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Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox

Movie Buzz A new documentary about the man behind Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap. Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soapbox explores the life of Dr. Emanuel Bronner, who – after losing his parents in the Holocaust and escaping from a mental institution – went on to create the peppermint infused multi-purpose soap that has become ubiquitous at health food stores. The film explores Bronner’s family life and the philosophy behind the soap’s rambling label, which is packed with tiny text of philosophical musings about the “Moral ABCs” and “Space Ship Planet Earth.”

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Lucy Liu

For those keeping track of celebs who have gone on record as being fans of Bronner’s soap–CNN lets us know that we can now officially add another: Lucy Liu. Thank goodness the journalists are keeping busy over there.

DVD Talk

The film begins with one of the literally thousands of tapes Dr. Bronner made through his life (he spent the last 20 years of his life legally blind, and so resorted to taping a lot of his conversations), where he is discussing his “Moral ABC” (the gist of his soap’s label) with his son, Ralph. Several title cards give a brief and alarming overview of Bronner’s story–a German emigree who escaped the horrors of Nazism, only to be institutionalized in Elgin, Illinois, ultimately escaping and getting to California (in a hilarious story later recounted by Ralph) and setting up a peppermint soap factory, which has since become a multimillion dollar business and one with that rarest of all things in capitalism: a corporate conscience.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED**

Read the full review here ->

Review by Jeffrey Kauffman

A.V. Club

A.V. Club Logo Reviewed by Nathan Rabin
January 2nd, 2008

It’s hard to pick up a bottle of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soap, the hippie-approved wonder-product with the obscenely sensual all-around tingle, and not wonder about the story behind the label’s bizarre ranting about the “Moral ABC’s,” “All-One-God-Faith,” and “Spaceship Earth.” How did the ravings of an apparent lunatic end up dominating the packaging of such a terrific, cultishly adored product? Who is this eccentric Dr. Bronner and where did his homemade philosophy concerning Halley’s Comet, Mark Spitz, and Albert Einstein come from?

Read the full review at the A.V Club