Ingredient

Cocos Nucifera Oil (Coconut Oil/Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil)

Cocos nucifera

Featured in our products for its countless benefits for skin and hair, this blend is primarily used to create the foaming base of our soaps.

This particular ingredient consists of two different coconut oils. In some of our soaps, we use a combination of soap bases, one made externally with regular coconut oil, and one made in-house with organic certified extra virgin coconut oil. Both palm-free, they complement each other to make a very creamy and soothing lather. To create a soap base, oils are heated with sodium hydroxide and water, in a process known as saponification.

Where do we source the organic extra virgin coconut oil for our in-house soap base?

Since 2017, Lush has purchased certified organic oil directly from āluān, a collective of organisations in the Aceh region of Indonesia, more precisely, the islands of Bangkaru and Simeulue. They work with 500 smallholder farming families on 2600 hectares of land. Alongside producing superior-quality coconut oil, they aim to keep the islands wild through a sustainability approach in which business, people, and nature thrive side by side. The āluān collective is a foundation dedicated to conserving and restoring ecosystems and endangered species (such as reefs, green turtles, and orangutans). With support from Lush, they also started a pilot project to grow and plant new coconut trees to replace ageing crops and ensure successful continuation.

Making soap Lusher than we found it

Throughout history, soap-making has largely retained the same process: boiling oils and fats with an alkali to produce soap and glycerine. Traditionally, the fats used were mostly beef or sheep tallow; however, over time olive, palm and coconut oils joined the list of favoured fats.

As a vegetarian company, Lush has never used animal oils. Given the environmental impact of palm oil’s overproduction, in 2007, we decided it was time to go one step further and reinvent the vegetable soap base, to make it palm oil-free. We worked with a leading UK soap base manufacturer and developed a base of sunflower, rapeseed, and coconut oils. In 2009, we settled on a formula with just rapeseed and coconut oil. Lush inventors, eager to vary effects and textures and choose the most qualitative and ethical oil sources, have continued to develop their own in-house soap bases. Aluān's coconut oil is found in many of these bases, and has even helped us phase out palm-derived sodium lauryl sulfate, another foaming agent, from almost all of our soaps.

What is the benefit of coconut oil in soaps?

• Gentle on the skin
• A dense and creamy lather
• Great alternative to palm oil

At Lush, we call the foaming paste described above a ‘soap base’ rather than just ‘soap’, because to create the most complete, effective, gentle and fragrant soaps, we also add other high-quality ingredients (such as humectants, butters and essential oils) to each formula.