgin rainforests to make way for new plantations;
- the use of the slash and burn technique to clear old crops in Indonesia, which gives rise to the choking haze that has to be suffered by its citizens, as well as its neighbouring countries, every year.
Our choice to distance ourselves from using this key trade crop for our country may not leave any significant impact on the industry as a whole – but we will certainly be able to sleep better at night, knowing that we are actively taking steps to be a smaller part of the problem.
(I keep thinking of the future environment that my children will grow up being accustomed to – easy access to unspoilt forests, or just swathes of mono-cultured land?)
What does this mean for our customers?
You will still be getting great soap bars that are just as nourishing for the skin – which will also be even more gentle on our environment. 
We will be using a lot more coconut oil in our soap base formulations. They make for hard, long-lasting bars of soap that also give wonderfully fluffy lather, and together with the olive oil and cocoa butter, the resulting soap will still have great moisturizing properties too.
This decision comes at a price – doing away with palm oil means that it will cost more for us to produce each bar of soap. So as we gradually roll out the new palm-free formulations to replace the soaps that eventually get sold out, we will also be adjusting their prices upward, between 10-15%. Some soaps may be their prices revised by an even larger percentage, because of their essential oil prices (we havenâ€t decided on their price tiering just yet). For now, however, you will still be able to get your soap at the old price of RM22 per bar.
So all in all, we are very excited to roll out our new formulations – and to be a part of the global movement to hopefully make a sustainable change to this earth-damaging, yet critical, industry.
Please share our story with your Facebook network, your friends and family. We will need your support more than ever, as we try to do our best by Nature, on whom we depend entirely for all our needs. And if you have anything to add to this issue, please comment on this post or get in touch with us at ask@kindersoaps.com. We’d be more than happy to chat with you.