Ethical Soap and Shower Gel

Which is the most eco friendly and sustainable brand of soap to buy?

The UK’s soap, bath, and shower gel market is dominated by big brands including Carex, Dove, Palmolive, and Radox. But, with so many high scoring small and independent soap brands, and more of them now available in mainstream shops and pharmacies too (such as Dr Bronner’s, Eco Warrior, Faith in Nature, Friendly Soap, and Little Soap Company), there's plenty of choice when it comes to finding ethical soap.

The big brands really don’t need our support. 

Owner of Radox and Dove (Unilever) has a £50bn annual turnover; Colgate-Palmolive’s is £15bn, and Carex is owned by PZ Cussons – a smaller company but still giving its highest paid director £2m in 2025. 

Finding an eco friendly, natural and sustainable soap

There are many companies on our score table offering options which are organic, made without the use of animal ingredients, or score well for palm oil.

There are hundreds of other small companies making soap which we could not cover here. Look out for local ethically-minded suppliers.

The score table also shows the huge difference between low-scoring big high-street brands, and the much higher-scoring small, independent, and often vegan and/or organic brands.

With 20 Best Buys and one recommended brand, there's plenty of ethical soap options to choose from.

How eco friendly are The Body Shop and Wild?

As well as the smaller independent eco brands of soap, there are some larger more well-known brands that position themselves in the 'natural' and sustainable soap market, such as The Body Shop and Wild.

The Body Shop's future was uncertain for a couple of years after a brief disappearance due to going into administration in 2024. We've been able to include The Body Shop in this soap guide under its new owners. But although it was once at the forefront of ethical and eco friendly toiletries, it now only has an average score.

Another brand that has gone from ethical to crashing down to the bottom of the score table is Wild. Loved by many eco conscious shoppers it was bought by Unilever in 2025, and as a result its score its affected by the poor policies of its parent company. 

We believe its important to 'follow the money' which is why we look at the ultimate holding (parent) company of a brand as well as its own policies.

What is soap?

We generally understand the word soap as something we use to wash our hands, or body. However, it might be soap, or it might be detergent. Both soap and detergent are cleaning agents that act as surfactants (allowing water to penetrate grease). 

But the strict definition of soap is something made with natural oils which are biodegradable, and whose alkaline nature means they don’t need to contain antibacterial chemicals and preservatives.

Detergents are often made from synthetic ingredients which are not biodegradable and often have additives.

Dove bars for example are “syndets”, or synthetic detergents and you’ll notice that, while retailers might call them soap, the company itself (Unilever) calls them beauty bars. This guide covers them all. 

Bars can be soft or hard, cold-pressed or not, made from plant oils or animal fats or synthetic detergents. Several are also suitable for washing hair (see our shampoo guide), and some for shaving. Or even washing laundry and dishes too (such as Dr Bronner’s “magic soap”). 

And liquids can come in the form of hand washes, body washes, and shower gels.

The score table indicates whether a brand is just a liquid or just a bar. Otherwise a brand does both.

Which is better: bars or liquid soap?

People often want to know which is more eco friendly and sustainable, a solid bar of soap or a liquid hand wash and shower gel?

From an environmental point of view, the bar of soap is the overall winner. It also tends to have a smaller list of simple ingredients, and many bars can be used for the whole body – not just hands.

There are three big problems with liquid soap:

1. It’s heavier: Containing lots of water, liquid soaps are likely to be heavier than bar soap, resulting in a higher carbon footprint for transportation.

2. It involves more packaging: Packaging for body washes and liquid soaps tends to be plastic bottles that, if not refilled or recycled, can end up landfilled, littered, or incinerated. Even if the bottle is made from recycled plastic, a thin paper wrapper or no wrapper for soap bars is better. The score table indicates whether a brand is just a liquid or just a bar or both.

3. It is more likely to contain petroleum derivatives: Many shower gels and body washes are made of petroleum-derived synthetic detergents and need emulsifying agents and stabilisers to maintain their consistency. 

