The Dangers of Antimicrobials and How to Choose Products Without Them
Toxic-Free Talk Radio
Archives of radio interview transcripts with leading toxic-free innovators recorded 2013-2015
TOXIC FREE TALK RADIO
The Dangers of Antimicrobials and How to Choose Products Without Them
Host: Debra Lynn Dadd
Guest: Larry Plesent
Date of Broadcast: November 14, 2013
My guest today is Larry Plesent, Founder of Vermont Soap. We're going to talk about why you shouldn't use toxic antimicrobials, which products contain them and where you can find antimicrobial-free alternatives, and some toxic free ways to kill germs. Vermont Soap makes "100% natural and non-toxic alternatives to the chemical based personal care products now in general use, including; handmade bar soaps for sensitive skin, anti-aging products, 100% natural shower gels, castile liquid soaps and non-toxic cleaners. Most products made by Vermont Soap are certified to USDA organic standards." Larry is also a writer,philosopher, restaurateur and farmer.
Transcript:
DEBRA: Hi, I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And this is Toxic Free Talk Radio, where we talk about how to thrive in a toxic world. And we need to talk about that because there are a lot of toxic chemicals out there.
There are a lot of chemicals that can harm our health and well-being, that can affect how we think, and how we feel, as well as how our body operates. There are chemicals that can make us fat, chemicals that affect our sexual drive and performance, and chemicals that do all kinds of things to our bodies.
And in fact, when I was writing my latest book, Toxic-Free, I researched all the health effects of toxic chemicals. Again, I’ve been researching them for more than 30 years. And I found that every single illness or symptom can now be associated with exposure to toxic chemicals. There are studies which show this.
And so, it’s not just about one body system. Every single body system in your body is being affected by toxic chemicals. And some chemicals are affecting more than one body system.
It’s something we really need to know about. And we really need to know how to protect ourselves from those exposures or eliminate them.
So today is Thursday, November 14th 2013. I’m here in Clearwater, Florida on a beautiful autumn day. And today, we’re going to talk about antimicrobials.
You’ve probably seen the word antimicrobial on all kinds of products now—everything from shoes, to toilet seats, to cutting boards. And we’re particularly going to talk about antimicrobials as a group of chemicals and how they affect your body.
But we’re also specifically going to talk about how we can eliminate the need for using antimicrobials to wash our hands.
My guest today is Larry Plesent. He’s the founder of Vermont Soap. Larry has been on before. And the reason why I asked him to come on again is because I received an e-mail from him a few weeks ago where he said, “Recently, a customer asked if our castile soap was antibacterial, which led us to dig into the science of getting your hands clean. And the results may surprise you.”
And at the same time, I went to a webinar where the whole webinar was on antibacterial. This question comes up so much on my Green Living Q&A blog. “What about this antibacterial and what about that antibacterial?” So, I thought it’s time to do a show on antibacterials.
Hi Larry. How are you?
LARRY PLESENT: Hi, Debra. Thanks for having me back again.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. It’s my pleasure.
LARRY PLESENT: [inaudible 02:56]
DEBRA: We just need to do a little test because I’m not understanding you on your phone. So could you talk right into the phone?
LARRY PLESENT: Okay, can you hear me clearly now?
DEBRA: That’s a little better, better than before.
LARRY PLESENT: A little better? Okay.
DEBRA: That’s even better.
LARRY PLESENT: That’s even better, all right. I’ll talk very near into my telephone.
DEBRA: Talk boldly into your telephone.
LARRY PLESENT: Thank you! Thanks for having me on.
DEBRA: You’re welcome. I know that you told us your story before. But why don’t you tell us your story again of how you came to be interested in toxic chemicals and how you came to have a soap company?
LARRY PLESENT: I’ll give you the cliff notes. I was a window cleaner [inaudible 03:45]. I was a window cleaner. I jumped off buildings with a safety line. And my life [inaudible 03:51] Spidey, like Spiderman. And we made our own cleaning chemicals to clean buildings. And we were doing commercial work primarily.
