Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps
America’s No. 1 Selling Natural Soap and Celebrity Favourite Cleans Everything and Leaves You with a Clean Conscience
August 1, 2013
With famous fans including Lady Gaga, Eminem, Natalie Portman, Drew Barrymore, Sandra Bullock and Bobbi Brown, this USA’s No. 1 selling natural soap brand and leader in organic and Fair Trade skin care, is lathering its way into British homes and hearts with its philosophical labels, certified Fair Trade and organic ingredients and uncommon quality.
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. These eccentric labels, featuring musings on everything from Hillel to Confucius, are still used today. In the early years the soap enjoyed a small but loyal following.
The magic of Dr. Bronner’s is its affordability and versatility, – with 18 uses from 1 bottle of liquid soap at £5.49 per 236ml bottle. Best used with a cloth, towel, loofah or sponge you can use it to clean your body, your mouth & teeth, your fruit & vegetables, your bathroom and kitchen, your clothes and even your pets! It comes in nine main varieties, the original being the famous tingly Peppermint – “nature’s own unsurpassed fragrant Deodorant!” – followed by Green Tea, Lavender, Eucalyptus, Citrus, Almond, Rose, Unscented Baby Mild and Tea Tree which can even be used to treat minor cuts.
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.
Dr. Bronner’s takes its organic credentials very seriously unlike many “natural” body care companies who masquerade synthetically derived ingredients by using floral water as the main natural ingredient, while the functional ingredients are petrochemical derived and thus non-sustainable. The 100% Pure Castile Soap recipe used in Dr. Bronner’s soap is a simple, ecological, vegetable based formulation, – named after the Castile region of Spain, where olive oil soaps where invented long ago. The high foaming lather of the soap is from its high coconut oil content, which makes a more luxurious and rich lather compared to any detergent formulation commonly found even in “natural stores.” Dr. Bronner’s superfat its soaps with organic hemp and jojoba oils for a milder, smoother lather and use natural plant-derived vitamin E and citric acid to protect freshness. Apart from flavouring organic essential oils such peppermint, the base soap ingredients are Water, Saponified Organic Coconut*, Organic Palm* and Organic Olive* Oils (w/Retained Glycerin), Organic Hemp Oil, Organic Jojoba Oil, Essential Oils**, Citric Acid, Vitamin E.
Dr. Bronner’s is Committed to Charities World Wide – War Child in UK
Every year Dr. Bronner’s gives away a large portion of profits, ranging between 30% to 70% of after tax income to charities working on everything from helping inner city youth go camping, to organic standards enforcement to funding orphanages in poor countries. Since March 2009 in the UK, 20p from the sale of every soap bottle goes to War Child International, a network of independent organisations, working across the world to help children affected by war. Sales of the Dr. Bronner’s have jumped 40% since the partnering with War Child, proving the UK consumer will reward brands that show initiative on charitable giving.
The Background
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 U.S. working as a consultant soap manufacturer. 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 realised 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 and the quality, as Dr. Bronner’s does not advertise. The soaps spread into health food stores across the US, and in recent years into mainstream shops.
Having always used natural ingredients, Dr. Bronner’s became officially certified organic by the US Department of Agriculture in 2003, branching into other organic personal care products in 2005. Today, its products are the top selling organic soap brand in the U.S. and are distributed world wide. Although Dr. Bronner passed away in 1997, his company continued to flourish under his son Ralph, daughter in-law Trudy and grandsons David and Michael. In a time where CEO compensation can reach as high as 500 times the average worker’s wage, Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps remains true to it’s founders’ philosophy of sharing profit with the workers and the earth from which it was made by capping the salaries of the highest paid employees/owner’s at five times that of the lowest paid full time employee.
Dr. Bronner’s is available UK nationwide including Liberty, select Waitrose stores and leading health shops including Whole Foods
It is also available on the UK website: www.drbronner.co.uk
To find your nearest stockist call t: 0845 072 5825
RRP for 18-in-1 Hemp Pure Castile Soap 8 fl oz £5.49, travel size 2fl oz £1.99,
solid bar £3.99
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For further press information, to receive samples or to arrange interviews with David or Michael Bronner please contact:
Lucy Hilson at The Spa PR Company
T. 020 7100 7018
*Highly commended by retailers at the Health Food Business Product Awards 2010*
Notes to editors:
Dr. Bronner recorded the “18 in 1 uses” on his label, which have been left mostly intact since his passing in 1997; however, people have told them many, many more uses for the soap than that. Here is his version. A more paraphrased one follows.
Dr. Bronner’s version:
- Shave
- Shampoo
- Dental
- Soap bath
- Peppermint is nature’s own unsurpassed fragrant Deodorant!
- A drop is best Mint Toothpaste; brushes Dentures Clean!
- A dash in water is the ideal Breath Freshener & Mouth Wash!
- Peppermint Oil Soap for Dispensers, Uniforms, Baby, Beach!
- Dilute for ideal Body Rub
- Foot Bath
- Douche
- Hot Towel-Massage the entire body, always towards your heart.
- Pets
- Silk, wool, washing clothes and dishes
- Body tingles head to toe – keeps cool!
- 3 dashes in water rinse most Sprays Off fruit & vegetables!
- 1/4 oz in qt H2O is Pest Spray!
- Dash, no rash Diaper-Soap!
Paraphrased:
- For everyday body-washing: Get wet and pour soap full-strength onto hands-washcloth-loofah. Lather up, scrub down, rinse off, and tingle fresh & clean.
- For other uses, dilute from one part soap into 40 parts water for light cleaning, to cutting it in half or using it full strength for heavy-duty grease-cutting jobs.
- For shampoo, though we now recommend our new Shikakai soaps for this, many people are fond of using it as such. The method of application is to wet hair and scalp very thoroughly, squirt some soap into hands and work into a lather. Wash hair, then rinse well. Afterwards use our new citrus hair rinse and leave-in conditioners as directed.
- For the laundry, use 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup for one regular load; adjust as needed depending on hardness of water. I’ve been told that adding a dash of baking soda makes it even better.
- For tooth brushing, apply a drop or two of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap to a wet toothbrush. Brush as you normally would, rinsing accordingly. Be careful about using more than a couple drops of soap, as you might start foaming at the mouth. Many people with sensitive or softer teeth like to use our soap as a toothpaste because it lacks abrasives.