Ingredient

Soya Oil

Glycine soja

Rich, thick and nutty scented, soya oil gives a luxurious texture to product blends. In cosmetics, it helps obtain lustrous hair and smooth skin.

Where do we get it?

Lush purchases this oil from a German producer who switched from his father’s conventional livestock agriculture to a vegetable oil press farm with an organic certification. The oil is cold-pressed from unmodified soybeans grown on their land or collected from local farmers.

What are the benefits for the planet?

The oil press farm rotates crops and mixes species so that the plants can help each other. Soya, for example, is not afraid of poor soils and even improves their fertility by fixing nitrogen into the ground. 

This supplier aims to increase the biodiversity of their region by trialling new and old crops and encouraging other local farmers to diversify against the typical maize monoculture. As such, they have gained a positive reputation in their community. On their own fields, they do not use pesticides and work with other farmers in the region to do the same, successfully.

What are the benefits of the cold-pressing method?

Cold-pressing is the most natural method of obtaining oil from a plant’s fruits or seeds. No heat, solvents, or other techniques are applied to the raw materials except mechanical pressure. This yields a pure and unaltered oil, often aromatic and colourful.

What are the benefits for you?

• The oil conditions and moisturises the skin and hair.
• It has good levels of antioxidant vitamin E and A, for bright and healthy skin.

Unique stories

No one fully agrees on the origin of soya, or when it started being cultivated. What we know for sure is that it’s been a staple food and medicine in China, Korea and Japan for thousands of years. The plant (Glycine max) belongs to the pea family (Fabaceae), and like all plants of this family, it grows pods that contain a range of seeds, also called beans.