These were just common cleaning chemicals that came right out of the supermarket, every one of them. And I got very, very, very sick. And what people used to call multiple-chemical sensitivity, what I like to refer to as “having a reactive body.” I became highly reactive to pretty much everything that was in that window cleaning mix which included fake color, fake scent, methanol and detergents.
So, rather than be depressed about it, I took action. And I started a non-toxic soap company. We make a wide variety of products now, including non-toxic cleaners, pet products, oral care, anti-aging.
We’re actually going to be releasing very, very soon (we’re working on the labels for) some new sanitizer sprays which are organic ethanol-based, organic alcohol and essential oils.
DEBRA: Oh, great! Great! I really think that would be a really needed product.
LARRY PLESENT: I agree. Our first in the series, our first sanitizing spray, once we got our Homeland Security-cleared license to work with cosmetic alcohol—which actually was quite a process.
DEBRA: Wow!
LARRY PLESENT: Yeah! It wasn’t easy. It took us over a year.
So, the first product we did was toothbrush sanitizer. I wanted to illustrate that there are over a trillion germs crawling around on your toothbrush right now. And that’s not good. And these aren’t good, happy germs. These are the germs that cause tooth decay and gum disease. And you’ve been working really hard to clean them off, so we need to stop re-inoculating ourselves.
So, the first step to regaining the health of your gums is to sanitize your toothbrush.
Now, alcohol is nature’s sanitizer. Alcohol and soap and water are really all that you will ever need. The reason I like alcohol is that it evaporates off. And if you’re highly asthmatic or reactive, you’re going to have issues with that. So open a window or go outside when you do it. We don’t want you getting alcohol sensitive through over-exposure when you’re in a reactive state. I like alcohol.
DEBRA: I’m just going to add something here because I know some people will hear the word alcohol, and they’ll say, “Oh, no, no. No, not alcohol.” But there’s a difference between alcohol like in isopropyl rubbing alcohol and the alcohol that you’re talking about, correct?
LARRY PLESENT: Oh, boy! Let’s talk about alcohol.
DEBRA: Let’s talk about alcohol for a minute. Go ahead and tell us.
LARRY PLESENT: Okay, okay. In hand sanitizers, alcohol, as you know, is a liquid. Hand sanitizers are a gel. And I discovered that the commonly used gelling agent for alcohol—there are very few things that will gel alcohol when it’s at 64.5%-- 62.5% or better of that which is what you need to make a germ-killing sanitizing or disinfecting claim. So, you have to have a product that’s mostly alcohol.
Now, the thing that gels it up is something called carbomer. And I found time and time again in my tests on our focus groups that carbomer dried people’s hands. And they didn’t like it. So, right there, it gives alcohol-based sanitizers a bad name.
So, we looked at that and said, “Wait a minute. We’ll make little spray bottles, little handy sprays you could keep, you could carry, tie around in your pack or your bag. And then, you can quickly sanitize your hands, rubbing around in 20 seconds or so.
You kill the germs and it’s evaporated. And you’re not all dried out as you would from the carbomer.” So, you greatly reduce reactivity. I’m not going to say none.
Now, let’s talk about alcohol. In order for alcohol to be—not drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol is taxed at 90%, first of all. And the cosmetic alcohol or non-drinking alcohol is taxed at a much lower rate, probably state sales tax. I don’t want to get into it. It would be different everywhere.
But in order for something to be non-drinking, it has to be poison or something. It has to smell bad and make the air be bittering.
So, typically, you would use what are called bittering agents. And the commercial product is called bitterant. You can look it up.
I’m unable to find anything negative about it. But certainly, the internet wasn’t able to know anything about bitterants—other than if you are artificial scent sensitive. If you don’t like artificial fragrances, we stay away from that.
The other thing […], methanol can be used in low-grade rubbing alcohol. Rubbing alcohol will be immediately suspicious, especially the cheap ones you get on sale.
DEBRA: We need to take a break. It’s a good place to take a break. We’ll be right back. And we’ll talk more about antimicrobials and their ingredients.
