Let’s lather up a list of palm oil free shampoo. Because you might not know this, but palm oil (or its many derivatives) is commonly found in shampoo—for no good reason other than increasing a company’s profit.
While the complex palm oil free debate isn’t solved by boycotting the substance, we can reduce our reliance on it, especially in products where it serves no purpose. We’d rather jump in the shower with palm oil free shampoo brands who put planet before the bottom the line.
While you’re refreshing your scalp, we’re refreshing our content with our new Brand Rating System in hand. When we get around to applying it here, it will extend what we look for in brands we feature to 22 criteria including product performance, ingredient safety, and biodiversity impacts. To learn more about it, see here.
We independently research all featured brands and we ask them to confirm their claims. In many cases we personally review recommended products. This post contains affiliate links which means we may earn a commission if you buy something. Learn more here.
The Best Palm Oil Free Shampoo For A Low Impact Lather
Conscious Skincare provides a conscious alternative with palm oil and sulfate free shampoo to give your locks the TLC they deserve.
If you’re after palm oil free shampoo bars, Ethique is the hero of zero (waste, that is).
Shower Superfly Soap with love for having some of the best palm oil free shampoo made with ingredients so clean and food-grade, you could literally eat them (not that we recommend doing so!).
Index: Palm Oil Free Shampoo & Conditioner Brands
- Conscious Skincare Jump to brand
- Ethique Jump to brand
- Superfly Soap Jump to brand
- EcoRoots Jump to brand
- Friendly Soap Jump to brand
- Plaine Products Jump to brand
- Battle Green Jump to brand
- Biome Jump to brand
- Acure Jump to brand
Conscious Skincare
Conscious Skincare’s Palm Oil Free Shampoo UK
For pure, palm oil free shampoo, turn to Conscious Skincare. Not only are the shampoos and conditioners free of harmful chemicals, but they’re consciously packaged in glass bottles (pumps are optional) with refills available.
Their plant-based organic Cypress and Sage shampoo and conditioner infuses nourishing herbal oils with pro-vitamin B5 and prebiotics for a chemical and cruelty free cleanse. That and their Pure Sulfate Free are EWG verified.
About Conscious Skincare
As the name suggests, Conscious Skincare and its female founder, Rebecca, focus on natural and organic products with a clean conscience. Driven by personal health issues, she wanted to create products that worked—without complications or compromises.
From natural face wash to moisturizer, everything is made in-house, using ethically-sourced and palm oil free ingredients. Finished products are approved by the Vegetarian Society, PETA, and Leaping Bunny Cruelty Free.
Their philanthropic efforts include product donations to essential workers and support for animal rescue charities.
Ethique
Ethique’s Palm Oil Free Shampoo Bars
Whether your mane is oily, dry, damaged, flakey, curley, sensitive, or blonde—or you just want some balance—Ethique will cater to all and any of your follicles’ needs with a variety of formulas to choose from depending on your hair type. All are plant-based, palm oil free, vegan, and cruelty free.
Their zero waste shampoo and conditioner bars are compostable in wrapping and concentrated in formula, that is one bar equals around three bottles of liquid shampoo. Unlike some other natural shampoos, there’s no transition period required either.
About Ethique
New Zealand-started, globally-spread Ethique has raised the bar (literally) witrh bar and cardbaord push tubes for all kinds of personal and home care products. The Certified B Corp ticks all the boxes regarding sustainably-sourced, vegan, and cruelty-free ingredients that are, iIn most cases, directly traded.
They’re certified by the Orangutan Alliance for being palm oil free but are open to using RSPO palm oil once they can be sure it’s legitimately sustainable.
Offsetting 120% of the company’s carbon emissions, they’re climate positive. Not only do they plant a tree for each order, but they also donate 2% of sales to environmental and animal welfare organizations.
Superfly Soap
Superfly Soap’s Cruelty and Palm Oil Free Shampoo
With varieties like Avocado & Banana, Orange Spice, Mango, or Unscented, Superfly Soap’s palm oil free conditioner and shampoo sound delicious. You practically could eat these shampoo bars, too, as they’re made with recognizable, natural ingredients like macadamia nut oil, rice bran oil, and cocoa butter.
You can choose to get the bars unwrapped or wrapped in vegan paper with eco ink.
