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Comment by AdamJacobMuller | Hacker News Reader

> David Bronner, the top executive at Dr. Bronner’s soap company

He might be a wealthy executive, but, you're going to have an extraordinarily hard time convincing me that he's anything but the exact opposite of the caricature of a "wealthy executive"

Dr. Bronner’s is an amazing company with an amazing product.

They also source some of their oil from a small fair trade olive producing cooperative in palestine[1] which I was fortunate enough to visit in 2019. The people there couldn't say enough about how Dr Bronners had saved their coop and the Palestinian olive industry. Amazing people all around and the smells of a olive oil factory producing fresh olive oil are burned into my brain now!

[1] https://www.drbronner.com/all-one-blog/2017/05/growing-hope-...

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A bunch of Dr. Bronners employees, if not management and ownereship, also active as part of the Southern California burner community. They show up at local festivals with sometimes the only public shower available -- its a huge, fully-nude group shower with a dance floor and a large, transparent plexiglass trailer, where they hose down like 100 people at a time from an overhead balcony. It's a lot of fun for anyone brave enough to bare it all!

It's funny -- they used to leave Dr. Bronners branding around (it was pretty subtle though) and were happy to let you try out their soaps, which is supposedly a faux pas in the burner crowd ... but they were so well-loved by the community that it was the only large camp that was allowed to get away with it. More recently the local burner festival banned any commercial expression, and they still showed up, completely revamped to remove any trace of Dr. Bronners, even if it was the same setup with the same soap.

TBH I am not the biggest fan of their soaps but I have an immense amount of respect for the company, as their presence and its contradictions really add to the overall vibe.

Wow, I can't imagine wanting to dance wet and naked with a dozens of strangers. My bubble feels thoroughly violated just imagining it

The day you do you might find it quite liberating, I definitely recommend a trial in a good environment :)

Eat some mushrooms, then will feel completely natural.

I can't think of a better way to dry off!

Bronner fan for life - they got me hooked when I found myself spending 15 minutes in the grocery store reading the entire label.

IF CAP CLOGS, POKE IT! OKAY!!

Can you imagine a marketing company ever approving a label like that? And it's so distinct, effective, and memorable.

Well, memorable might be a bit debatable. It would make one impressive slam poetry performance to memorize. Distinctive, though, for sure.

It's such beautiful organic (* rimshot *) branding

I can actually.

There was a whole fad of anti-marketing marketing for a while. Burt's Bees pushed that hard for a long time (and they are actually VERY corporate...there is a docu basically all about how the actual Burt got screwed in the whole deal)

How did the bees fare?

Very corporate? Because they want to...make money, like companies are supposed to? Burt sold his rights to the product, including the usage of his name. As the documentary details, the fact that the company elected to basically keep him around out of good-will (is that how they screwed him?) doesn’t serve your point at all.

Making money is always just one of many motivations for company founders, company operators and company employees. Reducing the purpose of a company to a single motivation is unhealthy for all involved.

Perhaps you didn’t read my comment: Burt’s Bees, the company, kept Burt around even when they didn’t have to. The OP argued that it was about the single motivation of money, and I offered up the evidence that it clearly wasn’t all about money, considering they then employed and recognized Burt for his contribution to the product. You’re rebuttal is against the wrong person.

I liked when they were paper and easy to remove. It reads like a rant from an mentally unstable religious nut, and not of the religious brands I tend to like. Love the product but prefer to pass on the monotheism. But still, an all around good company.

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