Dr Bronner’s retro beauty
In the 80’s we went wild for Neal’s Yard. In the 70’s it was all about the Body Shop. Let’s take it back to the 1940’s when Dr. Bronner started making his magic soap…
Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps famously have 18 uses in 1 bottle which came in handy in the post war recession years of the 40’s and 50’s where women had to be creative and make do with what was available.
The multiple uses make Dr. Bronner’s the ultimate retro beauty product, whether it be washing your face, hands and body; cleaning your fruit and vegetables; scrubbing your bathroom, kitchen or clothes; cleaning your mouth and teeth on camping trips; making it into a deodorant or pest spray; or even giving your pets the once over.
What’s more, Dr. Bronner’s focuses on affordability and versatility, making the soaps and body products the perfect household accessory. In penny pinching times these 18-in-1 use bottles are the retro answer to our expensive beauty woes. Each 236ml bottle costs a credit crunching £4.99, and can be purchased from Fresh & Wild, Planet Organic, Whole Foods and Cult Beauty.com.
Celebrity fans include make-up artist Bobbi Brown, rapper Eminem and Hollywood actress Drew Barrymore.
ECO STANDARDS
Similar to other pioneering brands, Dr. Bronner’s takes sustainability and the labels ‘organic’ and ‘natural’ very seriously. Having always used natural ingredients, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps became officially certified organic by the US Department of Agriculture in 2003, and each year the company gives away a large portion of profits (between 30% to 70%) to charities on everything from helping inner city youths go camping to organic standards enforcement.
The soaps are most popular for at-home washing, but are also the soap of choice for many campers and hikers. They contain no synthetic foaming agents, thickeners, preservatives, fragrances, dyes or whiteners and use 100% post consumer recycled (PCR) cylinder bottles and paper labels. Completely biodegradable, the soaps are made with certified Fair Trade and organic ingredients sourced from India, Ghana, Palestine, Israel, and Sri Lanka.
THE BACKGROUND
The dramatic exhortations on the labels of the soap packaging come from the mind of Dr Emanuel Bronner, a third-generation master soap maker who spent his life renouncing hate and war on a personal mission to unite mankind. He was born in 1908 to the German-Jewish Heilbronner family, which had been practicing the traditional local craft since 1858. In 1929, Bronner, then aged 21, immigrated to the US working as a consultant soap manufacturer.
But following the death of his family in the Holocaust, he embarked on a mission to spread this message of world peace and the dangers of communism and fascism by giving public lectures on these subjects. His strong views landed him in a mental asylum in Chicago but Bronner escaped eight months later in 1948 and continued giving lectures in California. He also began making peppermint liquid soap under the ‘Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps’ brand. He gave away soap during his talks and when he realized people were taking it without listening to him speak, he started writing his philosophy on the bottle in tiny script.
These eccentric labels, featuring musings on everything from Hillel to Confucious, are still used today. In the early years the soap enjoyed a small but loyal following. With the emergence of 1960’s counterculture, sales rocketed on word of mouth as Dr. Bronner’s did not advertise. The soaps spread into health food stores across the US, and in recent years into mainstream shops.
Dr. Bronner’s is available UK nationwide at Liberty, select Waitrose stores and leading health shops including Fresh & Wild, Planet Organic and Whole Foods.
