
Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture - smollett
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/5/8/18535403/dr-bronners-soap-label-castile
======
DonHopkins
Dr. Bronner's grandson David Bronner is not only CEO (Cosmic Engagement
Officer) of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, but also also a big contributor to and
on the board of directors of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic
Studies (MAPS).

[https://maps.org/about/board](https://maps.org/about/board)

>David Bronner is President of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps. He is a grandson of
company founder, Emanuel Bronner, and a fifth-generation soapmaker. Under
David’s leadership, in 2003, Dr. Bronner’s was one of the first brands to
certify their soaps, lotions and balms under the USDA National Organic
Program. Today Dr. Bronner’s is coordinating certified Fair Trade projects for
all major ingredients, including olive oil from the West Bank and Israel,
coconut oil from Sri Lanka, and palm oil from Ghana. David pioneered the use
of 100% post-consumer recycled PET bottles for the liquid soaps and a
hemp/recycled paper blend to package the bars. David was the main coordinator
of the Hemp Industries Association’s successful multi-year litigation against
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to protect sales of hemp foods and
body care in the U.S. (2001-2004). He is an active supporter of both the Hemp
Industries Association (HIA) and Vote Hemp, working to bring back hemp farming
in the U.S. David was born in Los Angeles in 1973 and now lives in Encinitas,
California with his wife Kris and daughter Maya. He enjoys coaching his
daughter’s soccer team and dancing late into the night.

[https://maps.org/news/bulletin/articles/420-bulletin-
spring-...](https://maps.org/news/bulletin/articles/420-bulletin-
spring-2017/6612-why-we%E2%80%99re-donating-$5-million-to-maps)

>Why We’re Donating $5 Million to MAPS

>Written by David Bronner, CEO of Dr. Bronner’s, Board Member of MAPS

[https://www.drbronner.com/media-center/executive-
team/](https://www.drbronner.com/media-center/executive-team/)

>David Bronner is Cosmic Engagement Officer (CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s, the top-
selling brand of natural soaps in North America and producer of a range of
organic body care and food products. He is a grandson of company founder,
Emanuel Bronner, and a fifth-generation soapmaker. Under David and his brother
Michael’s leadership, the brand has grown from $4 million in 1998 to over $111
million in annual revenue in 2017.

The same great advice that applies to Dr. Bronner's Pure Castile Soap also
applies to Pure Liquid LSD: DILUTE! DILUTE! DILUTE! ALL-ONE!

~~~
DaftDank
Lmao, I love this angle (calling himself the Cosmic Engagement Officer and
donating to MAPS.) It makes me like Bronner's even more

------
pmorici
This article kind of glosses over some of the tougher parts of their origin
story. I saw a documentary about Dr. Bronner's on, I think, Netflix perhaps 7
years ago and it talked about how their dad, the company's founder, was
essentially an absentee father because he was off preaching his self styled
religion and making soap. Apparently he also spent some number of years in an
insane asylum in IL before heading out to California as I recall.

Love the product, don't feel like this article does their origin story
justice.

Edit: looks like it isn't on Netflix streaming any more but I think it was
called, "Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Box" [0]

[0] [https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Dr-Bronner-s-Magic-
Soapbox/700...](https://dvd.netflix.com/Movie/Dr-Bronner-s-Magic-
Soapbox/70073552)

~~~
lloydde
Absentee father does not seem like the right term for a man that “actually put
his children in foster homes and orphanages”
[https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=118136...](https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11813678)

------
rawrmaan
Love the stuff. Buy one bottle and you can shower with it for months.

~~~
PorterDuff
That's kind of my take on it. I started wondering why we need so many
specialty soaps and decided you could use it for showering, shampoo, shaving.
It probably would make a bad toothpaste though.

~~~
2trill2spill
> It probably would make a bad toothpaste though.

I can confirm, it is bad, I tried it camping once. But I mean you could uses
it if you had no alternatives.

~~~
joveian
I've used it for toothpaste for years, in a sprayer (actually an old Dr.
Bronner's hand sanitizer sprayer, though I would not recommend that product as
it is quite strongly scented). It needs to be very diluted (even a drop of
full strength is too much) and tastes disgusting at first but I was mostly
used to it after a week or so and now only find it unpleasant if I use more
than usual. I'd recommend brushing a second time with just water to prevent
aftertaste and since soap in the digestive system can limit absorbtion. The
nice thing is that it leaves the toothbrush much cleaner than with regular
toothpaste (and is essentially free if you use it for anything else).

I can't really say how well it works; my teeth are in bad shape but that is
presumably because I love sugar and vinegar. I think dentists would tend to
recommend baking soda as the simple inexpensive toothpaste alternative,
however at least one study someone mentioned here not too long ago found that
using toothpaste vs water doesn't seem to make much difference. I've heard
some theorizing about abrasive vs. non abrasive toothpaste but I haven't
looked if there are any studies on that question.

------
taneq
A friend of mine uses this stuff, the screed on the bottle reminds me of Time
Cube.

