Lanolin Substitutes for Vegan Crafters

by Becky Striepe September 2, 2014, 7:00 am 11 Comments

Vegan Lanolin Substitutes

Looking for lanolin substitutes? Me too! I did a little bit of digging and found few different options. Let’s consider the merits of lanolin alternatives.

Wondering why vegans won’t craft with lanolin? That’s because it’s a fat extracted from sheep’s wool. Since it’s an animal product, lanolin is not vegan. Avoiding wool and wool products might seem a little bit silly, but when you look more closely at the wool industry it makes a lot of sense for someone concerned about animal rights to skip the wool and wool by-products.

So! What’s a vegan crafter to do when she, say, wants to make bendy yarn, but doesn’t want to use lanolin?

The first thing I wondered was how lanolin functioned as a craft supply. From what I have been reading, it sounds like lanolin is handy because it’s malleable, but it has a higher melting point than, say, coconut oil. You can apply it easily with your hands, but when you leave it be, it’s solid-yet-soft at room temperature.

From there, I tried to see what other fats would have those same properties. Lanolin’s melting point is at about 100 degrees Fahrenheit, so I wanted to find vegetable-based fats that do the same. Luckily, the super awesome Vegan Baking site has a page listing plant-based oils and their melting points. Boom!

Lanolin Substitutes: Pros and Cons

So, which plant oils would make the best substitution for lanolin? There are two that seem best suited:

+ Cocoa butter melts at 93-100 degrees Fahrenheit.

+ Palm oil melts at 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

I’ve also seen petroleum jelly suggested as a lanolin alternative, but I wouldn’t recommend using this petroleum product to replace an animal product. Choosing something plant-based is a lot more eco-friendly. Of the two options above, organic cocoa butter is definitely the better choice from an environmental standpoint. Palm oil has its own set of challenges, and it’s definitely an ingredient to avoid, if possible.

The good news is that since cocoa butter tends to have a higher melting point it’s probably better suited as a lanolin substitute anyway. Isn’t it nice when things work out like that? Hurrah!

Happy plant-based crafting! And if you make Julie’s Wikki Stix without animal ingredients before I get a chance to, let us know how it goes!

Image Credit: Lamb photo via Shutterstock

Written by Becky Striepe

My name is Becky Striepe (rhymes with “sleepy”), and I am a crafts and food writer from Atlanta, Georgia with a passion for making our planet a healthier, happier, and more compassionate place to live. My mission is to make vegan food and crafts accessible to everyone!. If you like my work, you can also find me on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.