How a Decades-Old Hippie Soap Brand Became a Touchstone of Wellness Culture
12th May 2019
But since the company’s founding in 1948, nothing about Dr. Bronner’s has been conventional. Its CEO, David Bronner, a ponytailed vegan surfer who wears tie-dyed shirts and drives a rainbow-colored Mercedes-Benz, has planted hemp seeds on the Drug Enforcement Administration’s lawn and was once arrested for locking himself in a cage outside the White House.
Michael Bronner, David’s more buttoned-up brother, says that social media, where so many beauty and wellness brands have built virtual empires, is “essentially amoral.” Dr. Bronner’s calls itself the “fighting soap company” because so much of its revenue goes toward activism. Most revealingly, perhaps, the brand claims that the first ingredient in all its products, from soap to coconut oil to household cleaner, is “love!” — exclamation point and all.
I see a lot of virtue-signaling, not very much in the way of ‘wellness’.
If you’ve got a First World Problem, America has a product to assuage it.