~~~
colanderman
In style, absolutely. Time Cube was negative and overwhelmingly abrasive
though. The stuff on Bronner's is fairly positive and agreeable. (RationalWiki
has a good summary [1].)

[1]
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dr._Bronner%27s_Soap](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Dr._Bronner%27s_Soap)

------
lloydde
Near the end of 2015 I joined a startup and was relocating from Victoria to
SF. The startup was in a Haight Ashbury house converted into multiple units.
So this made it extra convenient to sleep in the office until I found a place
to rent. Also, my family didn’t plan to join me for a few months. There were a
couple other non-local coworkers who regularly shared the space in the early
days.

Dr Bronner’s Peppermint soap was in the shower. Not knowing any better, I did
a good lather. When I started feeling a tingle in my critical region, I didn’t
know what to do. Thankfully, rinsing off kept me from becoming uncomfortable.

This lead to some cautious conversations with the coworkers, and as we
confirmed a similar experiences this contributed to a very different
experience to bond over.

There is additional backstory, where the Peppermint was bought be accident to
replace a previous blue bottle that had generously been left there. The
purchaser of the replacement had been equally surprised by the effects.

Since then I’ve gotten to enjoy rotating to the peppermint or tea tree oil
soap from time to time.

~~~
meej
> a previous blue bottle that had generously been left there.

Sounds like that might have been the baby unscented variety instead of the
peppermint. Both have blue labels but the peppermint one is a darker shade.

~~~
joveian
Also the unscented is sometimes placed in the baby section (at least Whole
Foods does this) that makes it even harder to notice that there are two with
blue labels. Also the peppermint goes on sale much more often than any of the
others.

I once met someone who wrote a song about the tingly effect (probably not the
only one...).

Since I am commenting late I'll mention here that I suspect the main reason
for the current popularity in the US is that it became a universal feature of
health food stores and co-ops before they were all that popular. When Whole
Foods took health food stores mainstream they sold it and when supermarkets
responded with natural products departments they started selling it too. So
now it is not only a good quality soap with a relatively short ingredient list
but very widely available.

------
busymom0
I think they did a fabulous job with the product label on their soap bottles.
It looks like a super cramped newspaper / exam cheat sheet and is what caught
my attention a few years ago at the grocery store amongst hundred of other
soaps. I also love the peppermint smell and it lasts forever!

~~~
byproxy
It seems to hearken back to the 20s or 30s? when everything you can say about
a product was labeled on the product:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/cb/43/32cb43687e9d39e31466...](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/32/cb/43/32cb43687e9d39e31466566af033259d.jpg)

~~~
mediumdeviation
No, if you actually read the label you'll notice it's basically a religious
tract preaching a weird quasi-spirituality nonsense. I do like that in those
days you have to actually create a useful product so people would listen to
you, instead of now where you just need a Twitter account

> Emanuel wasn’t a businessman (or a doctor, for that matter). He was an
> activist who, in the wake of his parents’ deaths in the Holocaust, began
> using his soap’s label as a, well, soapbox for proselytizing his “All-One!”
> thoughts and ideas. His philosophy, which he eventually named the “Moral
> ABC,” comprised a grab bag of religion, spirituality, environmentalism, and
> self-help, and its peculiarity was matched only by its ambition: peace and
> harmony on “Spaceship Earth.”

~~~
byproxy
I was speaking design-wise. Never read one of the labels!

------
DaftDank
Every hippie on Dead or Phish lot (or in Humboldt county, etc) everywhere
swears by this stuff lol. You can even use it to kill spider mites on your
marijuana plants (true story.)

------
wsdan
The best advice I ever read for Dr. Bonnner’s was to buy one scent for the
shower and a different one for the kitchen.

As no-one wants their dishes to smell the same as their private parts.

~~~
KitDuncan
I've got a better tip for you. Only use soap in the shower, when you're
actually dirty. Sweat washes off just fine with water only. Your skin will
thank you.

------
wink
I find this quite interesting, I'd never heard of this until a while ago (I'm
in the EU) but apparently it seems really, really popular with American
travelers and backpackers and even people who got in touch with it in the US.
I see the downvoted comment about mountain hiking, but I meant more the urban
folks. Also while it's probably a small sample, there basically don't seem to
be any alternatives if you look at a few subreddits on that topic :P

~~~
currymj
Originally he learned to make soap in Europe, so I wonder if there are any
soap making artisans still around who learned the same techniques.

Dr. Bronner himself is a quintessentially American figure though. An immigrant
fleeing Europe, he became a prophet of his own bizarre religious movement, and
was persecuted by the authorities and fled West, where he became a wealthy
California entrepreneur. All three of those are archetypal American stories.

------
itsaidpens
It's an excellent product except for one flaw - it clogs pumps and even their
bottle caps very rapidly. I wish it didn't.