This is Debra Lynn Dadd. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. Mnd my guest today is Larry Plesent, founder of Vermont Soap. And you can go to his website at VermontSoap.com. And we’ll be right back.
= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Larry Plesent, founder of Vermont Soap. And that’s VermontSoap.com. And we’re talking about antimicrobials and safe personal care products that are good for you and don’t have these toxic chemicals in them.
Larry, I was just, during the break, looking at—I happen to have a bottle of your toothbrush sanitizer here. It smells really good.
I really like it. It says certified organic alcohol.
And I know that isopropyl alcohol, which is probably the kinds that’s used in most hand sanitizers, is a petroleum product. And so I’ve been telling people for years that instead of using that distilled alcohol from petroleum, that they should just use vodka.
At least the vodka is from a natural source—much more expensive.
But now, tell us, you started with—
LARRY PLESENT: Hold on now. Your vodka is 40%. And to make a germ-killing claim, it needs, it needs to have over 62.5%.
DEBRA: Oh, good point.
LARRY PLESENT: But maybe if you use something stronger, probably a 60% vodka or something a little stronger, 80% vodka, that would certainly kill [inaudible 11:19].
DEBRA: Oh, great! That’s really good to know. So then your alcohol would be certified organic alcohol. It certainly wouldn’t be made from petroleum because you can’t certify that to be organic.
LARRY PLESENT: There are two sources of this. It’s from the Brazilian sugar cane, which is fermenting the alcohol. There’s a whole industry built around that. And some of it is from midwest [grains]. And we traced that, that there’s absolutely no gluten or wheat residue of any kind in it. We made absolutely sure that was [inaudible 11:58]. Our operations manager is gluten intolerant. And so, it was a top priority for her [inaudible 12:04].
DEBRA: That’s very good. So that’s very different. This certified organic gluten-free, natural-based alcohol is very different from what you think of as the alcohol they put on a swab in the doctor’s office for when you get a shot or if you use isopropyl alcohol that you buy for a dollar for a bottle in the drug store. Even though they’re both called alcohol, they are two very, very, very different things.
LARRY PLESENT: I gave a bottle [inaudible 12:45] back when we had a video rental (you know, a CD rental, or DVD). And they said, “Hey, do you have anything that we can use to clean these DVDs coming back from the rental?” So I said, “Well, all I have is this toothbrush sanitizer. Try that.”
And I got a cryptic call from the manager of the place who wanted to know why was it that our toothbrush sanitizer cleaned those DVDs better than anything else. It’s because the properties of the ethanol were different from any of the alcohol that they had been using previously.
Of course, I didn’t tell him that. I said, “Oh, you just have to keep buying it, I guess.”
DEBRA: So, you could also use it as a cleaner for anything else, anything else you want to sanitize?
LARRY PLESENT: Yeah, to really clean and sanitize, yeah, you absolutely can. And that’s a lot of what we’re doing. With a slight adjustment to essential oils, we’re coming out with additional sprays that are being marketed for that. We have the product we were calling universal sanitizers. We’re thinking galaxies and other I don’t know. But we’re working on it. It’s coming soon.
Sign up for our e-blast, so that you’ll be right on top. In the meantime, the toothbrush sanitizer works pretty good.
DEBRA: Absolutely! Llisteners, you should go to VermontSoap.com and sign up for their newsletter because they send out interesting things. And whenever they make something new, you’ll find out about it if you’re on their newsletter mailing list.
So, let’s talk about triclosan.
LARRY PLESENT: Triclosan. See, you’re right there. But I want to give a little background as part of talking about triclosan because we’re of one mind here, Debra.
What does the word “antimicrobial” mean?
DEBRA: Oh, yeah. Let’s talk about that.
LARRY PLESENT: We’ve got to do that because that’s how we lead into triclosan.
So, antimicrobial has a legal definition. There is an FDA legal definition. It’s called the 30-second kill rate. And it means that within 30 seconds, 99.999% of all germs (nearly 100% kill rate) will occur—within 30 seconds. Now, there are no natural products on earth that can match that.
