What's that smell? Freshness? Hardly!

Since we recently had to close our storefront in Halifax, I recently went back to work. Making real money again. I sort of forgot what it was. For those of you not aware (but I did reference it in my introduction, here), I am a geologist. The big downside to my line of work though is a great deal of travel, particularly when you have a family. Of course, as sad as it was to be away from the wife and baby, it’s also an opportunity to meet people. Recently, I was working in and near a small town called Grand Le Pierre in the vicinity of the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland. I was boarding with some lovely people. You couldn’t ask for better hosts.

The town of Grand Le Pierre.

Well, there is something I could have asked of my hosts though. The matriarch of the house does a lot of laundry. And she liked to do my laundry too. My trouble: she uses some commercial brand of laundry detergent she gets from Costco. I never did identify specifically which one (too busy to go hunting for the washing machine, etc.), but it certainly stinks. It’s one of those ones loaded with so much fragrance that “clean laundry” makes you dizzy. I meant to bring a bag of soapnuts along with me but I had to leave for Newfoundland in such haste that I forgot them. I also originally planned on just putting my dirty laundry into a bag and cleaning it when I got home to Nova Scotia again anyway. But it also seemed rude to say “I don’t want that inferior laundry detergent you use contaminating my clothes.” So since I didn’t have any of our pūr alternatives products here to offer up the better solution, I did the polite thing and let her do my laundry. That in mind, I also find it awkward for a stranger to be handling my underwear but that really is a different point.

The smell of fresh laundry may turn this man on. That is because this "fresh laundry smell" messes with your hormones. I am not this man.

 

Well, over the last few days before I finally left to come home she offered to clean my laundry so I didn’t have to return with dirty clothes. I couldn’t do it. I finally spilled the beans that the laundry detergent was making me nauseous (some days I would go on extra long excursions wearing more layers than necessary so I would sweat out the fragrance – ironic, isn’t it?). She wasn’t insulted (so far as I could tell), but rather it opened up the conversation for what I do in my other life (I rarely mentioned what my “other business” was outside of being a geologist). But in that conversation I re-realized many of the things we take for granted once we start getting so immersed in these facts. Certainly I myself, take it for granted what most other people still don’t know. Many of you, my readers may as well. Certainly, many of our customers with pūr alternatives have already done a lot of that figuring out too – so I wouldn’t be surprised if they take that for granted a bit too. And the longer you’re immersed in it, the more you distance yourself from those who just don’t know. Sadly, in that process I believe many of us are distancing ourselves from reality too. Well, social reality, anyway.

Newfoundland is a great place to get back in touch with that. Or least the non-St. John’s parts of Newfoundland. The parts of Newfoundland that you have to drive 3 hours from the nearest airport to a small coastal community of less than 300, where many of the people are retired on in-bred (first cousins often marry and procreate in these communities), and when a big storm hits the island the highways get washed out and you are stranded (you may have heard of Hurricane Igor – yes I was there). These communities are as down-to-earth as they get. Revolution doesn’t happen quickly here. We turn the wheels of change over here in the urban centres (at least this change as it stems from an educated background) but over there, the change isn’t felt until the big boys change it. Boutiques such as pūr alternatives are generally ignored. And I don’t blame them. If people don’t know there’s anything wrong with something, who would search for an alternative? These kinds of communities make up an extremely large part of Canada in general. We’ve got a lot of land here and we like our space. But the facts remain that 95% of the crap you’ll find at Wal-Mart, Zellers, Costco, Superstore, Sobeys, Canadian Tire, ... - this list could go on but you get the picture – that stuff is not safe. It’s not safe for our bodies, it’s not safe for our ecosystems, it’s not even good for our clothes. Admittedly, SOME are getting better at producing formulations that break down more efficiently in the environment. But the fragrance is still poisoning us and the detergents are still breaking down the fibres of our clothes. And really, it’s not just about laundry detergents here. This rant is easily extendable to all products that contain useless fragrance and other weird chemicals (which are usually redundant anyway).

