Dr Bronners Australia

What is biodegradable soap?

Soaps are usually deemed biodegradable if bacteria can break them down to at least 90-percent water, CO2, and organic material within six months. This simple step ensures you aren't adding anything unnecessary to the land and waterways while you are out there enjoying them.

1. Work Hard! Grow!

Number one in Dr. Bronner’s Moral ABC: Work hard! Prosper! Learn, grow, improve. Success is the engine that makes everything else possible.

1^st: If not for me, who am I? Nobody! 2^nd: Yet, if I’m only for me, what am I? Nothing! 3^rd: If not now, when?!” So begins Emanuel Bronner’s Moral ABC. The message is clear: We are responsible for ourselves but also each other, and as we grow, we must grow responsibly.

2. Do Right By Customers

First ingredient: love! Lead with heart, take time, give best—serve customers as you would serve mother-daughter-son.

Only the purest organic and fair trade ingredients—most products vegan and certified to the same organic standards as food! No synthetic preservatives, no foaming agents. Body, hair, face, mouth & teeth—food, dishes, laundry, mopping, pets—Dr. Bronner’s is the very best for human, home, and Earth.

Soapmaking the-Dr. Bronner’s way

Soaps have been made for millennia. Alongside making fire and cooking food, turning oils and fats into soap is one of the oldest and simplest chemical reactions known to humankind. It is believed that the first soaps were accidentally made by fat dripping into the ashes of cooking fires.

Soap is made by saponifying a fat or oil with an alkali. A fat or oil is a triglyceride, which means that three fatty acids of various carbon lengths are attached to a glycerin backbone. The alkali is either sodium hydroxide (lye) for bars or potassium hydroxide (potash) for liquids. Alkali is made by running electricity through salt water.

The saponification process is a simple one-step reaction with no waste generated: the glycerin is split off from the fatty acids, and the fatty acids combine with the sodium or potassium to form soap, while the hydroxide forms water. The result is soap, glycerin and water (no alkali remains in our soaps).

The original house in which the Heilbronner family manufactured soap.  Laupheim, Germany.

Unlike most commercial soapmakers, who distill the glycerin out of their soaps to sell separately, we retain it in our soaps for its superb moisturizing qualities. We super-fat our bar soaps for a milder, smoother lather and use natural vitamin E from and citric acid (both from non-GMO sources) to protect freshness. We do not add any chelating agents, dyes, whiteners, or synthetic fragrances— only the purest certified organic essential oils.

We make our soaps using only sustainably-grown vegetable oils:  coconut, palm, olive, hemp and jojoba. (Photo courtesy of Rapunzel Naturkost)

Quality soapmaking means choosing the right proportions of the right oils. Coconut oil is very high lathering but can be drying. Olive oil gives a soft and luxuriant lather but in small amounts. By using both coconut and olive oils in the right ratio, Dr. Bronner’s soaps offer the best of both worlds: high lather that’s soft on the skin. Our soaps also contain hemp and jojoba oils, which mirror the natural oils in the skin’s sebum, leaving skin feeling smooth after the soaps are washed away.

Our liquid soaps are three times more concentrated than most liquid soaps on the market, which means more soap per bottle and less waste in packaging materials.

Old world soap recipes made with modern soapmaking techniques.

3. Treat Employees Like Family

Be kind, reward generously, support good and healthy living. Seek and encourage the best in one another. For whatever unites us is greater than whatever divides us!

We’re a family business and consider all who work with us to be part of our extended family. Every “family member” in every position within the company has an important role to play and deserves to enjoy the best benefits and compensation programs we can offer.

4. Be Fair To Suppliers

Build relationships with organic farmers and producers to create equitable supply chains. Fair prices for farmers, living wages and excellent working conditions for workers, investment in communities, respect for land and people!

Our relationships with our organic suppliers is direct, local, personal, sustainable, tangible, and verifiable. It’s a way for customers to know that the products they’re purchasing will have a real and positive impact on the people and communities who make them. For us it’s a continuation of Emanuel Bronner’s legacy. He wanted to change the world for the better with the label on our bottles. We want to do the same with what’s inside.

5. Treat The Earth Like Home

Make humble and mindful use of the earth’s gifts. Do not waste, do not harm the land or people or animals. What comes from the earth must go back!

Regenerative organic farming projects—soil enrichment and tree-planting programs—100% post-consumer recycled packaging—aggressive waste and water-use reduction—yes!

6. Fund & Fight For What's Right!

Be an engine for positive change—share profits, share talent, share muscle, share voice—give & give, fund & fight!

Dr. Bronner’s has always been an activist company, dating back to when Emanuel Bronner was calling on the human race to unite from street corners and auditoriums, selling his peppermint castile soap on the side. Carrying forward that same activist spirit, it is our mission to continue to use the company today to fight for and financially support causes we believe in: regenerative agriculture, fair trade, animal advocacy, industrial hemp and drug policy reform, and living wages among others. We call ourselves the “fighting soap company,” and are committed and strategic in the causes we fight for.

For more information visit the Grants of Australia Facebook and Instagram pages.