However, according to the Harvard Review, they’ve done some studying by an FDA panel in 2005, if you wash your hands with, hey, pure natural soap and water for 30 seconds, you will kill 99.99% of all germs—not enough to make an antimicrobial claim. So, you get where we’re going.
So, soap and water, the message is—your grandmother was right—put alcohol in the cut, and use lots of soap and water.
DEBRA: Yes, I’m a member of Toastmasters. In fact, this weekend, I’m going to a Toastmasters Conference to get the highest award of Distinguished Toastmasters. And that’s a big deal for me.
What I wanted to say is that at a Toastmasters’ meeting, one of our members was a registered nurse. And we get all kinds of speeches on all kinds of subjects at Toastmasters. And she gave a 5-minute speech on how to wash your hands. And she gave us all handouts about exactly—and she had us sing the alphabet song.
LARRY PLESENT: Oh, you didn’t do happy birthday. You did the alphabet song.
DEBRA: No, we didn’t do happy birthday. We did the alphabet song. And that you really need to wash your hands for that 30 seconds, or whatever it is, because it’s the rubbing action, it’s the friction, that does the job as much as the soap. You need to have the soap, but you need to combine it with the friction. And if you do that, that’s what doctors do in hospitals. They’re washing their hands with this soap and friction.
LARRY PLESENT: I’ll answer that. The foamy action acts upon the cell membranes of the bacteria. And so there, you’re making sure that the soap is being worked into the bacteria and having enough time to actually kill it.
DEBRA: I think it’s very interesting. There are so many things. There was a big shift back in the ‘50s where, suddenly, everybody thought, “We need to use all these toxic chemicals.” Prior to that, people were disinfecting their hands without triclosan.
We need to take a break again.
LARRY PLESENT: And then, we’ll talk more about that dangerous drug.
DEBRA: Yes, we will! You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Larry Plesent from Vermont Soap. And that’s VermontSoap.com.
= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And my guest today is Larry Plesent, founder of Vermont Soap. They’re at VermontSoap.com. And we’re talking about antimicrobials.
So Larry, can I tell our listeners what the health effects are of triclosan now?
LARRY PLESENT: Let’s talk about it. Do you want to start or would you like me to?
DEBRA: Let me start, and then you can fill in.
LARRY PLESENT: You got it! [inaudible 18:18]
DEBRA: So, this is the latest that I got from a webinar that I attended on antibacterials.
So, what triclosan is is what’s called an endocrine disruptor. And the endocrine system communicates all parts of the body via hormones. And one of the most important one is your thyroid gland. It sends thyroid hormones all over your body to tell your body what to do.
And triclosan blocks your thyroid function. It alters metabolism and makes it difficult for the thyroid hormones to go through your body and communicate. It also increases the action of estrogen, another hormone, so you get more estrogen than you need. And it blocks testosterone, so there is less testosterone and less sperm production. Those are the major things that they brought up in this webinar.
So Larry, you tell us whatever else you know.
LARRY PLESENT: I’m way more excited [inaudible 19:28] not being able to reproduce, I’m buying a lot of shoes. That was a joke, was it? Now, you got it.
Okay, those things are bad, but I’m afraid of triclosan for reasons way more serious than that.
DEBRA: Okay, tell me.
LARRY PLESENT: And here it is. I got a call from a guy looking to reach out. And he had gone as an adult into an autistic feud where he actually became autistic. And the only thing he had changed in his life was that he had changed his underarm deodorant. He had stopped using it because of a comment his son made. The man was suicidal at that time. And his son said, “Gee, pop. How can you use that stuff? It makes me all sad and stuff.” And he said, “It makes you all sad? Well, I’m all depressed. And I’m showing all these autistic symptoms.”
So, obviously, he was extra sensitive. He stopped using that underarm deodorant, and it cleared up. He then started using it.
After 10 days, he started using it again. He went back into an autistic feud, if you will, sitting and rocking in front of the TV. He stopped using it, it went away again.
