A Palm Oil Replacement In Personal Care Products

Palm oil (INCI: Elaeis gineensis oil) is a widely utilized ingredient in the skin care industry, in color cosmetics and in personal care products.

Palm oil is prepared by mashing the fruit of the palm tree and pressing out the crude oil. It can happen that in the industrial process of harvesting and pressing the fruits, some corners are cut and the fruit bunches are pressed without separating the fruits, so that the extracted oil is mixed with other liquids originating from other components of the bunch.

The palm tree grows in Africa, in South East Asia, and in Central and South America. Indonesia and Malaysia account for more than 80% of the world production of palm oil. In many countries that experienced colonization before achieving independence in the mid-20th Century, the legislation relative to labor, worker protection and health care is no better now than it was in Victorian England, nearly two centuries ago, when eight-year-old children worked in the coal mines and the average worker’s working day was 13 hours long. In these countries, the status of the female workers was, and still is, even worse due to the cultural hegemony of the local religious establishments. Abuse of  women is, therefore, endemic.
 
In addition, the lucrative commerce of palm oil has encouraged the clearing of natural forests and the planting of palms, thus significantly altering the habitat and provoking a perverse ecological effect, such as the endangerment of the orangutan. Last but not least, the harvesting and processing of fruit bunches has been linked to the massive emission of gases with greenhouse effect.

Heavy interventions by foreign states into the affairs of independent nations on the basis of political grounds are matter of debate. As of today, history indicates that such interventions do not seem to have achieved much, neither in the field of civil rights, nor in the domain of social improvement. On the other hand, a consensus has developed such that individual citizens and single players in the industrial world can decide to stop purchasing raw materials and manufactured products from countries where violations of basic civil rules are blatant. And we are facing in these days a simmering boycott action aimed at curbing the use of palm oil to coerce palm oil producing countries into eliminating abuse of women and children.


The Chemistries

Palm oil should not be confused with palm kernel oil. Palm kernel oil contains about 50% lauric acid, 15% myristic acid, 7% palmitic acid, 14% oleic acid, about 5% each of caprilic and capric acid and 2% each of stearic and linoleic acid. Palm oil’s composition is quite different. It is reported to consist of roughly 1% myristic acid, 45% palmitic acid, 4% stearic acid, 40% oleic acid, 9% linoleic acid, and 0.2% α-linolenic acid.

Nothing makes these two oils unique and they don’t contain anything that can’t be found in other vegetable oils, and sometimes do not contain much desired fatty acids. Indeed, palm oil’s major components, oleic acid and palmitic acid, are present at comparable rates in olive oil and in grapefruit seed oil, respectively, and palm kernel oil’s composition is remarkably similar to the composition of coconut oil. On the other hand, palm oil is devoid of specific biochemical components with desired cosmetic efficacies. For instance, when it comes to α-linolenic acid, a fatty acid known to have beneficial effects on the cardio-circulatory system as well as to lighten the UV-induced hyperpigmentation of the skin, it is present only in trace amounts in palm oil whereas it is present at 50-60% in flaxseed oil.

From the biochemical point of view, therefore, nothing opposes replacing either palm kernel oil with coconut oil, or palm oil with a blend of olive oil and of grapefruit seed oil.  A consumer willing to boycott the palm oil producing countries that violate child and women rights can therefore feel entitled in demanding that palm oil be totally removed from personal care products and replaced with equivalent ingredients.


Possible Replacements

Major distributors of personal care products do have the industrial capability and the financial elasticity to change the supply chains and make sure that the reformulated products maintain the esthetic, the stability and the efficacy of the discontinued ones. Minor players might not have such capabilities and might tend to continue using palm oil because it keeps the cost of goods within acceptable limits. The unintended consequences of a boycott, though, might be profoundly negative. Hundreds of thousands of farmers in developing countries, even the ones that do not practice child and women abuse, could be deprived of their source of income, with unpredictable political effects such as vehement anti-western feelings, fanned by the religious establishment. In addition, in the waiting for organic palm oil to be produced at acceptable cost while respecting ecological standards, many poor-quality ingredients might be introduced as replacements, with unforeseeable consequences on product safety.

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Paolo Giacomoni, PhD
Insight Analysis Consulting
paologiac@gmail.com
516-769-6904

Paolo Giacomoni acts as an independent consultant to the skin care industry. He served as executive director of research at Estée Lauder and was head of the department of biology with L’Oréal. He has built a record of achievements through research on DNA damage and metabolic impairment induced by UV radiation as well as on the positive effects of vitamins and antioxidants. He has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed publications and has more than 20 patents.