So what is the point of this post, really? Well, certainly, in a large part just a rant. I haven’t been saying much lately and the experience with the Costco laundry detergent in Newfoundland got me fired up again. But it could also be considered a call to action. If you’re reading this you probably feel the same way as I do already. So I don’t need to convince YOU. What we all need however is to be more open. Many of us simply “suffer silently”; that is to say we politely don’t say when something is bothering us. Perhaps in casual conversation, mention how YOU feel about synthetic fragrances and the chemicals used in personal care products / cleaners / etc. Sure you can do this to/with someone you’ve talked about it before but that’s not the point. Mention it to someone who you haven’t really discussed that topic before. The idea being, that by planting these thoughts in as many peoples’ heads (even if they don’t agree with you at first) it is raising awareness. Awareness is where it all has to start and although we’re moving there and growing, we’re not even at that point yet.

There are two afterthoughts that I’d like to add to this to end this post. First, while I was away in Newfoundland, Stephanie started babysitting a friend’s child. He’s about a year older than ours and they play fairly well together. His mother though, also uses a rather pungent “fresh smelling” laundry detergent. As disgusting as children can be though, it’s the smell of his clothes that make me nauseous. Further proof perhaps that more people simply need to understand what “clean” actually means.

Dirty Laundry - Part 2: The Conundrum of Borax

I promise I’ll stop talking about laundry soon. But before I do there was a topic I wanted to share with you regarding one of the ingredients in one of our products. We almost didn’t allow it. I am referring to the borax in the Earth Elementals Laundry Soap. Borax is very effective at killing bacteria. So it does a great job at making your clothes not smell. Unfortunately, it’s also good at killing other things: like insects, plants, and if you eat enough of it then yes, people too.

But let’s back that up a moment and straighten out some facts. Borax, aka sodium borate (Na2BO3) is closely related to common table salt (NaCl). They are both naturally occurring minerals that are commonly found together (albeit the salt in much higher proportions), having formed as precipitate minerals from dried ancient seas. That said, I still would not advise sprinkling some borax on your potatoes. And just as salt is an integral factor in the stability of our ecosystems, so is boron in borates. We all need a little bit but too much could kill us. Don’t worry about getting enough though; just like salt we generally get enough through natural sources.

Of course we’re not talking about trying to maintain the balance in our ecosystems here. Make no mistake, borax is poisonous. But why is it poisonous? What happens? I’ve heard a variety of numbers and I honestly don’t know which to trust: some say as little as 15-20 g can kill an adult human (or as little as 5 g to kill a child or small pet) and yet the WHO lists borax as “Unlikely to be acutely toxic”, which based on their classification indicates that a rat can consume up to 2 g or more of borax per kg of its body weight (although rats can tolerate slightly higher levels than humans that index of toxicity is the norm). That number roughly translates to saying that a 70 kg (155 lb) adult can consume about 150 g of borax – given the proportions present that’s up to 1/3 of a bag of Earth Elementals Laundry Soap. I wouldn’t recommend testing that though. Even still, what I have taken away is that borax is more toxic with chronic exposure than it is acutely. That means it’s easier to kill someone using a small amount of borax repeatedly for a long time allowing it to build up in the body slowly than it would be to give them a big heaping serving of borax and just expect them to die from it. Also, males appear to be more sensitive to it than females – specifically the testicles. Apparently chronic borax exposure is also effective at making a man infertile. This however, is not my recommended method of birth control. All that in mind, chronic borax exposure is still not as easy as that. Under many “normal” conditions, borax can be filtered by the kidneys (and excreted in urine) and not accumulate in the body. The most damaging conditions generally require absorption through damaged / burnt / infected skin. I assume the same could be said for internal scar tissue and ulcers.

This however, is why we boycotted borax in skin care products. See, it is also an effective emulsifier (allowing oils and water to mix) as well as preservative. So you can understand our stance on not allowing creams and balms that contain borax. But coming back to those cleaners: Earth Elementals recommends that their laundry soap is also a great all-purpose cleaner when mixed with water (and it is – we’ve tried). My advice: don’t worry about it. The amount of borax present in a solution of cleaner based on that product is relatively small. And unless you have particularly damaged skin and are using the product 6 or 7 times a day every single day (NOTE: these numbers are somewhat arbitrary) you’ll be fine. And even if you are, or you just want to be extra careful, wear gloves.

Now if this has been filled with, or even speckled with interesting new facts on borax, please don’t go killing people. Or even rats for that matter.