Beauty

The nearly 75-year-old brand has a legion of devoted followers within the beauty industry.

But dont call them a cult.

In 2015, writer Jessica DeFino started a search for gentler skin care products.

Dr Bronner’s soap company is an organizational anomaly within the beauty industry. Why is it so popu…

Shed developed a severe case of dermatitis and needed soaps that wouldnt aggravate her condition.

Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, founder of makeup companyAmi Cole, uses thepeppermint-scented castile soap.

In a sea ofminimalist, design-centric beauty packaging, they stick out.

Dr Bronner’s castile soap, whether in peppermint scent or bar soap form, is a staple product in many…

If people didn’t love the soap, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

But Lamm acknowledges the brand has a complicated history, too.

It’s an amazing story.

Love Dr Bronner’s peppermint soap or bar soap? You’re in fashionable company.

Long before there was a wildly popular brand, there was Emanuel Heilbronner.

(He claimed the treatment was responsible for the blindness he developed later in life.)

Bronner eventually escaped the Illinois asylum and hitchhiked to California, leaving his children in foster care.

For Dr Bronner’s pure castile liquid soap, the ingredients have largely remain unchanged.

He began handing out homemade soaps, made from his familys recipe, to anyone who would listen.

Its changed very little since.

The soap was almost there more to sell the message.

Today, many people who purchase a peppermint-scented pure castile liquid soap dont know about the companys origins.

But some customers know the history and take issue with it.

David is quick to point out, though, that Dr. Bronners isnt a religion.

You cant become a member, and we dont perform marriages, he says.

(The marriage comment isnt a joke.

People really have asked for that.)

Within the companys current C-suites, religious affiliations are varied.

Lisa is a Christian who attends a Presbyterian church with her mother, company Chief Financial Officer Trudy Bronner.

I had some reallybig psychedelic awakenings… and realized my grandfather was 100% correct, he tells me.

Filmmaker Lamm was similarly impressed by how little the Bronner family tried to manipulate the narrative of her film.

And we can’t pretend otherwise.

In that way, Dr. Bronner got at least one thing right it really is all in the label.

This article was originally published onMarch 23, 2022