Solid soap bars use little or no packaging

One area where solid bars of soap can be more environmentally friendly is in the packaging department.

Although big mainstream solid soap bars like Dove, Imperial Leather and Pears, are sold wrapped in supermarkets and high street chemists, solid bars can be sold 'au naturel'. 

Brands in this guide which sell unpackaged bars of soap are: 

• Caurnie
• Friendly Soap
• Lush
• ALTER/NATE (Suma) (in wholefood shops rather than direct).

The following high-scoring brands sell bars packaged in paper or cardboard (* = recycled):

• Austin Austin
• Bio-D
• Body Shop
• Dr Bronner’s*
• Eco Warrior
• Faith in Nature*
• Friendly Soap*
• KinKind
• Little Soap Company
• Neal’s Yard
• Odylique
• Suma
• Tropic
• Weleda
• Zaytoun.

Lucy Bee uses plastic as its coconut oil formula means the soap can sweat, but it is trialling a biodegradable wrap. 

Do solid bars of soap clean effectively? 

Both liquid soap and bar soap are effective for removing germs in a home setting. 

A precaution with bar soap is to keep it dry and not let it lie in a puddle of sludge.

What to look for if choosing a liquid soap

If you do want a liquid, the best option is to find your nearest zero waste refill shop or local wholefood shop that has a refill station. Alternatively you can buy bulk refills direct from some of the brands.

Local refills

Bio-D, Faith in Nature, Fill Refill, Miniml, and SESI are all available in local refill shops, and have maps and lists online where you can enter your postcode to find the nearest stockist. It’s worth contacting your nearest listed shop first to confirm they have what you want, and if you can use your own container.

Buying bulk liquid refills

Some of the high-scoring companies offer 5 litre refills you can buy direct: ALTER/NATIVE or Ecoleaf by Suma, Bio-D, Body Shop, Dr Bronner’s, Faith in Nature, Fill Refill, and Miniml.

Suma, Bio-D, and Miniml are packaged in recycled plastic 5 litre bottles (Dr Bronner’s is 3.8l). 

Fill Refill has freepost returnable 5 or 10 litre bags-in-boxes and Miniml’s containers are also returnable.

Palm oil and soap

Palm oil and palm oil derivatives have become an important component in many soap products. In bar soaps it may be used because it is a fat that is hard at room temperature. In liquid soaps, bodywashes and shower gels it is more likely that palm derivatives might be used, and often go under names including “glyc”, “stear”, ”laur”, or palm.

But the mass production of palm oil has relied on the destruction of rainforests and peatland, which leads to climate-damaging emissions, as well as loss of biodiversity – particularly for orangutans – and human rights issues.

Alternatives include cocoa butter, shea butter, olive oil, and coconut oil, but its better if these are certified organic.

Best scoring brands for palm oil policies

The brands which scored best in the palm oil rating category were companies using fair trade or organic palm oil, which have benefits for people and biodiversity, and some companies with minimal or no use of palm.

These companies scored 100/100 in the palm oil rating.

High scoring brands for palm oil

Some other brands still scored pretty well for palm oil.

Company groups with all palm ingredients certified and scoring 80/100 were:

• Austin Austin
• Bio-D
• Fill Refill
• KinKind
• Little Soap Company 
• Miniml
• SESI

Middling brands for palm oil

Five brands scored 60-79 for palm oil. These were: Caurnie, Faith in Nature, Lucy Bee, Neal's Yard, and Tropic Skincare. 

Faith in Nature was cutting down use of palm derivatives and was also investing in the Sumatran Orangutan Society’s Rewild Fund, "helping to enable a range of interventions to enhance, rehabilitate and re-establish orangutan habitat".

Worst scoring brands for palm oil

At the bottom of the scoretable in the palm oil category were Unilever brands, which scored 0 for palm oil, having received criticisms from Friends of the Earth and Global Witness for using suppliers linked to human and environmental rights violations.