That’s when he called me to see if I could help him identify what it was in that product that caused him to have that reaction.
And I learned to research that that product (which had been around a long time) had recently reformulated using triclosan as an added ingredient. Obviously, he was highly sensitive to it. That’s a true story.
And I would say triclosan also is only one carbon atom, one methyl group away from Agent Orange defolient. Agent Orange, I had watched some vets come down and die a horrible death as a result of exposure to Agent Orange. This product is one carbon atom away from it. EU considers it highly suspect. And I know it’s considering banning it all together.
And you’re absolutely right. When it’s mixed with something, it creates dioxin. Do you remember what that is, Debra?
DEBRA: I don’t remember when it’s mixed with something, but I was—
LARRY PLESENT: I have a note here. It just says it can react with other chemicals to form dioxin and chloroform. That’s all I know on my notes here.
DEBRA: It’s just that it’s only this one little link away from dioxin.
Anyway, I want you to tell our listeners some other places besides disinfecting hand soap where they might find triclosan because it’s really something that you want to be aware of and stay away from.
So, it’s in hand soap. It’s in lotion, mouthwash, detergent, shampoo. It’s in clothing to reduce odors. So they have triclosan in socks and things like that. And your skin can absorb it very, very easily. It absorbs it immediately. It’s in toothpaste, cosmetics, kitchen supplies (like I mentioned before, chopping boards), in furniture, toys, school supplies, sports equipment, and much, much more.
Now, here’s the good news.
LARRY PLESENT: And there’s one more, and it’s the first place I would look. If anybody listening or finding us on the web has a plug-in air freshener of any kind that makes an antimicrobial claim, please get rid of it and treat the product as a toxic waste.
Please don’t do that particularly in children’s room. Plug-in air fresheners or plug-in germ-killers in children’s rooms are a really bad idea. Please don’t do that.
DEBRA: I totally agree. Now, here’s the good news. It’s required by law, it’s regulated by the FDA as an over-the-counter drug, triclosan is. And so it must be listed on the label.
So, if you’re buying any of those kinds of products that I just listed, look at the label and see if it says triclosan. And if it says triclosan, don’t buy it.
Sometimes, it’s getting used so ubiquitously in some products. I got an e-mail from a woman who was trying a buy a toilet seat.
And every single one of them in the store had triclosan in it.
LARRY PLESENT: As far as that goes, there’s a human issue there. There’s an epidemic of staphs in human population. And it can be spread by toilet seats. So there might be an advantage to that.
DEBRA: Let me say this. I think that there’s way too much attention on antimicrobials and disinfectants and all of these things.
It’s like people think we need to use these toxic chemicals because, otherwise, we’ll get sick.
But here’s the thing. A lot of these disinfectants harm your immune system. And the best defense that you can have from flu, viruses, or any of these things, the best defense you can have is a strong immune system.
LARRY PLESENT: Thank you for saying that.
DEBRA: Larry and I both went through this thing of having multiple chemical sensitivities. And we both recovered from that.
And that’s an immune system thing. It’s a thing where your immune system breaks down from chemical exposure.
And so, what you want to do, part of the survival in today’s toxic world, is to boost your immune system—not to kill all the germs in sight with chemicals, but to boost your immune system, so that you could be walking through a world with a lot of germs, and your immune system will know what to do with them.
So, that’s I think a better solution than using triclosan or taking flu shots.
And we have another break, but we’ll be right back. This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And I’m here with my guest, Larry Plesent, founder of Vermont Soap, which is at VermontSoap.com. Stay with us!
= COMMERCIAL BREAK =
DEBRA: This is Toxic Free Talk Radio. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. And if you’ve been listening to that last commercial over and over and over again, listening to my show every day, about the water filter, I just want to let you know that that company is running a special right now until November 22nd. And there’s a discount on top of their sale prices especially for my readers and listeners—just for you guys.
