Is Palm Oil Bad for Your Skin? Understanding Its Impact

The world, it seems, has an insatiable demand for palm oil.

It is the most widely used vegetable oil on Earth.

Pick up any cosmetic, and you’ll likely find palm oil in the ingredient list.

Not surprisingly, it is one of the biggest fights environmental activists are waging right now.

Deforestation, displacement of wildlife, and child labour.

These are just some of the knock-on effects of the palm oil industry.

What is Palm Oil?

Two species of this oil are Elaeis guineensis and Elaeis oleifera. The oil palm tree produces two types of oil: palm kernel, which comes from the seed, and palm oil, which comes from the fruit.

Crude palm oil is used to manufacture soap and in the food industry. In the personal care industry, palm kernel oil produces fatty acids and alcohols, which are substances used by emulsifier and surfactant manufacturers.

Alternate Names for Palm Oil

Since the generic term ‘vegetable oil‘ can refer to palm oil and its numerous derivatives, it can be tricky to determine whether a product contains it.

Here are a few to look out for:

• If it contains the word ‘palm’, such as palm kernel, palm fruit oil, palmate, glyceryl, stearate, palmitic acid, palm stearine, palmitoyl oxostearamide, palmitoyl tetrapeptide-3
• Popular surfactants, including sodium laureth, lauryl sulfate, and lauryl lactylate/sulfate, are derived from palm.
• The following are all palm oil-derived emulsifiers often used in organic skincare: cetearyl olivate, sorbitan olivate, sorbitan stearate, cetearyl glucoside, glyceryl stearate, and glyceryl oleate.

The Major Problems of Palm Cultivation

Palm trees are highly productive, making this oil a valuable source that yields more per acre than other oils, such as soy and coconut.

To produce sufficient quantities of palm oil to meet expanding demand, farmers in Southeast Asia have cleared large areas of tropical forest rich in biodiversity to create room for large palm tree plantations.

Production has recently become the leading cause of deforestation in countries such as Indonesia and other equatorial states, where more small rainforests are being cleared.

In recent years, the orangutan population in Indonesia, which depends on tropical forests, has decreased by 50%.

Deforestation of these forests is an essential contributor to global warming, given the amount of carbon dioxide (CO) stored by trees that remain alone. After the forests are cut down, tons of CO₂ go into the sky, where it causes the most damage.

Also, when oil palm plantations do not replace them, rainforests maintain water sources by capturing rainfall and releasing it into rivers, minimising Soil depletion and flooding.

Tropical forests and peatlands, which are marshlands with soils consisting of decomposed peat vegetation, are the ecosystems most susceptible to the spread of oil palm plantations.

Peat acts like a sponge, absorbing water and helping prevent flooding. It also contains a large amount of carbon. When peatlands drain, the accumulated carbon reacts with the atmosphere, releasing CO₂ and increasing greenhouse gas concentrations.

Dry peat becomes more flammable, increasing the chances of large fires when plantation operators use light to work on it and ignite waste in the fields.

Endangered Species

Greenhouse gas emissions also occur when palm plantations are cut from the rainforest.

Palm plantations have low biodiversity, meaning most animals and plants in tropical forests must be destroyed or lost.

Such farms are unsuitable for animals, and endangered species such as the Sumatran rhino, the Sumatran tiger, and the orangutan are threatened. In the past 16 years alone, the quest for palm oil has killed an estimated 100,000 orangutans.

A simple boycott of this oil and its products may be ineffective because a decline in demand could force the companies behind the plantations to intensify timber extraction and convert more land to agriculture, which would significantly increase their impact on the land, air, and water.

Countries involved in production regulate the industry and provide adequate tools for its application.

However, Indonesian officials and others do not want to suppress their golden goose, as the sale of this oil brings big profits.

Sustainable Palm Oil

Several giant producers work with banks and non-profit groups to ‘green’ the industry. In 2003, about 200 global supply chain commercial organisations convened and formed The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO)to boost palm oil growth.

For the environment, the RSPO is developing definitions and criteria for sustainable palm oil production while promoting the adoption of environmental-friendly practices throughout the sector.

The group celebrated its first environmentally friendly palm oil supply to Europe in November last year. Many organisations worldwide are working hard to address and eliminate the deforestation associated with palm oil. However, for 15 years, only 17% of the palm oil extracted can be labelled as sustainably certified.

Consumer pressure is the only solution for manufacturers to consider more sustainable methods.

Check labels, ask questions, and look for RSPO–certified palm oil, which manufacturers must produce in accordance with strict rules.

To conclude. The naked truth

So, as you can see, not all palm cultivation is terrible. There are some examples out there of good growing practices that incorporate palm.

However, over the years, the industrialisation of palm crops has caused the most problems.

The Naked Chemist is about transparency, and removing palm oil from our formulas is in progress.

We campaign to educate customers about the environmental degradation caused by the current cultivation of oil palm crops and the devastating effects of deforestation.