Mokosh’s Philosophy
What you will find in Mokosh products
What you won’t find in Mokosh products
Mokosh’s Philosophy
Mokosh aims to deliver products that sustain the earth without damaging it, nourish and protect the user without causing harm, and do what we can to help the world’s poorest communities step out of poverty without exploitation.
Sustain the earth
Mokosh products contain predominantly certified organic or certified biodynamic ingredients. This means they have been grown without artificial fertilisers, pesticides or herbicides, in a manner that sustains the soil and the ecosystem around it. We never use palm oil, because of the ecological destruction surrounding its production.
Nourish and protect you and your skin
Because our products contain only unrefined, cold-pressed, virgin and extra virgin oils and butters, often with certified organic status, they retain their nourishing properties, imparting maximum benefit to your skin. To them we add essential oils in combinations carefully chosen as much for their aromatherapy effects as for their pleasurable scent.
Perhaps of equal importance is what is not in our products. Examine the ingredients list of a mainstream cosmetic and you will probably be wondering what those chemicals are, and whether they really should be going onto your skin. It is now known that many compounds are readily absorbed through the skin into the body. So if you’re not confident to eat it, perhaps you shouldn’t be applying it to your skin either. See our harmful additives section for more information.
Help the world’s poorest communities
Although we have placed this category last, it was probably foremost in our minds when beginning this business. When Mokosh buys commodities produced in developing countries, we ensure they are Fair Trade.
What you will find in our products
Certified organic and certified biodynamic ingredients
We use certified organic or biodynamic plant oils and butters, botanicals and essential oils wherever possible, and in time we intend to have our own products undergo organic certification. Products which have received organic or biodynamic certification have not been sprayed with herbicides or pesticides, and soil fertility is maintained using natural means, rather than synthetically applied fertilisers. This means that both the soil and its produce are less contaminated, and the agricultural practice becomes sustainable.
Fair Trade ingredients – supporting the developing world
Some of the most sought after ingredients of our modern soaps and cosmetics come from developing countries, notably shea butter, cocoa butter, coconut oil and palm oil. Because of its devastating effect on native forests we avoid palm oil altogether, and make it our policy to buy the others only from Fair Trade suppliers.
What does buying Fair Trade achieve?
When you buy Fair Trade you are supporting workers receiving a fair price for their goods and labour; sustainable development of the community economically, environmentally, socially and politically; protection of children's rights; and women and men receiving equal pay for equal work.
Fair Trade or Certified Organic?
Sometimes we choose Fair Trade over certified organic, and that is part of the reason we are not yet 100% certified organic. Fortunately, some Fair Trade producers are now becoming certified organic as well, and as this happens, we will support them by buying their products.
Unadulterated oils and butters to nourish your skin
Unrefined, virgin, cold-pressed - all these terms mean the same thing. They indicate that the pure, unprocessed form of the oil or butter has been used, rather than the refined, processed form. This means that the oil or butter retains many of the naturally occurring active ingredients that are beneficial to your skin, and remains uncontaminated by chemicals left over from the refining process.
What is the point of refining oils?
Many cosmetics use refined oils and butters to reduce 'odour' or to give the product a whiter, 'cleaner' appearance, so they will take up the desired colour when an artificial colourant is added.
Unfortunately, refining often requires the use of solvents, bleaching agents and other chemicals to extract the ‘undesirable’ colour or scent, and traces of these chemicals may contaminate the final product. Further, many of the beneficial fractions are removed in the process, leaving the oil or butter stripped of much of its goodness.
High quality essential oils
We use the highest available quality essential oils to fragrance our products. We use only steam distilled or cold pressed essential oils, avoiding those that have been solvent extracted because of the potential for solvents to contaminate the final product. We experiment with combinations and quantities of essential oils to bring a balanced, synergistic effect chosen as much for its aromatherapy as for its pleasurable scent. We now use organic essential oils in all our face oils, bath bombs and liquid soaps.
What you won't find in our products
Palm oil - tropical forest destruction
A huge demand for palm oil in the west has resulted in clearing of large tracts of native tropical and subtropical forests, predominantly in Indonesia and Malaysia, to make way for palm oil plantations.
What is palm oil used for?
Palm oil and palm kernel oil are almost ubiquitous in soap, and frequently used in moisturisers, shampoos, detergents and other cosmetics (often referred to as 'sodium palmate' or 'sodium palm kernelate' respectively). Palm oil is also a cheap source of vegetable oil for shortening in commercial foods such as biscuits, crackers, food spreads and bars.
How have palm oil plantations been so destructive?
Clearing of the world’s native forests for palm oil has major undesirable impacts including contribution to greenhouse gases, loss of biodiversity, negative social impacts on native tribes and further loss of habitat for endangered species such as the orangutan and the Sumatran tiger. We encourage you to boycott products containing palm oil whenever possible.
What alternatives are there?
Instead of palm oil, we use virgin cocoa butter to give hardness and longevity to our bars. An additional benefit of virgin cocoa butter is its contribution to the luxurious creamy lather of our soap, as well as its skin-conditioning properties.
Preservatives – avoiding them
Because there are still concerns about the safety of synthetic and even 'natural' preservatives like grapefruit seed extract, we have chosen to avoid them altogether.
Why do creams and lotions contain preservatives?
Skin creams and lotions typically contain somewhere between 50-80% water, which is added to the oils to aid absorption onto the skin. This oil and water mixture is an environment conducive to growth of bacteria and fungi, and preservatives need to be added to the mix in concentrations sufficient to kill or at least inhibit their growth.
How can Mokosh safely avoid using preservatives?
Because our products contain no water, they do not need preservatives. Bacteria and fungi do not grow in a pure oil environment (that’s why you don’t need preservatives in olive oil, or 100% butter). The disadvantage? You need to wait a little longer for them to be absorbed, usually around 5 minutes or so. The advantages? You will instantly stop applying potentially harmful preservative on your precious skin every day. What’s more, the moisturiser will go further (remember, standard moisturisers are up to 80% water, which means they may contain as little as 20% moisturising oils).
Artificial fragrances
We are committed to using all natural ingredients. We will never use synthetic fragrances, which are most frequently derived from petroleum products. Many cosmetic and soap manufacturers use synthetic fragrances because their scent is longer lasting and stronger than that obtained from essential oils. We find these artificial scents unpleasant, with a distinct chemical smell. In addition, they may cause allergic reactions when inhaled or applied to the skin. Further, unlike essential oils, they do not have positive effects on your mood or your skin.
Artificial colours
We don't believe in contaminating our wonderfully pure, carefully formulated products with synthetic colours. We do add colour to some of our soaps, but we use natural clays and plant extracts to do so.
Harmful additives
There is a lot of conflicting information about the possible toxic effects of various ingredients of skin care products. These include preservatives, whiteners, texture modifiers, foaming agents and so on.
Some of these, like the paraben preservatives, natural preservatives like grapefruit seed extract, and other additives like sodium lauryl sulphate, diethanolamine and propylene glycol have received a lot of press, and a great deal of research has been carried out to assess their safety.
We take the view that although certain quantities of one of these chemicals may not cause overt disease, exposure to many different substances may have an impact that is difficult to measure. Because we come into contact with many potentially harmful substances through our diet, our drinking water and from the air, we consider it important not to enhance the risk to our health by absorbing yet more potentially damaging chemicals through our skin.
Just as we may choose to wash our fruit and vegetables before eating them, or choose organic produce to avoid ingesting harmful chemicals, we believe we should avoid applying potential toxins to our skin. For this reason Mokosh relies on using only natural ingredients in all its products.