So, if you’ve been wanting to buy one of those water filters, the kind that I have in my own home—and I even took out my old water filter and put in a new one—if you want to buy one of those water filters, then this is a great time. And it would also make a great gift. You need to have pure water in order to remove the toxic chemicals from your body.
I’m about to put up a post on one of my blogs after the show that talks about what’s in bottled water—and and you don’t want to drink it. So, get yourself a water filter.
Okay, Larry, do you have a water filter?
LARRY PLESENT: No, I live on a mountaintop. And it’s beautiful.
DEBRA: That’s right, so you don’t need it. Lucky you!
LARRY PLESENT: I actually use carbon filter with some minerals in it, but I’m okay.
DEBRA: So now, I want to go back to the e-mail that you sent out originally, the one that got me to get you on the show. And it says, “Here’s the big question. Which product cleans your hands better—plain soap or antibacterial soap?”
“First of all, the labels on plain soap may not say antibacterial, but they eliminate germs just as well as those soaps that are antibacterial—sometimes, even better. In fact, the FDA even stated”—the FDA statement—“that antibacterial soaps show no evidence that they prevent infections more effectively than plain soap.”
And I’ve read that. I’ve been reading that for years.
LARRY PLESENT: Plain soap is not [inaudible 28:15].
DEBRA: Yes! So, tell us about your soaps because it is getting harder to find. And I have some of your soaps. They’re just lovely soaps.
LARRY PLESENT: You are already addicted, so you’re a customer for life. And by that, I mean that if you or somebody that you care about has sensitive skin—and this can come from everything, genetics or I don’t know—we make products for people who have sensitive skin.
We make products for people who have reactive bodies, who cannot use the common chemicals. Some people are detergent-sensitive. They say, “Every time I use shampoo, I itch all over… every time I do my laundry, I itch all over.” This is your body saying, “Hello! Get these molecules away from me. I cannot tolerate them.” And it’s important, so listen.
And there are alternatives out there. A lot of the alternatives are, “Okay, we have a different kind of detergent, and we’ve taken the scent out.” And you go, “Oh, that’s better.” But you still have some problems where they go to a lower level.
There’s no need for that. You have to identify the molecules you are sensitized to and locate the alternative.
And for me, I looked around, I couldn’t find the alternatives. And because I really did not like to hear myself whine, I went out and started making the alternatives. Fortunately, I was an amateur chemist. It worked out fine for all of us.
So, as we’d like to say, if you or someone you love has sensitive skin, check out our stuff. You’d be glad you did.
DEBRA: One of the things that I noticed when I started using your soap is that it’s very soft—that’s the word that comes to mind—and it doesn’t dry my skin out.
A lot of soaps use coconut oil. I remember the first time years and years and years ago, I was looking for any unscented soap that I could find, I went to a popular brand of coconut soap because that was all that was available. And my skin got really, really dry.
LARRY PLESENT: Yeah, and turn red, and little bumps perhaps even if you kept using it. And that’s because if too much coconut oil is in soap, then—let’s put it this way. The more coconut oil in soap, the better it lathers, but the more drying it becomes.
So, there’s a sweet spot where a little bit of coconut oil does a really good job, you get over that sweet spot, and you start drying people’s skin.
There is a very rare reactivity some people have which is a coconut-oil-turned-into-soap reaction. And stay tuned. I hope to be able to do something for you, folks, too one day. But it’s a very, very small group.
So what you do is—
DEBRA: Go ahead! Tell us more about your soaps.
LARRY PLESENT: Yes, we’re a soap company. Oh, it’s really cool. We have all kinds of oils from around the world, coconut and palm, certified organic. We’re very careful about where we trade from. Our palm oil supplier just won a Greenpeace Award. So, that’s the level we are sourcing at.
And we want to support the good guys. We don’t want our money to go to the bad guys. We want to support the good guys, so the good guys do better.
And that’s where you can vote with your dollar. Every purchase you make of a yummy product made by good people, people close to home, people maybe in your own town, that money just keeps circulating. Every dollar you send out, that money is gone. It’s not in your circulation. It’s not creating new economy and new jobs.