Colgate-Palmolive had also been criticised on the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre website. 

See more about palm oil free soap, and palm oil in the cosmetics industry.

Animal ingredients and testing

One ingredient that can be used in bars of soap is sodium tallowate, made from rendered animal fat. Stearic acid and glycerin in soap may also be animal derived, whilst honey, lanolin, and milk can be added.

We have a short article looking at animal products in cosmetics and toiletries where you can find out more. 

All of our Best Buys have many products suitable for vegans. 

Do check with Dr Bronner’s, Odylique, and Zaytoun as they use bee products in some formulations, and Neal’s Yard may use other animal ingredients too. 

Suma is a vegetarian wholesaler but its own-brand bodycare products are vegan.

Vegan soap brands

You may wish to buy soap from a totally vegan company

All these high-scoring companies are fully vegan:

• Bio-D
• Caurnie
• Conscious Skincare
• Eco Warrior
• Faith in Nature
• Fill Refill
• Friendly Soap
• Little Soap Company
• Lucy Bee
• Miniml
• SESI. 

Cruelty free soaps

All brands with an overall Ethiscore of 30 or above had at least a policy against animal testing.

Many went further and had a fixed cut-off date for the whole company (a fixed historical date after which none of their products or ingredients should have been tested on animals): 

Brands with a fixed cut off date:

• ALTER/NATIVE (Suma) 
• Austin Austin
• Avalon
• Avon
• Bio-D
• Caurnie
• Conscious Skincare
• Dr Bronner’s
• Eco Warrior
• Faith in Nature
• Fill Refill
• Friendly Soap
• JASÖN
• Little Soap Company
• Lucy Bee
• Lush
• Neal’s Yard
• Odylique
• SESI
• Tropic Skincare
• Weleda
• Yaoh

Zaytoun was not considered to be in a high-risk sector for animal testing, as the only bodycare product it sold was soap made from first-press olive oil by a family business in Palestine, with no synthetic ingredients, and therefore unlikely to require safety testing.

Leaping Bunny certified brands

The following brands were certified by the Leaping Bunny standard, the leading cruelty-free certification scheme: 

• Avalon Organics 
• Bio-D
• Body Shop
• Conscious Skincare
• Faith in Nature
• Fill Refill
• Friendly Soap
• JASÖN
• Little Soap
• Lucy Bee
• Molton Brown
• Neal’s Yard 

However, The Body Shop and Molton Brown had parent companies without a clear policy.

It is worth noting that the Leaping Bunny logo on a product does not mean it's vegan. It might still contain animal products such as lanolin, but none of the ingredients will have been tested on animals. 

So, if you see the wording “cruelty free”, check to see if it is certified vegan if you want to avoid animal ingredients too.

Our article on animal testing certifications explains more about cut off dates and different certification schemes.

Worst companies for animal policies

The two worst scoring companies in the animals rating were Boots and Colgate-Palmolive. 

Although Boots’ own-brand cosmetics are Leaping Bunny certified, it is owned by a private equity company with a focus on personal care products, and no animal testing statement was found. 

Colgate-Palmolive allowed limited animal testing in limited instances, used tallow from cattle in soap production, and also owned a pet food company selling meat.

Toxics chemicals in soap and shower gel

We talk more about these chemicals in our article on toxic chemicals in toiletries and cosmetics but some of the main ingredients of concern are listed below.

• Parabens are often an ingredient of liquid soaps and are used as a preservative. You might see methylparaben, propylparaben, and butylparaben on an ingredients list.
• Triclosan may be used in liquid soaps whilst you might see triclocarban as an ingredient in soap bars.
• Phthalates may be used in synthetic fragrances.
• Formaldehyde and formaldehyde-releasing chemicals are preservatives.

Organic-certified products will not be using any of these ingredients.

What is natural soap?

Phrases like “natural” or “naturally derived” have little meaning when applied to toiletries and cosmetics, and there's no legal definition or certification schemes for using the word natural. 

