Lanolin is one of the lesser-known substances that vegans must avoid. Just like gelatin, people are typically repulsed once they discover how it’s produced.
What is Lanolin?
Lanolin is a wholesome-sounding name for the grease extracted from sheep hair. Before freshly-shorn wool is processed to make fabric or yarn, its grease is washed out and removed.
The wool industry generates thousands of tons of lanolin per year, most of which is used by the cosmetics industry, which puts it into products like hand cream, body lotion, hair conditioner, and mascara. Many lip balms also contain lanolin, although thankfully vegan lip balms are widely available—people who buy the non-vegan stuff probably have no idea what they’re putting on their lips! Additionally, lanolin exposed to UV rays is the active ingredient in most vitamin D supplements. Fortunately, many supplement companies produce vegan vitamin D. Derivatives of lanolin take a variety of forms:
- Cholesterin
- Isopropyl Lanolate
- Laneth
- Lanogene
- Lanolin Acids
- Lanolin Alcohol
- Lanosterols
- Sterols
- Triterpene Alcohols
- Wool Fat
- Wool Wax
A variety of vegan fats can nicely replace lanolin and its derivatives. Vegan hand and body lotions commonly contain shea butter, which has the virtue of being less allergenic than lanolin. Plant-based oil derivatives and vegetable-based glycerin and triglycerides likewise appear in place of lanolin in many vegan cosmetics.
Is Lanolin Vegan?
Since lanolin is a byproduct of wool production, it’s not vegan. The wool industry’s cruel farming practices make lanolin worthy of attention and avoidance.
Although nothing appears more peaceful and bucolic than flocks of sheep grazing lush hillsides, the practice of raising these animals for wool involves numerous cruelties. Much of the world’s wool comes from Australia, where a barbaric practice called mulesing involves using a knife to slice strips of skin from lambs’ rears. These mutilations are carried out in order to produce thick scar tissue that prevents parasitic flies from biting the sheep’s flesh and laying eggs in the wounds. At the end of their lives, sheep are also commonly subjected to “live export” where they are loaded on crowded ships and transported to distant slaughterhouses.
Some three to four million sheep each year are subjected to live export. For more information about the industry’s objectionable farming practices, see my wool article.
While lanolin is among the most common cosmetic ingredients, it’s easy to find lanolin-free personal care items and makeup. There’s nothing special about lanolin, as it offers no unique properties. It’s only used in cosmetics because it’s cheaper than vegetable-derived alternatives, and most consumers are clueless about its origin. It’s fair to say that if cosmetics ingredient panels listed lanolin as “sheep hair grease,” demand for products containing this substance would collapse overnight.