And that’s the importance of shopping local, or as we used to say here in Vermont, “Keep your money in the valley.” We knew every dollar that stayed in the valley created more prosperity. Everybody wins!
DEBRA: Yes, absolutely! That works that way. So I see on your website that it takes nearly a month to handcraft a bar of your soap because—
LARRY PLESENT: [inaudible 32:31]
DEBRA: You use a 200-year-old process. And I can tell, this bar of soap feels different. I’ve tried a lot of handmade soaps and yours feels totally different.
LARRY PLESENT: We’ve been working on this for 21 years now, Debra.
DEBRA: Wow! You obviously know what you’re doing. And your soaps, they’re certified to USDA organic standards. And they’re free of artificial colors, fragrances, preservatives or any synthetics. And they’re just very good. Well done, Larry.
LARRY PLESENT: [inaudible 33:15] You love the butter bar, right? That’s your favorite.
DEBRA: I love the butter bar.
LARRY PLESENT: I know! It’s so good.
DEBRA: Now, this is unscented. This is unscented. Anybody can use this.
LARRY PLESENT: We get more just rave reviews on that.
So, if you’re looking for one product, you’re saying, “Okay, I’ll try Vermont Soap,” buy a butter bar. But we also make a lot of unscented hand cleaners. We make a very interesting soap-based shower gel. So, if you absolutely have to have the shower gel, we have a good alternative for you there. But if you have the most sensitive skin, try the butter bar. That’s the mildest that I have.
We also make moisturizers like Green Gold, right, Debra? Have you gotten the unscented Green Gold?
DEBRA: I have some of that, and I like it a lot. It just goes right into your skin.
LARRY PLESENT: Hemp and shea are the two main ingredients. But both of them, for a very special reason, are a green organic hemp seed oil. And then, into that, we infuse anti-inflammatory herbs, calendula and Saint John’s Wort. Those are the most anti-inflammatory herbs I found from over 20 years of working these herbal soaps—I don’t say, as a medicine, but for their soothing value when people are hurt.
And we make pet care products, oral care products, anti-aging and moisturizing products, sanitizers now.
And our goal is to replace all of the yucky stuff in your world with yummy, safe, non-toxic, yummy alternatives. When you buy from Vermont Soap, you’re buying factory direct. We cut out the middleman. Because we’re factory direct, if you find something you really love, like you can’t live without Liquid Sunshine, our non-toxic cleaner, we run specials in gallons, and sometimes even five-gallon containers […] that you buy in. You can really get your price down because we’re making it and we’re selling it right to you.
DEBRA: And also, if you sign up for the newsletter, then you get notified when they have special deals.
We only just have a couple of minutes left. So I just wanted to ask is there anything else that you want to say that you haven’t said?
LARRY PLESENT: I do. I have a message and a philosophy about natural products that I feel compelled to express whenever given the format. And that’s that all of us arose on this earth, as part of a very long evolutionary process that’s at four billion years, with everything being in balance, there is no waste in the ecosystem, everything is reused and recycled for billions of years—and eventually, we came along.
And we started creating new and novel substances that never existed before. They’ve never been part of the ecosystem.
Nothing has been exposed to it. And we go along like simpletons, just making stuff that never existed and putting it all over the planet as if it’s all “It’s got to be just fine,” thinking that the world is our dump ground and it will all magically get cleaned up somehow when mommy comes home. This is just ridiculous thinking.
And we have to look at the implications of the products we all use every day. Yes, it’s been multiplied by 7.5 billion people on this planet. But it starts with you and your household and making your home a non-toxic household and making your body a non-toxic body.
This will build up your immune system. You’ll be able to fight things off better. You’ll be more clear-headed. And you’ll make better decisions in your life.
And that’s all we can do. We’re given a hundred years, and all we can do is live our hundred years as well as we can.
DEBRA: And with that, I’m going to say thank you for being with us because the end of this show is going to happen momentarily. I’m Debra Lynn Dadd. You’re listening to Toxic Free Talk Radio.