"Two surprising directions that a lot of these wartime chemicals ended up in were personal care products and agriculture."
Lisa Bronner is the granddaughter of Dr. Bronner, who founded this life-changing soap brand, Dr. Bronner's. Lisa is the person who knows absolutely everything there is to know about natural soaps, soap making and how to use them in every possible way around your home and your body.
I first met Lisa in 2015 when she came to Australia and I got the pleasure to sit down and have a cup of tea with her. So much of what she said to me then has really shaped my personal buying and cleaning habits today. So I wanted to get her back on my Talking Clean With Irene podcast and ask her some more questions.
Here are the 3 things I learned from my chat with Lisa
1. The soap started as a thank you
Lisa told me "his great-grandfather started making soap in Laupheim, Germany, in 1858. My grandfather grew up in that factory. He grew up under the guild system, became a master soap maker. And so he had this in his legacy, in his blood."
"He left Germany in 1929 at the age of 21, really to pursue his own path. And then World War II hit. He was watching this from afar, couldn't do anything about it except communicate with his family, encouraged them to leave. Never convinced his parents to leave. They didn't think that their homeland would betray them. His parents perished in concentration camps."
"Coming out of that horror, my grandfather was very motivated beyond his profession." He wrote "this philosophy that he called the Moral ABC that pulled from every world tradition he knew, to show the similarities: that we as people are more similar than we are different."
"Well, unfortunately, nobody really wanted to hear him. But he would thank anyone who would come to listen to him by making some of this soap that he knew how to make from his family legacy. Eventually, he noticed people would come, wait till the moment the soap was passed out, and then leave. And so he took his philosophy, he wrote it on the label, put it on the soap so that they would take it with them."
I asked her if that philosophy on the soaps back then was exactly the same words that are on there now. "Almost entirely. He was constantly tweaking it throughout his life. He actually went blind in the late 60s, and he had this, you know, 6,000-word label just completely memorised. It's something that we will never change."
2. The chemical revolution was a result of World War II
I've always been confused as to when we have access to plants and oils, you know, created by Mother Nature, why would we then go and make a synthetic version of it?
"The chemical revolution really was a result of World War II. There was this massive war effort and massive time of invention and industry to create weaponry, ammunitions. What happened after World War II, after it ended? We kind of had these stockpiles of ingredients. We didn't know what to do with them and looking for markets and uses for them. And two surprising directions that a lot of these wartime chemicals ended up in were personal care products and agriculture."
"It was innovative and it was exciting. You had the slogan from Dow Chemicals called Better Living Through Chemistry." Lisa says "when we surround ourselves with synthetic things and we ourselves are natural, there's unintended side effects. And you don't see them at first."
"It's cheaper if we were to use a synthetic detergent, if we were to use sulfates, and those bubble beautifully. A sulfate detergent bubbles wonderfully, and that's why they're so popular. But they're not the best for our skin. They don't nourish our skin like a plant-based oil does."
"The same thing with synthetic fragrances. Synthetic fragrances, which are everywhere, they're cheaper, they last longer, but they oftentimes have side effects that are very detrimental to human health."
"My grandfather was going just in the opposite direction. At the time, better living through chemistry was the slogan. He was talking about let's get back to nature and use natural ingredients on our body and also in our food."
3. One soap can wash everything
"Castile is a traditional soap that was created first in the Castile region of Spain. It was created first by monks who used the local olive oil to saponify it into soap." Today it's "nothing synthetic and nothing animal-based, just pure saponified vegetable oils."
"The base of the soap is exactly the same, with the addition of hemp and jojoba oil to make it the perfect soap for the skin. The hemp and jojoba specifically mirror the natural fatty acid profile in our skin. So, if our skin is lacking some of its own fatty acids, your skin is drying, flaking, et cetera, our soap can help replenish that."
Every single one of them can be used for more than 18 different uses.
"My grandfather started with the peppermint. That is our iconic, our original soap." That's the Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Liquid Soap - Peppermint. "And then the baby unscented, that's it. There's no scent to it at all. You just have that base."
"Our soaps use only essential oils for fragrance, but it's not just fragrance. Many of these essential oils have therapeutic benefits. So, tea tree oil is a great example because it has antimicrobial properties. So, it can help balance out your skin." That's the Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Liquid Soap - Tea Tree.
Lisa had teenage breakouts, and the products her friends were using didn't work for her. "Eventually I was like, well, I might as well try our own stuff. And I used the tea tree and it worked. I'm like, oh, goodness, I should have known."
My chin was breaking out, it was really hormonal. I thought, I'm going to be brave and I'm going to use this on my chin. It was so moisturising, and my chin did clear up.
Literally, a huge bottle must last five months. You need one drop per shower. Lisa says "it's also very concentrated. So, a little bit goes a long way." She recommends "buying the larger size, because then you can refill your own smaller bottles and not have to buy as much plastic."
Make it simple
"I write a blog called Going Green with a Bronner Mom. As individuals in our homes, we need to be making daily decisions to detoxify our homes and our lives. And if people do this on an individual basis, it will make a profound impact on our environment."
"I'm really talking to busy people who don't have time to go out and track down all this information. My goal is to make it simple, straightforward, easy to grab so they can get what they need and put it into practice."
About the Author
Irene Falcone is the founder of Clean Nectarine and co-host of The Lee & Irene Show. She started her first clean beauty business in 2011 with $100 in her garage and grew it to $20m in four years. She has spent over 15 years reading the backs of beauty and wellness labels, is a Telstra Business Women's Awards winner and an EY Entrepreneur of the Year finalist, and has been featured on A Current Affair, The Project, Sunrise, Channel Nine Mornings and Sky News.
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