Reinventing Lanolin

Three samples of lanolin from 3 different suppliers. The vegetarian approved lanolin is in the middle.

Today we’re going to be looking at an ingredient that has been a staple in my stockroom for as long as I can remember. It is one of the very few ingredients I use that is not plant based because it has so very much to offer in the way of skincare, it simply cannot be replaced.

Lanolin is impossible to imitate. I’ve tried the available vegan versions of lanolin, and as much as I would love to have been able to fall in love with them and tell you how wonderful they are, the simple fact is, they don’t even begin to come close. It’s like trying to compare a synthetic rose fragrance to rose absolute. They are galaxies apart.

Imagine my delight when I came across a supplier of Vegetarian Approved lanolin. (insert double take). And imagine even more delight to meet the folks behind the company - people so passionate about an already proven ingredient that they decided to reinvent it.

But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

Please join me in welcoming Andrew Kawalec, owner of Lanesters and Veggilanol for an up close and personal look at how they are advancing lanolin to a whole new level.

Andrew Kawalec, Founder of Lanesters

Andrew, your company has the world’s only vegetarian approved lanolin. Lanolin comes from animals, so could you explain a bit about how this certification is possible?

Vegetarianism is generally understood as the practice of refraining from eating meat from animals. Vegetarians are not against animals, on the contrary, there is a strong vegetarian philosophy of animal welfare and ethical treatment - we fully agree with that. Lest we also forget milk and eggs are widely considered as vegetarian products.

LanEsters are proud to say that all our raw materials are of animal origin. Our entire range of lanolin and cholesterol products are derived from wool grease, obtained by the washing of wool and this wool is only shorn from live sheep.

We are the first Lanolin company in the world to receive Vegetarian Approval for our anhydrous lanolin, lanolin derivatives and cholesterol range of ingredients. It is essential for us to clearly emphasize that with ethical treatment and welfare of all animals in the supply chain, processing of lanolin brings only positive aspects for humans and animals alike. We believe it is important to draw special attention to this to address and eliminate old reservations. We believe in the ethical treatment and welfare of all animals and this ethical treatment and welfare of animals is of fundamental importance in our own supply chain.

Merino rams in Australia. Picture courtesy of Lanesters.

Lanolin has had a reputation of being a rather ‘stinky’ and ‘wool-smelling’ ingredient, but your lanolin products are all very neutral scented. Could you explain how this is possible?

It is unfortunately true that there remains a multitude of old views in circulation that Lanolin is an odiferous ingredient or smells like it comes from a sheep - this was propagated around 40-50 years ago when some wool grease was poorly washed and the technical processing of lanolin was lower than today.

It lingers on today because there are still manufacturers around the world that wish to make savings in their sourcing or use cheap and substandard detergents or have old technology processing.

In my opinion there is no reason in 2020 why Lanolin should be “smelly” - in fact using our supply chain knowledge combined with a state-of-the-art lanolin manufacturing our materials have a neutral odour.

The wool is ‘scoured’ thoroughly as part of the purification process. Picture courtesy of Lanesters.

Your Veggilanol can be used solo or as an ingredient in skincare products. It is even recommended for use in nipple creams for breastfeeding moms. This seems odd to anyone who may have heard the old stories about possible lanolin allergies. Can you explain a bit about these old myths?

We are regularly asked if lanolin can be safely used on skin and similar products. Human nature - generally speaking - shows that bad things in the main come to the attention more and tend to linger longer for that same reason.

To understand where the safe ”question” comes from, it is important to say that studies into lanolin allergies first appeared in the early 1950’s. An example of skin research done into lanolin at that time in a New York hospital research on skin hyposensitivity and lanolin was as follows: Patch tests were conducted on patients with “various dermatological ailments”. 12 people gave a positive reaction from 1,048 tests - meaning that the result was 1,14% of people with skin ailments showing allergy to 100% lanolin that was made over 65 years ago.

