SuperSonicFreedom

Psst...if you want to learn more about freedom, click here for more info. =)

Here’s a topic to ponder: soap

There’s soap for your hands, and soap for your body. There’s detergent for your clothes, and shampoo for your hair, and toothpaste for your teeth. Those latter examples may not sound like “soap” to you, but it’s all based on the same principles.

How much does this all matter? How much is necessary, and specifically how necessary is it to have all these different varieties? Take shampoo, for instance. Practically any shampoo will clean your hair; the expensive brands aren’t much better, and the special ingredients don’t necessarily help.

There’s a lot to consider, actually. There are a lot of chemicals in these soaps. And while I’ve seen no evidence that there’s anything unhealthy about that, it does make me vaguely uncomfortable. Then there’s the environment, first in the effects of shipping and bottling and then in the effects of the actual soap going down the drain. There’s some discussion about that.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: What the heck am I supposed to do about it? This is just another one of those complicated health-environment-sustainability-waste questions that never seems to get solved.

Well guess what? I have a solution for you.

It’s called…

Dr. Bronner’s Soap

(Also called “Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap” and “Dr. Bronner’s Castile Soap”, etc.)

Dr. Bronner’s has almost every advantage you can think of.

• It’s Certified Organic, which cuts down on weird chemicals
• It’s Fair Trade, which means that there’s no sweatshop labor or whatnot
• It’s concentrated, which means you get a lot of cleaning with only a little bit of soap
• It’s cheap! $15 bucks for 32 ounces. That’s like a six-month supply at least (see the preceding bullet point)
• It works on everything, from your hair to your hands to your body to your teeth, to your clothes to almost anything else you can think of.
• It’s legit. You can buy it on amazon. So you know I’m not making this up.

A couple of notes:

First, this is typically a liquid soap. (You can buy it in bar form if you like)

Second, brushing your teeth with it doesn’t taste half as good as regular toothpaste. In fact, the weird taste even lingers a bit. But it’s ok, you get used to it. (Also, do not swallow the soap.)

Third, it doesn’t really work in soap dispensers. But that’s fine, just tip the bottle into your hand.

Fourth, you may notice some really weird text on the label. It’s…vaguely similar to TimeCube. Here’s the deal on that: the original Dr. Bronner was kindof a kook. He put lots of tiny text on his soap labels to teach his philosophy. (Which isn’t all that bad…I think it’s about compassion. But it’s strange and ranting.) Despite his kookiness, the man was really good at making soap. His family is carrying on the business, and they decided to keep the kooky labels out of respect for the founder.

Now, how can I be sure that Dr. Bronner’s is so great?

Because I’ve tried it.

For the last 2 months, I have used Dr. Bronners almost exclusively. I’ve used it as hand soap, body wash, shampoo and toothpaste.(Update: After forgong regular toothpaste for 2 months and using only Dr. Bronner’s, I went to the dentist for my regular check-up. They say that my teeth are fine. So apparently Bronner’s really does work as toothpaste. Yay.) I haven’t used it to wash clothes, because I don’t run the washing machine around here. But Karol Gajda of RidiculouslyExtraordinary.com tells me that it works.

What does this have to do with freedom? It’ simple. I don’t have to purchase all these various soap products. I don’t have to lug them around whenever I go somewhere, and I don’t have to worry about environmental impact. For a full month of activity, all I need is a tiny 3 oz bottle of Bronner. (Karol Gajda confirms that too, in his post on traveling light)

As I said, it’s really cheap, so it’s easy to test this stuff for yourself. Check out the Bronner website to see all the various uses.

Thanks for reading. =)