About Superfly Soap
Hailing from Scotland, Superfly Soap is an affordable, award-winning, and eco-conscious skincare brand. Founder and foodie, Lisa, uses her favorite foods—ground orange peel, coconut oil, avocado oil—to make cold process soaps that are always vegan, cruelty free, and palm oil free.
Everything is made using renewable energy and zero waste practices (meaning minimal, eco-conscious packaging). Selling on Etsy means she guarantees the carbon emissions of shipping are offset.
EcoRoots
EcoRoots’ Palm Oil Free Shampoo and Conditioner USA
EcoRoots’ shampoo and palm free conditioner bars can be directly applied to wet hair of all types, including curly or color-treated hair. Cocoa butter, coconut oil, and rapeseed oil-derived surfactants replace palm oil in all formulas.
In addition to an unscented version for sensitive scalps, nine unisex scents are available for slightly different purposes. For instance, for palm oil free anti dandruff shampoo, they recommend Forest Mint.
They’re not only all-natural but highly-concentrated. Just one bar will outlast two to three plastic bottles.
About EcoRoots
Colorado-based EcoRoots is fast becoming a house-hould name among its zero waste beauty brand counter-parts. Products are handmade in the USA, using ingredients that are vegan, cruelty free, and palm oil free. All packaging is recycled and compostable, too.
As a member of 1% for the Planet, the brand also donates profits to organizations like the Ocean Conservancy.
Friendly Soap
Friendly Soap’s Palm Oil Free Shampoo Bars UK
With a range including Lavender & Geranium, Peppermint & Eucalyptus, and Lavender & Tea Tree, Friendly Soap’s scents sure do put a smile on our face since they don’t contain sulfates or preservatives. And instead of palm oil, a blend of organic argon, castor, coconut, and olive oils are used.
However, they’re not suitable for use with hard water, as it can cause a chemical reaction that reduces their efficacy and may produce an insoluble residue.
About Friendly Soap
Friendly Soap’s products are cruelty free, vegan, plastic free, and palm oil free. Everything is handmade by team members who are paid higher than living wages. They’re listed as an Ethical Consumer best buy, not least because they’re certified by Fair Tax, meaning they pay the right amount of corporation tax.
The packaging is recycled and recyclable and they use eco shipping services instead of fossil fuel-intensive freight.
With every order, a portion of profits supports global hygiene projects through Just a Drop. They also partner with Treesponsibility, giving the Friendly Soap team paid volunteer days to assist with replanting woodlands and hedgerows.
Plaine Products
Plaine Products’ Vegan Palm Oil Free Shampoo
Make your mane smell like Citrus Lavender or Rosemary Mint Vanilla (or not smell at all) with Plaine Products. If you’d prefer to keep it plaine and simple, there’s a multi-use Sage Hair & Body Wash, too.
Free from palm oil ingredients and derivatives, they use vegetable glycerin from coconut oil and glyceryl mono stearate from other vegetable oils.All told, the shampoo and confitions are both biodegradable, non-GMO, color safe, reusable, and refillable.
When you’re ready for more, just order a refill, keep your pump, and send back your old aluminum bottle in the order’s initial custom fit packaging for it to be cleaned and reused. If, for whatever reason you don’t want to refill, the aluminum bottle is infinitely recyclable.
About Plaine Products
Between hair care products, organic body wash, and lotions, Plaine Products was made to clean up our act. The sister-owned business is a Certified B Corp and certified by the Women’s Business Enterprise National Council.
They test and manufacture everything (even the aluminum bottles) themselves only using ingredients that are vegan and Leaping Bunny cruelty-free. They’re also a contributing member of 1% for the Planet and are carbon neutral.
Battle Green
Battle Green’s Shampoo Without Palm Oil
With arguably the largest range of scents including Mint, Citrus, Chamomile, Lavender, and Tea Tree varieties, Battle Green has shampoo bars whatever your preference. The solid shampoo and conditioner is formulated with plant-based ingredients for treating a variety of issues, like dryness, frizz, detangling, split ends, while adding luster and softness.
You may experience the need for an adjustment period, for which they recommend using a weak vinegar rinse.
Each bar can last about 80 washes and comes minimally packaged in compostable wrap.
