"A case of driving while weird"

Soap, Drugs, & Rock and Roll



For those of you, who are not new age or aging hippies, Dr. Bonner's is a basic all purpose counter culture castile soap found in health food stories and occasional super markets. I first ran into it at Antioch where some people used it for literally everything, just as Dr. Bonner intended.

The original Dr. Bonner was more than a little unusual. He had a strange life, and was institutionalized a few times. Having foreseen the Holocaust, he pleaded with his parents to leave Germany but his words fell on deaf ears. The last contact was in the form of a postcard saying, "You were right. —Your loving father." That would be very hard on anyone.
The labels on the soap were/are chocked full of uses, quotes as well as religious ramblings.

Its a great soap. The company is small, family run and makes the soap by hand. As far as I know they still do no advertising. In a somewhat amusing interview with his son, its clear that some people take his "Moral ABC of All-One-God-Faith" quite seriously.

Dr. Bonner's goal in life was world peace and there is certainly nothing wrong with that.