GMOs in Natural Soap: Our Honest Answer About What's in Our Products
It's a question we get regularly, and we want to answer it directly: do Mountain Sky products contain GMO ingredients?
The honest answer is: yes, and no, and here's why the full explanation matters.
THE GMO INGREDIENT IN OUR SOAP
We add Canadian canola oil to our bar soaps and liquid castile soaps. Canola is grown across the Canadian Prairies, and approximately 94 percent of Canadian canola is genetically modified, engineered for herbicide resistance, which allows farmers to control weeds more effectively and reduce the overall volume of herbicide applied per acre.
We use Canadian canola because it performs well in soap and because sourcing from Canadian farmers matters to us. It has a fatty acid profile similar to olive oil, contributes good skin-conditioning properties, and supports the agricultural economy in the region where we operate. And yes, most of it is GMO-grown.
WHY WE INCLUDE IT ANYWAY
This is a nuanced position, and we want to be transparent about our reasoning.
The scientific consensus on the safety of currently approved GMO crops for human and animal consumption is solid. Major health organizations worldwide, including Health Canada, the World Health Organization, and national scientific academies across Europe and North America, have found no credible evidence that approved GMO foods pose health risks. The concern with GMO canola in soap is considerably lower than in food, since it doesn't enter your body; it washes off your skin.
The environmental picture with GMOs is more complicated, and we take it seriously. The widespread adoption of herbicide-resistant crops has led to the emergence of herbicide-resistant "superweeds," which is a legitimate and ongoing agricultural challenge. It has also enabled significant reductions in tillage, which benefits soil health, and in some contexts has reduced overall herbicide volumes per acre.
We don't have a simple pro- or anti-GMO position. We have a position that the evidence matters, the context matters, and oversimplified answers in either direction don't serve anyone well.
THE NON-GMO INGREDIENTS
Our other main soap oils (olive oil and coconut oil) are not genetically modified. There are no commercially approved GMO olive or coconut varieties. The essential oils we use for fragrance come from plant sources with no commercial GMO versions.
The lye (sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide) we use is not derived from biological sources and is not subject to GMO considerations.
So our products contain one GMO-derived ingredient (canola oil) in a formulation alongside non-GMO olive oil, coconut oil, and essential oils.
WHAT ABOUT ORGANIC?
A natural follow-up question: why not use certified organic canola oil, which would be non-GMO by definition?
Certified organic canola oil is available, but it's significantly more expensive and produced in much smaller quantities than conventional canola. Using it across our full product line would require a substantial price increase that would make our products less accessible. We've made the deliberate choice to keep our products affordable rather than premium-priced, which means working with the best available conventional ingredients rather than the most expensive certified ones.
We use certified organic olive oil in some of our formulations. It's something we continue to evaluate on an ingredient-by-ingredient basis.
WHAT THIS MEANS FOR YOU
If you choose to avoid all GMO-derived ingredients, our liquid castile soap contains canola oil, and our bar soaps contain canola oil. We want you to have that information clearly so you can make the decision that's right for your household.
If you're specifically looking for a GMO-free option from Mountain Sky, we'd point you toward products in our line that don't contain canola and encourage you to reach out to us directly if you want ingredient-level detail on a specific product.
If you're comfortable with the evidence on GMO safety and trust our sourcing transparency, we think our products offer excellent value: handcrafted in Canada since 1993, made with real soap-making tradition, free from synthetic detergents, preservatives, and artificial fragrance.
THE BROADER POINT
We believe customers deserve honest, complete information about what they're buying: not marketing language engineered to make them feel good, and not evasive answers to straightforward questions.
"Natural" and "handcrafted" are meaningful to us. They mean we use plant-based oils, traditional cold-process soap-making, and essential oils for fragrance. They don't mean every ingredient source is certified organic or non-GMO, and we won't pretend otherwise.
If you have questions about specific ingredients in any Mountain Sky product, ask us. We'll tell you what we know.
