Live data from Hacker News

Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

vox.com

11–20 of 61 posts

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#11
post #10

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.

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.

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#12
post #8

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 t…

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...

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#13
post #6

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

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

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#14
post #3

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

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.

> 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.

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#17
post #4

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

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.

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#18
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

>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-...

>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/

>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!

Re: Dr. Bronner’s soap brand became a touchstone of wellness culture

#19
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.

Post reply on HN