A much better and representative research was carried out by Clark, 1975 in Great Britain - a study on incidence and prevalence of positive patch-test reactions to lanolin and its’ derivatives in general population. The survey was conducted in hospitals the UK (Wycombe) and Sweden (Lund and Gothenburg) and covered 825,000 people. Lanolin allergy (positive reactions) were only found in 1,46-8,75 cases per 1,000,000.

To put this into context, 27% of the adult population in Europe (18- 74 years) suffer from skin allergy or Contact Dermatitis to one or more chemicals: it is 33.6 % women, 16.2 % men, 15.3% teenagers (16 years). Chemical composition breakdown:

• Metals 15,5 % (mostly: nickel, chrome)

• Preservatives 6,2 %, (e.g, Methylisothiazolinone /MIT)

• Perfume 4,5%

• Colouring (metals, p-phenylenediamine)

• Plants

• Rubber

• Glue

• Sunscreen

Source - AllergyCertified Copenhagen, Denmark.

The time has come to look at lanolin from a different perspective and break away from the past, especially since 1975. There has been significant progress in refining lanolin, which has now led to a much higher quality standard.

In 2000 the European Pharmacopoeia also introduced pesticide residue limits in the lanolin monograph. Today Lanolin Pharmacopoeia (2020) standards are well defined. In my opinion, to ensure maximum quality assurance, it is of the highest importance to be certified by a trusted certifier. In 2019, for this reason LanEsters’ flagship product “Veggilanol Gold” anhydrous lanolin was the first raw material in the world to be AllergyCertified. It is LanEsters’ philosophy, that products, when applied to the skin enter the bloodstream and go directly to the heart unfiltered – and MUST be used in the purest form available!

A view of Veggianol

Could you share a bit about how Lanesters got started?

I have been working in Lanolin since 2011 and I guess in the early years there was a frustration that when dealing with multinational corporations and PLMA companies the fundamental interest was in volume and cheap pricing. No matter how much I pleaded for new developments with superior and purer types, and despite it being something that would benefit the customer who used the product, there was and is no interest as it is more expensive.

I am passionate about lanolin.

I would like to re-invent lanolin, through new design and new formulation, make it fit for the future, and incorporate quality of the highest standards currently achievable. To again bring back attention to this wonderful and trusted natural ingredient, that has brought true benefits, and has been caring to skin over generations.

My first acquaintance with lanolin took place when I was 17 years old. In 1978 I had just left school and started my first ever job at a wool merchanting company in Bradford, England. At that time Bradford was rightly known as the wool centre of the world. Wool had played an important role in the development of the UK and indeed had brought great fortune to the UK over many hundreds of years. As an example - at the turn of the century in around 1900, Bradford had more millionaires than London!

At that time, I worked in a wool sample room and had to send samples of wool to customers all around the world. To give this young new employee an idea of what wool is, I was sent to work in the wool sorting department for several months to gain first-hand wool experience. At that time there were 20 wool sorters employed to sort greasy wools, which came in after being bought at the weekly local British wool auctions.

The sorters separated fine wool from coarse, long wool from short, took out undesirable vegetable matter (vegetation clusters and other contaminants such as urine stained wool, etc.) to make required standard wool qualities in preparation for further processing. I was allowed to work with Dixie, the head and the most experienced sorter. He was about 65 years old, a mild natured man with a lifetime experience in sorting wool. I remember at that time that his wrinkled face seemed to this 17 year old as extremely old or ancient, in contrast to his hands. I still remember vividly to this day looking at his hands which, were pink and soft. I remember asking him: “why your hands are so pink and soft?”. He said to me: “That’s from the lanolin in the wool grease, I’ve been sorting wool since I was 14 years old, and there’s nothing better in the world for your skin than lanolin”.

Veggilanol Gold took us 5 years to develop and we are proud to have developed a, pure, natural, and non-modified lanolin which can bring real benefits to people.

Thank you so much for sharing your story Andrew!

I’ll be writing about my own experiences with this ingredient in upcoming posts.

Want to Try it?

If you’re keen to give the world’s first Vegetarian Society Approved lanolin a whirl in your upcoming winter creams and balms, please visit Veggilanol right here.

Note: This post is not sponsored in any way.