~~~
currymj
Dilute! Dilute!

~~~
DaftDank
Haha, someone has read the bottle :D

------
jrockway
I'm impressed that when Dr. Bronner decided to take his teachings to the
soapbox, he literally printed them on boxes of soap.

------
citboin
David Bronner was my roommate my first semester of college. At least I think
he was- he said he only had a room because he was required to pay for one - he
was almost never there, preferred to crash on friends couches and I never got
to know him at all. Missed opportunity, apparently.

------
bayareanative
Also known as: crazy writing hippie soap.

------
andrewl
The _Straight Dope_ did a column on him in 1988:

[https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/904/why-the-
weird-...](https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/904/why-the-weird-
religious-ravings-on-dr-bronners-soap/)

------
ggm
Label is crazy ok ok but think your reading it will entertain while you brush
teeth oh no not this Bronner use other bottle ok ok good stuff ok.. peppermint
have good smell hands... Man the label jive drove me crazy.

------
robgibbons
I make my own bar soap, but I keep a bottle of Dr. Bronner's Peppermint around
anyway. It's quite concentrated, so it can be used to clean around the house
as well as a body soap.

------
cowmix
I gave out their bars of soap to people all the time, even in business
settings. I'm a disciple for sure.

------
mirimir
I've loved their products for decades. Nothing beats their peppermint
toothpaste. For taste, anyway. Dentists tell me that I need fluoride, so I
alternate.

But damn, that's some odd theology on the packages. His "All-One-God-Faith".
But see Chapman (2016) Dr. Bronner’s "Magic Soaps" Religion: A Tikkun Olam
Response to the Holocaust, the Atom Bomb, and the Cold War.[0]

> Abstract: This essay explores the historical and cultural context in which
> the late Emanuel Bronner began marketing Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a
> natural brand known for its unusual labels that promote an "All-One-God-
> Faith" solution for saving "spaceship Earth." An amalgamation of Judaism and
> American pluralism, Dr. Bronner's plan for world peace was a response to the
> anxieties caused by the Holocaust, the advent of atomic weaponry, and the
> ongoing Cold War. Although Dr. Bronner was an escapee from an insane asylum
> and came to be regarded as a kook, it should be recognized that he conformed
> to the behaviour of a prophet or holy fool. His message corresponds with
> tikkun olam, the Jewish vision of "repairing the world." Dr. Bronner’s
> natural soaps and the accompanying call for global harmony served as a
> purification ritual for the American counterculture youth of the 1960s and
> 1970s.

0) [https://sci-hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.25.2.287](https://sci-
hub.tw/https://doi.org/10.3138/jrpc.25.2.287)

------
xfitm3
The musings on the bottle are made from someone who’s really out there.
Perhaps mentally ill. It’s expensive, I think $15 for a 32oz bottle. Lasted
two weeks.

~~~
prepend
Holy cow, that’s quick. I use 32 ounces and it lasts about 4-6 months of daily
showers.

Were you diluting it? How did you use over two ounces of concentrated liquid
soap every day? You must have been really fresh and tingly.

~~~
xfitm3
Label:

“For everyday bodywashing: Get wet and pour soap full-strength onto hands-
washcloth-loofah. Lather up, scrub down, rinse off, and tingle fresh & clean!”

------
c17r
We take Dr. Bronner's when we go camping. Wash up in a nice mountain lake
without worrying about hurting the environment.

~~~
entangledqubit
I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be washing up with soap in mountain lakes.
Biodegradable doesn't mean it can't harm something before degrading. I find a
rinse to be more than sufficient for most of my trail needs. If I need soap
for some kind of washing I take some water out of the source and wash
elsewhere.

~~~
c17r
It's all-natural, organic, kosher, and vegan. Vegetable oil-based. They even
say you can brush your teeth with it.

~~~
anamexis
Unfortunately, none of those things imply that it is safe for wildlife in a
mountain lake.

Here's a good overview: [https://grist.org/living/ask-umbra-is-it-ok-to-
lather-up-in-...](https://grist.org/living/ask-umbra-is-it-ok-to-lather-up-in-
the-lake-with-biodegradable-soap/)

~~~
c17r
I'm well aware of what phosphorus and surfectants of your average soap can do
but Dr. Bronner's has none of that. Here's the entire ingredients list:

\- Citric Acid

\- Mentha Arvensis (flowering plant in the mint family)

\- Organic Coconut Oil

\- Organic Fair Deal Hemp Oil

\- Organic Jojoba Oil

\- Organic Olive Oil

\- Organic Peppermint Oil

\- Potassium Hydroxide (AKA Saltwater soap)

\- Tocopherol (oils containing vitamin E)

\- Water

~~~
semi-extrinsic
OK, when you mix that caustic potash (AKA Potassium Hydroxide) with vegetable
fats, a chemical reaction called saponification occurs and you get
surfactants. This is exactly how they made soap in the olden days.

Fish are extremely sensitive to surfactants, as their skin is covered with a
thin protective fatty membrane that gets dissolved.

If you're still not convinced: go buy a goldfish, put a drop of this stuff in
his bowl, and watch him die.

