Dr. Bronner Magic Soup

The MAGIC of Dr. Bronner’s Pure Castile Magic Soap

Dr. Bronner in all his glory

For some 35 years, three and a half decades or more I have been a devoted acolyte to one soap, the one true soap. The Soap of the Ages, Dr. Bronner’s All-Purpose, Pure Unadulterated Castile Soap. Bronner’s amazing soap came to my tiny backwater village riding on the wings of the greatest youth movement of the age. The Scouting Movement! As a lad of 14-15 or so, and wholly ignorant of the ways of the world I was deeply involved with the Boy Scouts of America it’s ethos of utilitarian simplicity, and wilderness conservation spoke to my soul. I truly enjoyed camping, building fires, and walking insane distances with everything I needed secured to my back. Those were the days. In fact, being a child of limited means but boundless imagination I crafted much of my own gear. For example, I found an old aluminum lawn chair on the side of the road, after sawing it up with a hacksaw, bolting it together, and borrowing some straps, and an old seat belt I had myself a very sturdy pack frame. It worked for years on many excursions into the Savage Gulf and Ravens Point areas.   This is what I did I camped, sleeping under some plastic sheeting I’d turned into a tarp, drank out of springs, and cooked out of cast iron skillets. I was obsessed, so much so that I talked my parents into sending me to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico. I “applied” for a spot and was readily excepted (Mom & Dad dropped a lot of money they didn’t have so I could have my “adventure”, of course I didn’t understand any of this at the time). I was so excited I could barely stand it. I’d never been so far from home before. Philmont Scout Ranch is the Mecca of Scouting’s backpacking culture.

          Shortly thereafter, we (Mom, Dad, and I) were presented with an EQUIPMENT LIST. This is where my OCD became

The many products

unmanageable. All items on “EQUIPMENT LIST” had to be accounted for. The stumper for the humble Shores household was this alchemy known as “Biodegradable Soap”. This caused me the greatest of confusions. Where do I get “Biodegradable Soup”? It’s 1987, and no one in Franklin County Tennessee has ever heard of such nonsense. I’m sure Dad is thinking, “What kind of Hippy Communist Bullshit is this biodegradable soap!” Luckily for me, one the advisors Mr. Dempsey a 1^st Infantry Division veteran, and survivor of D-Day told Dad over the phone, “Oh I’ll just grab you a bottle and you can pay me at the next meeting.” Hungry for resolution I agree. The CRISIS is solved, and balance was thus restored. Almost immediately my nightmares about not having a properly biodegradable soup were banished.

          At the next rendezvous Mr. Dempsey produces the product. It’s in a medium sized plastic bottle. I pay for the product like a parking lot drug deal; crumpled dollars bills with too many dimes and quarters thrown in for good measure. Almost immediately I’m drawn to the tiny psychotic print that adorns every square inch of the bottle. Mr. Dempsey (soap pusher) smiles cryptically, “Enjoy” he says. My 14-year-old brain is exploding in a WTF moment, mind is blown.

     First of all, this soap has uses! Not just scrubbing your body, but

The original label, these should be considered my Dead Sea Scrolls

scrubbing your soul as well! In addition, you can use it for toothpaste, shaving, massage (always towards the heart), aromatherapy, washing fruit/vegetables, laundry, all-purpose cleaning, and controlling pesky dust mites. What can this soap not do is the real question? Dr. Bronner’s also offers something no other soap has ever to this day offered, a guiding moral compass. The Moral A, B, C’s is Dr. Bronner’s mantra for world salvation. It combines a splendid blend of Eastern and Western philosophies. A quote directly from the label I read as an extremely impressionable child, “ENJOY ONLY 2 COSMETICS, enough sleep 4 Dr. Bronner's 'Magic Soap' to clean body-mind-soul-spirit instantly uniting One! All-One! Absolute cleanliness is Godliness!” I was hooked on this strange word salad testament of religious madness from the beginning. I’ve carted Dr. Bronner’s soaps the world over, from Philmont to the Philippines it’s not been far from my side. Dr. Bronner’s is the one true soap for all my travel needs, and yes it makes a decent tooth paste. I like it that someone could wrestle with life’s meaning, absurdities, and failings. That it led him to soap-making, is quite ironic. But I must wonder what came first the soap or the vision (chicken and egg story). One man’s rage against the long dark night of the soul. Preaching nothing but love and understanding Dr. Bronner is surely a man worthy of kind consideration and support.

Like Dr. Bronner says, “To dream the impossible dream! To reach that unreachable star! 41 AII-One, All-One we are! To fight that unbeatable foe! To go where the brave dare not go! To right the unrightable wrong! To love pure, chaste, from afar! To try when your arms are too weary! 'Til All- One, AII4ne we are! For this is my goal! To reach that unreachable star. No matter how hopeless, no matter how far! To fight for the right without question or pause, to be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause! For I know that if I follow this glorious quest, my heart will lie peaceful & calm when I'm laid to my rest! And I know that the world will be better for this, that one man, tortured, blinded, covered with scars, still strove with his last ounce of courage, to reach that unreachable star 'til united All-one, All-one we are!”