"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, the author of Soap & Soul, and the person who knows everything there is to know about Dr. Bronner's castile soap and all the ways you can use it.
I first met Lisa in 2015, when she came to Australia and we sat down for a cup of tea. So much of what she told me that day changed the way I buy and clean. When I got her back on my Talking Clean With Irene podcast, she told me even more.
Here are the 3 things I learned from my chat with Lisa
1. The soap started as a thank you
Lisa's grandfather, Emanuel Bronner, came from a family of German soap makers. The Bronners started making soap in Laupheim, Germany, in 1858, and he grew up in the family factory. Lisa says "he grew up under the guild system, became a master soap maker. And so he had this in his legacy, in his blood."
In 1929, at 21, he left Germany for the United States to follow his own path. When World War II started, "he was watching this from afar, couldn't do anything about it except communicate with his family, encouraged them to leave." His parents stayed, and they died in concentration camps.
That loss changed everything for him. Lisa told me "coming out of that horror, my grandfather was very motivated beyond his profession." He wanted to show the world "that we as people are more similar than we are different," so he wrote a philosophy he called the Moral ABC.
The problem was, "nobody really wanted to hear him." So he gave free soap to anyone who came to listen. Then "he noticed people would come, wait till the moment the soap was passed out, and then leave." So "he took his philosophy, he wrote it on the label, put it on the soap so that they would take it with them."
That's why every Dr. Bronner's bottle is covered in words. He kept tweaking them his whole life, even after he went blind in the late 60s, because he knew the label off by heart. Lisa says "it's something that we will never change."
2. After the war, wartime chemicals moved into our bathrooms
I asked Lisa why there are so many synthetic chemicals in our beauty products. Her answer goes back to the war. "The chemical revolution really was a result of World War II."
Factories had made huge amounts of chemicals for the war effort. When it ended, they needed somewhere to sell them. "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."
Synthetic was the exciting new thing, and Dow Chemical's slogan at the time was "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."
That's how sulfates ended up in so many washes. "A sulfate detergent bubbles wonderfully, and that's why they're so popular." Lisa says they're "not the best for our skin. They don't nourish our skin like a plant-based oil does." Synthetic fragrances took off for the same reason. "They're cheaper, they last longer, but they oftentimes have side effects that are very detrimental to human health."
Her grandfather went the other way. While everyone else was selling chemistry, "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 soap is one of the oldest soaps there is. It was first made by monks in the Castile region of Spain, using local olive oil. Dr. Bronner's still keeps it that way, with "nothing synthetic and nothing animal-based, just pure saponified vegetable oils."
Every scent has the same base, with hemp and jojoba oils added for your skin. Lisa told me these oils "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." That's why one bottle has more than 18 different uses.
Peppermint came first. "My grandfather started with the peppermint. That is our iconic, our original soap." That's the Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Liquid Soap - Peppermint. If you want no scent at all, the Baby Unscented is the base on its own.
The other scents come from essential oils, and each one does a job. Lisa says "tea tree oil is a great example because it has antimicrobial properties. So, it can help balance out your skin." She found that out as a teenager, after the acne products her friends were using didn't work for her. "And I used the tea tree and it worked. I'm like, oh, goodness, I should have known." I tried the Dr. Bronner's Pure-Castile Liquid Soap - Tea Tree on a hormonal breakout on my chin, and it cleared up.
A bottle lasts for months, because "it's also very concentrated. So, a little bit goes a long way." Lisa suggests buying the big bottle "because then you can refill your own smaller bottles and not have to buy as much plastic."
Make it simple
Lisa writes the Going Green with Lisa Bronner blog, full of easy ways to cut down the chemicals in your home. She says "if people do this on an individual basis, it will make a profound impact on our environment."
She writes it for "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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