About Battle Green
North Wales is home to Battle Green, Etsy seller of eco alternatives for the everyday like sustainable toothbrushes, dry shampoo, and more. Everything is handmade, using mostly organic and always vegan and cruelty-free ingredients. These don’t include palm oil. Jojoba oil, cocoa butter, grapeseed oil, olive oil, and derivatives from coconut oil are used instead.
The shop partners with Surfers Against Sewage to help clean up beaches and waterways. With every purchase, a tree is planted.
Biome
Biome’s Palm Oil Free Shampoo Australia
Have dogs, dandruff, oily hair, a sensitive scalp, or lice? No problem. With palm oil free hair products for all of the above, Biome is a one-stop follicle shop.
The coconut oil shampoo comes in bar form and features organic plant oils, clay, and essential oils. Instead of conventional conditioner, they offer a 100% Jojoba Oil Spray. It’s multi-purpose, so can also be used as a moisturizer, cleanser, bath oil, or carrier oil.
To stay looking grease-free between washes, check out their Dry Shampoo for Light and Dark hair. It comes in a reusable/recyclable glass bottle.
About Biome
Biome is one of Australia’s bestethical online marketplace, stocking personal care products from the world’s best brands. Now they have their own line of vegan, cruelty free, and mostly organic eco-friendly makeup, haircare, skin care, and more.
Eco-conscious packaging is all you’ll find when you order from this Certified B Corp and Net Zero company.
Acure
Acure’s Sulfate & Palm Oil Free Shampoo
Acure does not do shampoo in half measures. Maybe your hair’s curly, wavy, colored, dry, dull, flat, or a little lackluster, well…there’s an eco-friendly shampoo bottle or bar to take care of it.
Natural ingredients give each type clarifying, hydrating, and smoothing qualities sans sulfates or parabens.
About Acure
With hair and skin care products, deodorant, and vegan sunscreen, Acure is a cure for all us conscious consumers looking for ethical alternatives. Everything is vegan, paraben-free, sulfate-free, petroleum-free, formaldehyde-free, mineral oil-free, and cruelty free. Mostly coconut oil-derivatives are used in lieu of those from palm and ingredients are often sourced from fair trade suppliers.
While they do use plastic packaging for most products, they have a national recycling program through a partnership with TerraCycle.
Their list of rotating charitable partners currently includes organizations like Unite For Her and Turning Green.
Why Buy Palm Oil Free Shampoo & Conditioner?
About 50% of the products we use and eat contain palm oil. In shampoo, palm oil works as a conditioning agent. The creamy liquid helps to restore hair’s natural oils, keeping it feeling moisturized and healthy.
You may also see one of palm oil’s derivatives in shampoo: Palmitate, Stearate, Stearic Acid, Cetearyl Alcohol, Palmitoyl Oxostearamide, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS), and Palmityl Alcohol—to name a few. In these cases, palm oil is transformed into a cheap surfactant that works to cleanse and foam.
So why are people increasingly looking for palm oil free shampoo and conditioner?
For the same reason why they’re seeking out palm oil free toothpaste.
We’ve already washed, rinsed, and repeated this question several times when we looked at sustainable palm oil, but as a quick refresher:
- Palm oil is the cheapest and most efficient oil seed crop, meaning we consume around 74 million metric tons of it a year.
- Despite that, the world (multinational corporations being the principal culprit) is hungry for more. We’ve deforested more than 27 million hectares with the crop, destroying animal habitats and human settlements.
- Within the industry, human rights violations are common, as are threats to endangered species, like the Sumatran tiger, Borneo elephant, and orangutan.
However, this is a complex issue that can’t be solved by going totally palm oil free. Other types of vegetable oils require as much as 10 times more land, so if we switched overnight it could have an even worse impact on our planet. Instead, we should cut it out where we can without necessarily going cold turkey. Where we can’t cut it out, seek sustainable sources bearing Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and other similar certifications.
If you’re looking to cut down on your personal palm oil consumption, shampoo and conditioner are an easy way to do so. Especially since many palm oil alternatives—namely jojoba, argan, coconut, castor, avocado, sweet almond, grapeseed, and olive oil—are more beneficial for our luscious locks.
These palm oil alternatives are especially helpful if you suffer from dryness, frizziness, dandruff, breakage, dullness, or damage. They might help your hair grow faster, too.
