Palm Oil Free
At Usk Valley Herbs, every product we make is 100% palm oil free — our soaps, balms, bath salts, and home fragrance. Here's why that matters — and what we use instead.
The problem with palm oil
Palm oil is one of the most widely used ingredients in commercial soap and cosmetic making. It's cheap, it produces a hard bar with a stable lather, and it's easy to source at scale. It's also one of the most environmentally destructive crops on the planet.
The demand for palm oil has driven the clearance of vast areas of tropical rainforest across Southeast Asia, West Africa, and Latin America — destroying habitat for orangutans, pygmy elephants, Sumatran tigers, and thousands of other species. It has displaced indigenous communities and contributed significantly to carbon emissions from peatland destruction.
We looked at the evidence and made a straightforward decision: palm oil has no place in anything we make.
Our soaps
Formulating soap without palm oil takes more care. We use a considered blend of plant-based oils that together deliver everything palm oil is typically used for — hardness, lather quality, and skin feel — without the environmental cost.
Our soap base oils include:
- Olive oil — a traditional soap-making oil that produces a gentle, conditioning lather
- Coconut oil — sustainably sourced, it provides the cleansing and bubbling properties palm oil is often used to achieve
- Shea butter — adds hardness and a rich, nourishing quality to the finished bar
- Castor oil — a small addition that boosts lather and helps bind the formula
Our balms
Our botanical balms are built on a base of kokum butter, shea butter, beeswax, and coconut oil — natural alternatives that deliver the hardness and skin feel palm oil is typically used for, without the environmental cost. Every balm in our range, including our Wellness magnesium balms, is formulated without palm oil or palm kernel oil in any form.
Our bath salts
Our bath salts are mineral-based, blended with botanicals we grow and dry in the Usk Valley. Palm oil simply has no role in their formulation — and never will.
Our home fragrance
From our botanical room sprays to our scented products, every home fragrance we make is free from palm-derived ingredients.
What to look for
If you're trying to avoid palm oil across your bathroom and home, look out for these names on ingredient lists — they're all derived from palm:
- Sodium palmate
- Sodium palm kernelate
- Elaeis guineensis
- Palmitic acid
- Palm kernel oil
You won't find any of them in our products.
Part of something bigger
Our palm oil free commitment sits alongside everything else we believe in at Usk Valley Herbs — growing our own botanicals in the Usk Valley, using the hot process soap method to protect the integrity of our plant ingredients, and making everything slowly and honestly.
We're a small operation rooted in a specific piece of the Brecon Beacons. The health of that land, and land like it everywhere, is not separate from what we make. It's the reason we make it.
Explore our full range of palm oil free products — soaps, balms, bath salts, and home fragrance — across our Lavender Collection, Rose Collection, Chamomile Collection, The Herb Garden Collection, and Wellness range.