5 ms·

Dr. Bronner’s, the Soap Company, Dips into Psychedelics

57 points by wunderlust 5y ago

xyzzy_plugh 5y ago
If you reversed the headline it would honestly make more sense. There's zero chance mind altering substances were not involved when Dr. Bronner's wrote the copy on their products. Just reading the bottles is a trip.
- egypturnash 5y ago
  This article claims he never used drugs despite selling his stuff in the middle of the sixties. It comes after multiple paragraphs describing the drug use of his kids, who now run the business, so it does feel like “oh yeah dad did fistfuls of LSD on a daily basis” would have been a thing they would casually reveal if it was true. There are other routes to the place that copy comes from. Mysticism can take you there more slowly. Madness takes you there without any working context to what’s happening, or any tools to deal with it.
- ihunter2839 5y ago
  Did you know that hemp was not used in Dr. Bronners soaps until the 90s? I think it's well know that Emmanuel Bronner suffered from some mental illnesses - the man lost his family to the holocaust and was sent to a mental asylum upon arriving in America. Life was not necessarily kind to him but he seemed to do alright with the cards he was dealt. I know when I first learned about the soap, I had a similar sentiment as you. As I have learned more about the history of Dr. Bronners, I have come to see that it is hard for me to imagine some of the trials that the generations before us have faced.
Overtonwindow 5y ago
We use their peppermint castille soap and it's amazing. I can't imagine, however, if while showering in the morning I started seeing pretty colors, and connected with my inner child.. I might need to call out that day.
Overtonwindow 5y ago
https://archive.ph/Pt3I2 https://archive.ph/Pt3I2
mordymoop 5y ago
The ramblings printed in the soap bottles have been the world’s longest running stealth ad campaign.
- Dylovell 5y ago
  And was the best bathroom reading pre-smartphones.
wodenokoto 5y ago
Dr. Bronners is (or used to be) the favorite soaps of online forums, since back in the phpbb days through Reddit. Over a decade ago I bought the cool aid and tried it and it is wasn’t very nice. I really don’t get it. Seeing it pop up again makes me wonder if they are the original Astro turfing ad campaigners.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  A brand name starting with “Dr” is always a good heuristic for bullshit. Excluding Dr Pepper, which tastes gross, but is apparently good at what it is supposed to be.
  - forgetfulness 5y ago
    Dr Bronner's embraces quackery outright, as to what degree it was intentional originally it's a mystery, the founder had a troubled background as a Jew escaping Nazi Germany, and went to the US to found a pacifistic cult around castile soap, that had actual followers. Anyway, I find it's very good on the skin, I guess that them selling somewhat fancy soap as overpriced floor cleaner just adds to the mystique.
    - filoeleven 5y ago
      > I guess that them selling somewhat fancy soap as overpriced floor cleaner just adds to the mystique. This is intended to be the other way around, right? Castile soap being the floor cleaner sold as fancy soap? The reason it caught my eye is because Dr. Bronner’s also makes a lesser-known concentrated detergent called Sal Suds, which is more recommended for cleaning non-living stuff including floors and laundry. The “Dilute!” exhortation is no joke. 2-3 tbsp is enough for a full load of laundry. It’s almost the only household cleaner I use.
- mandmandam 5y ago
  I like the stuff - it works, it smells great, and the rambling Zombocom style label tickles me. The original astro-turfers probably go back to caveman days. Ads and propaganda aren't new. Finally, I would bet your life that the mega-corp soap makers have been involved with literally hundreds of times more astroturfing than Dr Bronners, not to mention intrusive advertising, PR campaigns, aggressive advertising making people feel ashamed of their bodies, etc... Dr. Bronners take no part in that style of bullshit, and that's worth remembering.
bcx 5y ago
I want to hear the story about how they went from 4M in sales in 1998 to 170M in 2021. It might help more entrepreneurs choose to follow a similar direction in building long lasting, opinionated, mission driven companies, and pushing through hard times, rather than taking the quick life changing payouts to see their businesses disappear as they become folded into bigger entities.
- dclowd9901 5y ago
  Word of mouth is how I ended up using the product and now I’m hooked. It’s quality soap and you can use it for anything. So I think the story there is: quality will eventually win? But yeah I too would like to hear more if there’s more to the story than that.
- colechristensen 5y ago
  The founder and titular Bronner, who was somewhat mentally ill, died in 1997 and his children respected but toned down his legacy (old bottles were just covered with nonsense writing) and paid more attention to business sense. Likewise at the same time hippy counterculture became more mainstream, watered down, something you sell in the grocery store. i.e. whole foods being owned by Amazon. It’s basically a story of a product which appealed to a small counterculture riding the wave of that becoming mainstream with a commodity product which got to keep the weird in a way which didn’t offend the sensibilities of the median culture. In other words they very gently sold out without sacrificing much.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 5y ago
    King Arthur Flour is another company that had been around forever but seemed to become much better known around the same time. I suspect that it may partly relate to the web going mainstream--and therefore niche companies with a "fan club" but not enough money to do widespread promotion and advertising had new options for reaching people.
chillacy 5y ago
The article doesn't mention this but "employees from Dr Bronner's" (so the story goes, since the event is supposed to be non-corpo) run a pretty huge camp at Burning Man each year, where they provide a large public shower/dance party featuring Dr Bronner's soap. This is such a nice thing to have in the desert where most people don't have running water that people can line up for hours to enter (plus it's pretty cool inside).
crunkykd 5y ago
used their soaps for years. dilute it with water and use in foaming pump dispensers for hand soap - super economical. use it to wash dishes versus using name-brand detergents (soap is soap). love their camp at burningman. their heart's in the right place. what's not to like?

