Words are slippery ... read more about labels Part 2

"My feeling is that labels are for canned food... I am what I am - and I know what I am. "

Michael Stipe.

( I found this quote, and then learned who Michael Stipe is.  I have lost a generation of music to living life, but am thankful to be open to learning any time, any day, in many ways.)


I remember years ago when first I stepped at the edge of safety that was the beginning of the end of my career as a corporate writer.  Thirteen years in the corporate world provided a pay check and a ladder that I did willingly bank, and climb.  I was a hippy graduate, a wife, a mother trained to teach and able to translate corporate-ese into working folk languge.  In a suit I did my work and took my training into the world of retail just before the shift from 'small' to 'mega'.  My pay checks, perks and writing skills gave me an inside track to the way corporations work.  I was privy to the slippery nature of words, advertising and contracts.  I am not proud of the role I played as intermediary ... the middle manager with the gift of gab and art for writing 'common-ese'.  What I do value though was my eventual inner clockworks that told me to step away.

Ha, what does that bit of history have to do with the title of this post "Words are slippery ... read more about labels"?  Yes, to the point.  An update to my progress with finding an alternative dish soap leads me to this:

1. I have found a local source for Dr. Bronner's soap in our town, and will venture into the store to buy one of the trial size bottles of the Sensitive (and unscented) Castile Baby Soaps.  If I'm good with that, I'll dilute the soap and try it as a dish soap.
2. In the meantime, my husband did dishes this morning using baking soda diluted in hot water, rinsed the dishes with very hot water and pronounced the dishes "pretty squeeky."  
3. On the 'what about the words on the bottle issue"

Read Labels Part 1 here:  http://fragrancefreein23.blogspot.com/2012/02/keep-reading-those-labels.html

A friend in town wrote to the Planet Inc. people and got a reply in answer to her query about the change in the labeling.  I haven't asked her if I can use her email to fill in this blog post, yet.  But in essence the company's reply was:  Planet Ultra Dishwashing Liquid  is just as it's always been; the label now uses an expanded version of the ingredients.  (the italics are mine).

I say, "Yikes and watch your step.  It's slippery there."  I have two bottles of Planet Ultra Dishwashing Liquid and though these bespectacled eyes are still those same blurry old eyes, I look more closely and report this is what I see:

1. BOTTLE #1 with written list of OUR INGREDIENTS reads:  Coconut Oil Based Cleaners - Salt - Sodium Bicarbonate.  At the very bottom of the label found on the back of the cleaner is the (c) copyright date, 2004 Planet Inc.
2. BOTTLE #2 with written list of OUR INGREDIENTS reads:  -Water (carrier) - Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Lauramine Oxide (plant-based cleaning agents) - Sodium Chloride (mineral viscosity adjuster) - Sodium Bicrdonate (mineral alkalinity adjuster).  At the very bottom of the label found on the back of the cleaner is the (c) copyright date, 2011 Planet Inc.

Let the slippery slope of words and the wish to be safe with your dish soap in old(er) age serve you in whatever way it might.  To my way of living and being, I am who I am, and know what I am.  Beware, the labels you read can change.  Is it worth a battle over a trifle difference such as this?  Choose your battle they say.  Or, at the very least, know words for what they can be.

And you?

KEEP READING those labels

Sorting life after sixty the answers continue to surprise me.  It's been a long while since posting here.  Life is full of surprises, keeping me busy and entertained.  More and more I love the moments that stretch into a calm and unsurprising mode.  Life in small spaces, a minuscule kitchen and a gigantic thousand tree living room gives new definition to 'routine.'  We live under-the-wire, but not off the grid so electricity is our friend, and handwork (washing clothes, dishes, our selves) is a small, and conscious process.  I still wash everything in the kitchen sink using baking soda and hot filtered water.  Everything except for the dishes.  Until this morning, we have used one "consumer product" to do the dishes.  Planet Ultra Dish Soap had been our consumer product of choice, because as I wrote back in May, 2011 the choice was based on the simplicity and non-toxic nature of the ingredients. 

-unscented

-coconut oil based cleaner, salt,

sodium bicarbonate(baking soda)

That's what I wrote, and those were the ingredients of Planet Ultra Dish Soap then.  Link here to read my blog post from May, 2011.  http://www.fragrancefreein23.blogspot.com/2011/05/first-one.html
This morning, I was in the Quonset Hut standing at the sink.  The back of the dish soap container faced me.  Admitting to old, and blurry vision especially in the morning, I thought my eyes were doing their blurry trick thing.  My first clue:  more than enough letters.  In bold white letters against the green stripe of the soap's advertising was this:

OUR INGREDIENTS

Water (carrier) - Sodium Laureth Sulfate, Lauramine Oxide (plant-based cleaning agents) - Sodium Chloride (mineral viscosity adjuster) - Sodium Bicarbonate (mineral alkalinity adjuster)

Our one 'consumer cleaning product' of choice has been altered.  We had assumed the comfortable bliss of believing what was good, was still good.  But that ain't necessarily so.  Except for water and Sodium Bicarbonate, our former safe dish soap is now filled with chemicals we'd rather not consume.  To read more about what chemical like Sodium Laureth Sulfate are, I've linked to a site for a product that might fit the bill for me, and my husband.  Dr. Bonner's products have been around a long while, and are among the most benign soaps.  We were having trouble with the scent of even their most unscented product a year or more past, and today, I am out to explore the possibility that their unscented variety might be a present-day tolerable soap. 

Here's a link to FAQ on Dr. Bonner's products for your information and edification, and a snip from that website's page:

Do your soaps contain any foaming agents/detergents like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate?

Absolutely not. Our soaps are 100% true pure-castile soaps. The high foaming lather of our soaps is from their high coconut oil content, which makes a more luxurious and rich lather than any detergent can ever create. "Pure-Castile" is 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

http://www.drbronner.com/faqs_main.html#faq4

 It's one of those 'Ole Moon phases today, a time when review and reconsideration is better than forging new ground.  An opportunity.  I'll be searching for a new soap to wash the dishes, or washing them with baking soda diluted in hot water until a 'product' fits the bill.  I'll also be forwarding this post to the folks at the Tilthe, so their decision to keep using the once-good-news-soap can be made with new information to weigh.

Life continues to surprise me.