Dr. Bronner’s, the Soap Company, Dips into Psychedelics | Hacker News Reader

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

nytimes.com

57 pointswunderlust32 comments

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mentioning the web, they were quite early to have web presence, and the archive is delightful.

https://web.archive.org/web/19970131094107/http://kingarthur...

To be fair, it's the only pure soap you can buy, for some weird reason.

I don't see how they sold out. The recipe is the same, none of the products have antibacterial chemicals like triclosan in them. The founding Bronner's ideology on pests was "Displace, don't erase." So unless they somehow violated that, I don't see any selling out. Plus the bottled of soap still have words on them -- ABC 123, one people..etc.

> old bottles were just covered with nonsense writing

The bottles I buy still are

It used to be even crazier.

The label used to have instructions on using the soap and lemon juice to prevent pregnancy, amongst other wild stuff. I wish my old bottles had more than scraps of the labels.

I’ve used their soap for a while. The messages are one thing but they make a fantastic product. It has the highest EWG rating, is made of all natural ingredients and has never had phthalates, parabens etc. To top it all off it’s a good product that’s sudsy and actually gets you clean.

Its no secret why they got so big. The soap is AMAZING. I keep a bottle at all times. Its the only soap that feels good to use. Not just my opinion either. I've had guests spontaneously ask me where I got it after trying it for the first time.

As for what makes it so good? I think its a combination of it being REAL soap and not some alternative amalgam of desurfecants and that they don't remove the glycerine. Sure, it makes it so you can't use it in handpumps (gums them up) but its also why their soap manages to clean so well without drying your hands out.

Lastly, the use of essential oils for the scents just makes it a luxurious experience.

All they had to do was get it in front of more people. anyone who tries it gets hooked.

The organic sugar soap does come in pump bottles and is also amazing.

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.

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.

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.

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).

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?

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

And was the best bathroom reading pre-smartphones.

https://archive.ph/Pt3I2

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.

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.

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.

> 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.

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.

You are so right

Could you clarify by what you mean as "it wasn't very nice"?

I've been using bronners for a decade and have recommended it to more people than I could count. I've never had anyone tell me they downright disliked the soap - with the exception of peppermint, some folks don't like the chilling sensation.

Follow the instructions on the bottle for dilution as well, makes like easier and spreads out the soap.

Not OP but I have tried to get along with it several times and every time, it dried my skin out so bad that I would itch, crack, and bleed. Leaves everything "squeaking" like Ivory soap, which I also don't like.

I will use it for housekeeping but I don't let it near my body anymore.

Everybody has different needs, so I can respect that it's not a perfect soap for all people.

That being said - are you diluting it or using it straight? I usually dilute 4 parts water to 1 part soap for handwashing / showering. Also, the Eucalyptus scent was harsher on my skin than others - I prefer the unscented, almond, or peppermint varieties.

Like sibling commenter said, it leaves everything on your body very dry.

Your hair gets that stiff feeling that shampoo doesn’t leave you with. I think it was the mint one I got, as recommended, and it left strong sensation on my balls - the kind you can’t tell if it is burning or freezing. And generally skin dry.

So what exactly does it do that the cheapest store brand bar or liquid soap doesn’t? It’s obviously full of residue given it’s scented, and even if it wasn’t full of non soapy things you’d still need to use body lotion and conditioner afterwards to not feel completely dried out.

Bronners cleans dirt and washes away sweat and grease, sure. But I’ve never encountered a soap or detergent in a super market that didn’t.

The cheapest liquid hand washing soap leaves your skin feeling softer and just as clean and just as scented as Bronners. Although I’m not really sure why being scented is a selling point.

Personally I can’t see why you shouldn’t go for a no perfume, certified safe for people with astma and allergies and certified environmentally friendly. In some markets (like Denmark) even the store brands has these certificates and you can scent yourself with the perfume or cologne of your choice instead of having a mix of cologne, body wash and shampoo fight it out.

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.

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