If you’ve ever been to a natural food store, chances are you’ve seen Dr. Bronner’s Original 18-in-1 Soap and its iconic label filled with woo spiritual teachings about love, unity, and the “Moral ABCs” in teeny tiny print.
The company — founded in 1948 by Emanuel Bronner, a third-generation soap maker whose German-Jewish parents were murdered in the Holocaust — is actually a family-owned business, and its CEO David Bronner recently came out as neither completely straight nor male.
“For some time, I’ve thought it would be a good idea to ‘come out’ and celebrate that I’ve considered myself ‘about 25% girl’ for quite a while,” Bronner wrote in a blog post on National Coming Out Day, noting that they use he/him and they/them pronouns.
“I realized that I wasn’t ‘straight,’ ‘gay,’ or ‘man’ or ‘woman’ — but incarnate soul here to serve and get down, and that my toxic insecure aggressive masculinity was doing violence to my own feminine nature and soul,” they added.
Bronner said they first realized their gender fluidity during “a dramatic LSD and MDMA mediated initiation into spirit world in Amsterdam in a gay trance club” in the winter of 1995. They have since celebrated this part of themselves at the Burning Man psychedelic art festival by “cross-dressing” and “expressing [their] androgynous nature and inner woman.”
“While I identify as ‘relatively straight/masculine’ I also feel ‘relatively queer and feminine,'” they said. They also made sure to specify that they believe everyone exists on a gender spectrum and they don’t necessarily equate homosexuality with femininity.
“Many gay men and straight women rock a stronger masculine energy than I do,” they wrote.
The CEO said they had been inspired by their “genderfluid bi wife Mia,” their non-binary adult child Maya, a “non-binary, kink-positive, and sexual-in-all-directions poly friend” named Ariel Vegosen, and a now deceased “trans Black soul brother” named Kaleb Vaughn.
Bronner noted that the company has supported the genderqueer and trans camp “Gender Blender” and the “Queerdome” at Burning Man and also the nonprofit group Gender Illumination for many years.
“[My friend] associates the Divine Queer archetype also with the Trickster archetype which disrupts our socially constructed realities and ego identities,” Bronner wrote. “In some sense our soul is mercurial and queer, manifesting in so many different ways and modes in and to us.”
If all this sounds a bit woo, it makes sense considering that the company’s soap labels proclaim, “Absolute cleanliness is Godliness! … Full truth our God, half-truth our enemy, hard work our salvation, unity our goal, free speech our weapon.”
But the company also offers more than just spiritual advisements on its soap labels. It regularly invests in regenerative organic agriculture, fair trade, drug policy reform, wage equality, animal advocacy, and other peaceful qualities on “Spaceship Earth.” It also pays its CEO only five times as much as its lowest-paid employee makes, something few other companies do.
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abfab
Eucalyptus.
Crayonap
Thank you for your reporting of this; I love Dr. Bronner’s! Best Queer news!
CNY1983
confusing, or maybe i’m too lazy to organize all those people places and things in my life. switching to his soap, i need to clean my act up.
Kangol2
Peppermint. Legendary.
BoylesqueBubble
The soap is one of the worst things you can use in your skin. The pH level of alkalinity is off the charts, and that’s just the recipe for the soap itself. Eucalyptus and peppermint are skin irritants. Feeling a tingle? Your skin is reacting to the irritants. Doesn’t matter if it’s diluted, or natural, it’s one of the most caustic for your skin and hair. Why would one want to use a soap advertised that can also wash your floors and car, to cleanse your skin? Just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s better for you.
Cam
ANYTHING in large doses can be bad for skin, that would be why the ingredients are diluted. Too much water can literally kill you.
BoylesqueBubble
Cam, even with the dilution the pH levels are still there, so it doesn’t matter the dilution. The pH being bad, is still there in the product, so the alkalinity is still there. Dilution levels don’t change the fact that for it to be watered down and still produce a sudsing agent, it’s still high in alkalinity. This is a product being touted for multiple uses (hair care, body care, washing your floors, the outside of the your car, etc) so there hasn’t been an adjustment in balancing out specifics. Hair products have a different pH level then what a body wash has and a facial wash has a different level, there’s a balance on the scale specifically for this or that.
It’s why when I see people talking about doing a “hair detox” (because they’ve been too lazy to actually wash their hair…you know they’re out there!) using vinegar and then baking soda next, that’s a shock to the hair itself: the acid from the vinegar and then the alkaline from baking soda? Never. A nice rinse once a week with some apple cider vinegar with some water added adds a nice sheen. But consistent use of those two above combined? No no. Don’t! Regrets later!
Dr. Bronners is loaded with ingredients that I wouldn’t put on my skin (cosmetologist here) but as a home cleanser for stuff? Oh you bet! Just adds to a green-centric way of housekeeping, and biodegradable. Just not for the hair or skin stuff.
Neoprene
Kirk’s Castile Soap is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to cleanliness except thru Kirk’s.
dlfmidtownone
hello
Eternal.Cowboy
“ Why would one want to use a soap advertised that can also wash your floors and car, to cleanse your skin?”
Dear lord this is a terrible argument. Using this line of reasoning people should avoid water. Water is used to floors, cars and as a coolant for nuclear reactors!!!!! Ohh the funky horror of water!!!
BoylesqueBubble
Come at me when you’ve studied and gotten a degree in esthetics and also studied trichology. Obviously you know nothing, but nice try ya phucktard!
Cam
Sounds like a good product and I’ll give it a try because it’ always nice to support a supportive business.
I have to say, reading his commentary was a bit exhausting. People that go to Burning Man can sometimes remind me of relatives in old movies who would break out the slide show and show 10 hours of vacation pictures.
Fahd
This soap product has an engaging history if I remember reading the bottle correctly. The life story makes me realize that the rich, especially the German rich, are different from you and me.
still_onthemark
“German rich”? Well, they’re different from you and me because we weren’t killed in concentration camps. David isn’t that “rich” since he makes only 5 times what the lowest-paid employee makes. And they’re not German anymore because they’ve been in San Diego County for decades.
What a weird comment.
Fahd
@still on the mark – apologies, I misremembered the family story (even though it is referenced in the article). What a faux pas!
I should have just left it at the rich are different from you and me. LSD/MDMA mediated sessions at gay trance clubs in Amsterdam is what got me thinking “rich”. He must have some shares in the company besides his salary, no? You seem to know him.
Thanks for the clarification/correction.
still_onthemark
Dr Bronner’s PEPPERMINT is the best mosquito repellent!
lather
Used this soap 40 + years ago as did all my other “hippie” friends. It cleaned, but it sure didn’t taste that great to brush your teeth and after recently viewing an old pic my only thought was why didn’t someone tell me about hair conditioner. Seriously.
MrGoldman
I bought this onetime. My skin was so dry that the palms of my hands started cracking.
abfab
And in the shower those big liquid soap containers made for great reading material as a teen. Someone above said this is bad for you skin. WRONG! She sounds like a saleswoman for Irish Spring…yuck!