57 points by wunderlust 5y ago

If you reversed the headline it would honestly make more sense. There's zero chance mind altering substances were not involved when Dr. Bronner's wrote the copy on their products. Just reading the bottles is a trip.

egypturnash 5y ago
This article claims he never used drugs despite selling his stuff in the middle of the sixties. It comes after multiple paragraphs describing the drug use of his kids, who now run the business, so it does feel like “oh yeah dad did fistfuls of LSD on a daily basis” would have been a thing they would casually reveal if it was true. There are other routes to the place that copy comes from. Mysticism can take you there more slowly. Madness takes you there without any working context to what’s happening, or any tools to deal with it.
ihunter2839 5y ago
Did you know that hemp was not used in Dr. Bronners soaps until the 90s? I think it's well know that Emmanuel Bronner suffered from some mental illnesses - the man lost his family to the holocaust and was sent to a mental asylum upon arriving in America. Life was not necessarily kind to him but he seemed to do alright with the cards he was dealt. I know when I first learned about the soap, I had a similar sentiment as you. As I have learned more about the history of Dr. Bronners, I have come to see that it is hard for me to imagine some of the trials that the generations before us have faced.

Overtonwindow 5y ago

We use their peppermint castille soap and it's amazing. I can't imagine, however, if while showering in the morning I started seeing pretty colors, and connected with my inner child.. I might need to call out that day.

Overtonwindow 5y ago

https://archive.ph/Pt3I2 https://archive.ph/Pt3I2

mordymoop 5y ago

The ramblings printed in the soap bottles have been the world’s longest running stealth ad campaign.

Dylovell 5y ago
And was the best bathroom reading pre-smartphones.

wodenokoto 5y ago

Dr. Bronners is (or used to be) the favorite soaps of online forums, since back in the phpbb days through Reddit. Over a decade ago I bought the cool aid and tried it and it is wasn’t very nice. I really don’t get it. Seeing it pop up again makes me wonder if they are the original Astro turfing ad campaigners.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
A brand name starting with “Dr” is always a good heuristic for bullshit. Excluding Dr Pepper, which tastes gross, but is apparently good at what it is supposed to be.
- forgetfulness 5y ago
  Dr Bronner's embraces quackery outright, as to what degree it was intentional originally it's a mystery, the founder had a troubled background as a Jew escaping Nazi Germany, and went to the US to found a pacifistic cult around castile soap, that had actual followers. Anyway, I find it's very good on the skin, I guess that them selling somewhat fancy soap as overpriced floor cleaner just adds to the mystique.
  - filoeleven 5y ago
    > I guess that them selling somewhat fancy soap as overpriced floor cleaner just adds to the mystique. This is intended to be the other way around, right? Castile soap being the floor cleaner sold as fancy soap? The reason it caught my eye is because Dr. Bronner’s also makes a lesser-known concentrated detergent called Sal Suds, which is more recommended for cleaning non-living stuff including floors and laundry. The “Dilute!” exhortation is no joke. 2-3 tbsp is enough for a full load of laundry. It’s almost the only household cleaner I use.
mandmandam 5y ago
I like the stuff - it works, it smells great, and the rambling Zombocom style label tickles me. The original astro-turfers probably go back to caveman days. Ads and propaganda aren't new. Finally, I would bet your life that the mega-corp soap makers have been involved with literally hundreds of times more astroturfing than Dr Bronners, not to mention intrusive advertising, PR campaigns, aggressive advertising making people feel ashamed of their bodies, etc... Dr. Bronners take no part in that style of bullshit, and that's worth remembering.

bcx 5y ago

I want to hear the story about how they went from 4M in sales in 1998 to 170M in 2021. It might help more entrepreneurs choose to follow a similar direction in building long lasting, opinionated, mission driven companies, and pushing through hard times, rather than taking the quick life changing payouts to see their businesses disappear as they become folded into bigger entities.

dclowd9901 5y ago
Word of mouth is how I ended up using the product and now I’m hooked. It’s quality soap and you can use it for anything. So I think the story there is: quality will eventually win? But yeah I too would like to hear more if there’s more to the story than that.
colechristensen 5y ago
The founder and titular Bronner, who was somewhat mentally ill, died in 1997 and his children respected but toned down his legacy (old bottles were just covered with nonsense writing) and paid more attention to business sense. Likewise at the same time hippy counterculture became more mainstream, watered down, something you sell in the grocery store. i.e. whole foods being owned by Amazon. It’s basically a story of a product which appealed to a small counterculture riding the wave of that becoming mainstream with a commodity product which got to keep the weird in a way which didn’t offend the sensibilities of the median culture. In other words they very gently sold out without sacrificing much.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- ghaff 5y ago
  King Arthur Flour is another company that had been around forever but seemed to become much better known around the same time. I suspect that it may partly relate to the web going mainstream--and therefore niche companies with a "fan club" but not enough money to do widespread promotion and advertising had new options for reaching people.

chillacy 5y ago

The article doesn't mention this but "employees from Dr Bronner's" (so the story goes, since the event is supposed to be non-corpo) run a pretty huge camp at Burning Man each year, where they provide a large public shower/dance party featuring Dr Bronner's soap. This is such a nice thing to have in the desert where most people don't have running water that people can line up for hours to enter (plus it's pretty cool inside).

crunkykd 5y ago

used their soaps for years. dilute it with water and use in foaming pump dispensers for hand soap - super economical. use it to wash dishes versus using name-brand detergents (soap is soap). love their camp at burningman. their heart's in the right place. what's not to like?