As a result it can be used as a marketing ploy. 

Natural can be used to refer to products that are primarily produced using plant-derived ingredients and contain no, or only small amounts of synthetic chemicals.

But some products marketed as “natural” might contain lots of synthetic chemicals.

Our separate article on ethical labels for health and beauty products lists some labels to look out for instead, such as organic labels, the Vegan Society Trademark and the Leaping Bunny certification for animal testing.

Israel-Palestine rating

Our Israel-Palestine rating aims to differentiate between companies that are actively complicit in supporting the Israeli government and violations of Palestinian human rights; companies that do not appear to be complicit; and companies that also proactively take a stance regarding Palestinian human rights concerns. 

The highest-scoring brand in this rating was Zaytoun with 100/100, as an organisation whose core mission is to support the resilience of Palestinian farmers. 

Next was Lush which has funded many projects in Palestine over the years and closed all its shops for a day in 2025 in protest over Gaza. Organii sold some products containing fairtrade Palestinian olive oil.

90% of Dr Bronner’s olive oil came from Canaan, a company founded by Palestinians, and it put out a strong statement calling for a ceasefire and an end to US aid for the war.

However, Dr Bronner’s also sourced some olive oil from Israel so could only score 80 points overall.

Worst for Israel-Palestine rating

Unilever scored lowest, as it has repeatedly blocked its subsidiary Ben & Jerry’s attempts to show support for Palestinian human rights, most recently through developing a flavour of ice cream in support of peace in Gaza. In 2022, after Ben & Jerry’s refused to sell ice-cream in occupied territories, Unilever sold the brand’s Israeli division to a local operator, a move condemned by Ben & Jerry’s.

Are there any sustainable soap and shower gel brands?

We looked at the climate policies of all the brands in the guide. 

Our climate rating assesses whether a company has identified its main carbon impacts, and if it is acting on that evidence, and has evidence of reducing its impacts. 

Best companies for climate policies and actions

Two brands scored 100/100 for the climate rating:

• Faith in Nature
• SESI

Other high scoring brands with 70-85 were:

• Dr Bronner's
• Neal's Yard
• Odylique
• Suma (ALTER/NATE, ecoleaf)

Brands scoring 60-69 were: Bio-D, Caurnie, Conscious Skincare, Fill Refill, Friendly Soap, Green People, KinKind, Lush, Miniml, Weldea, and Urtekram.

Worst companies for climate

Brands that scored nothing for the climate rating were:

• Bulldog
• Colgate-Palmolive
• Dr Organic
• Superdrug
• Procter & Gamble
• Unilever

How much does eco friendly soap cost?

Big high street brands of soap are often cheap, but there are hidden costs, such as their ethics and environmental policies and practices, as can be seen in this guide. Economies of scale can also mean big brands can make products for less, meaning a bar of Imperial Leather soap is about 65p or Pears or Dove soap bars are available for about £1 each. All these brands are right at the bottom of the overall scoretable. 

Among our high scoring brands the prices vary, as the table below shows.

Prices correct as of March 2026. 

Where’s best to buy eco friendly soap?

It’s great to support your local independent wholefood shop or zero-waste/plastic-free shop if you have one available and can do this, as the higher-scoring brands are likely to be found there. 

For example, Bio-D, Faith in Nature, Suma (ALTER/ NATIVE), as well as refill brands are often stocked in local shops. Faith in Nature and Zaytoun are also available in Oxfam stores.

It’s also possible to find alternative brands in high-street pharmacies, Holland & Barrett, or supermarkets. For example: Eco Warrior, Faith in Nature, Friendly Soap, Little Soap Company, Dr Bronner’s.

Many of the high-scoring brands can also be found on ethical online retailer sites - see our Places to Buy below for these.

Some brands are available direct from the company, usually online, for example: Austin Austin, Caurnie, KinKind, Lucy Bee, Neal’s Yard (also has 20 UK stores), and Odylique.