All-One Castile Bar Soap
Dr. Bronner's Magic Pure Castile Bar Soaps consist in great part of choosing the right proportions of the right oils with their different fatty acids. Most commercial soap manufacturers skimp on quality because of cost and use lots of tallow from beef fat with a little bit of coconut or palm kernel oil. Dr. Bronner's Magic Pure Castile Bar Soaps are made with certified organic olive, hemp and palm oils instead of tallow, and contain three times more organic coconut oil than commercial soaps. Saponified coconut oil generates high-lather cleansing even in hard water because it has shorter-chain saturated fatty acids. Hemp, olive and palm oil-based soaps make a mild, smooth, creamy lather because these oils contain longer-chain unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fatty acids.
Soaps have been made for millennia. Aside from making fire and cooking food, saponifying oil and fat into soap is one of the oldest and simplest chemical reactions known to humankind. In fact, the first soaps were accidentally made by fat dripping into the ashes of cooking fires.
What does "Castile" mean?
In earlier centuries, an all-vegetable based soap was made in the Castile region of Spain from local olive oil. By the turn of this century, "Castile" had come to mean any vegetable oil-based soap, versus animal (tallow) fat-based soap. "Pure-Castile" is now also your guarantee that what you are using is a real ecological and simple soap, not a complex blend of detergents with a higher ecological impact due to the waste stream during manufacture and slower biodegradability. Unfortunately, many synthetic detergent blends are deceptively labeled as "Liquid Soap" even when they contain absolutely no soap whatsoever.
What is "Organic" and why is it so great?
The term "organic" refers to both sustainable farming practices and to products ecologically made from materials produced on certified organic farms. According to federal standards, such products have to be at least 70% organic by non-water, non-salt weight. Organic products not only support sustainable farming, but also farm worker health and ecological processing methods.
Unfortunately, the hollow market-driven needs of some "natural" body care companies are making a mockery of organic principles. Underneath fluffy, feel-good "organic" floral waters and infusions, many "organic" body care products are really just composed of the same synthetic cleansers, conditioners and preservatives found in mainstream products, often in part or wholly derived from petroleum. Culprit companies are inflating organic content by counting ordinary distilled water in "floral water" as organic, a practice which is not allowed under the National Organic Program.
No Animal Testing:
Dr. Bronner's qualifies for the rabbit and stars logo of the Coalition for Consumer information on Cosmetics (CCIC). This logo certifies that our product and all of our ingredients are not tested on animals. The CCIC, a coalition of animal rights organizations, requires independent audit for confirmation.