Unilever unveils new plant-based hand dishwash

Unilever has launched a new hand dishwash product made with naturally derived ingredients.

The new product uses an alternative to surfactants which are typically derived from virgin fossil fuels and have a high carbon footprint as a result. Surfactants are the ingredient that makes hand dishwashing liquid effective at foaming and cleaning.

Unilever said it Research & Development teams have developed a new formulation that’s three times more renewable and 99% biodegradable, using 100% plant-derived ingredients, helping it to remove the use of fossil-derived chemicals. Most importantly this formulation is also ultra-mild on skin, which sets it apart from other surfactant alternatives.

In addition, the product is packaged in bottles made from 100% recycled plastic.

“With this latest innovation, our R&D team has created the optimal combination using 100% naturally derived, renewable cleaning ingredients while giving better performance than the conventional ingredients,” Bert Nijhuis, product development director for home care at Unilever, said.

“This is a great example of the Carbon Rainbow in action – moving away from black carbon-sourced surfactants in favour of green carbon-sourced ones.”

The Carbon Rainbow initiative is part of Unilever’s Clean Future strategy launched in September last year, which aims to replace 100% of the carbon derived from virgin fossil fuels in its cleaning and laundry product formulations with renewable or recycled carbon sources instead.

The Carbon Rainbow describes how the firm will replace non-renewable fossil sources of carbon (also known as black carbon) with captured carbon (purple carbon), plants and biological sources (green carbon), marine sources such as algae (blue carbon), and carbon recovered from waste materials (grey carbon).

The product has hit the shelves in the Gulf region with Lux brand (also known as Sunlight) and the consumer goods giant added that they are now looking to roll it out to other countries.