All-One or None

I use Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap--the original liquid, thanks. I used it off and on for years, and was buying it in California and bringing it here to Missouri until I discovered that my local supermarket sold quarts for $9.00. So for the last six years or so, I've been almost exclusively clean as a result of the products of the the Doc. (Or, as some of my friends put it, "The Pope of Soap." I'm serious; they call him that.)

All of us with an interest in chemical engineering or who saw Fight Club know that most soaps are actually pretty gross, ingredient wise. Commercial soaps are commonly made of rendered fat--usually from animals--and alkali salts. Dr. Bronner's is a Castile Soap, which means it is made from oils, which is significantly less disgusting (you don't get images of showering with chorizo, for instance).

The stuff is really concentrated. In practice, you have to dilute. How much you dilute is up to you, but you definitely have to water the stuff down, as the bottle tells you. Actually, the bottle tells you a lot of things. I'm not going to go into details about the original Dr. Bronner--who was certifiable and, at one point, certified--or his son that has taken over the business and apparently inherited a significant chunk of family eccentricities. There's a documentary that covers all of that. Let's just say the bottles have tons of small type that combine Dr. Bronner's rules for life, religious outbursts, infrequent love poetry, and--occasionally--comments about how to best make use of the soap. Good shower reading, if you ask me.

The stuff is a powerhouse. It seems watery at first, but you can really generate lather. And after using it and seeing how effective it is, it makes you wonder about why liquid soaps have a consistency not unlike Jell-O. Dr. Bronner's cleans better than any soap I've ever seen, doesn't dry skin out, and ends up being cheaper than any soap I've ever seen. It's also weird and different, and that works for me. Thought provoking, effective, inexpensive, weird, and different...what's not to love?

I bought my bottles a couple of weeks ago--two quarts a year gets me through a full year quite nicely. Some people dilute at 12:1, and I've heard of other going as low as 3:1. I'm around 6:1, and I get plenty of bang for the buck. I always use the Peppermint, and have one other scent/type to alternate with it. So I smell pleasantly like a large Starlight Mint half the time. Last year, I had the Eucalyptus, which made me smell like a terrific Cough Drop every other day. I've also used the Lavender (which smells like...lavender) too, but the smell is stronger and a little too feminine for me. The Tea Tree is nice, but the scent is a bit too much like Watery Lipton for my taste. So I chose the Almond this year, and have found that smelling like a big Chinese Cookie is quite nice.