BeigeJournal

Another item I discovered at Future Green is Pangea Organics “Pure & Scentless Organic Herbal Shower Gel.” I was attracted to this product by the ingredients list: Water, Saponified Coconut, Olive, Hemp & Jojoba Oils (w/ Retained Glycerin), Vegetable Gum (Guar), Aloe Vera Gel, Glycerin, and Rosemary Extract (all of which are labeled as “organic”). In other words, this soap consists, primarily, of…soap, soap being what saponified fat is.

Lots of products contain lots of ingredients that either serve no purpose other than sounding good on the label or else serve a purpose related more to marketing than function. Hydrolyzed silk protein enables the marketing people to put “Silk Protein” on the shampoo label, which sounds great, but I rather doubt it does anything, and if amino acids are useful there must be a cheaper and better source than silk, but silk sounds good. Lots of cleaning products of all varieties contain ingredients to generate the maximum amount of foam humanly possible. Foam isn’t actually useful, it’s actually sort of a nuisance, being a pain to wash away, but the marketing department loves it. I’m not so happy spending minutes trying to wash foam out of my ears, but I’m apparently considered to be in the minority.

The Pangea soap, as the “scentless” label implies, has only a faint, pleasant smell. It gets me clean, it leaves my skin feeling good, it doesn’t foam up, and it’s easy and quick to wash off. Rather than being greasy, it leaves a slightly sticky feel, presumably from the glycerin. I prefer it this way. I’ve tried a lot of shower soaps, looking for something that doesn’t have a strong smell and doesn’t dry my skin out yet isn’t greasy. This is by far the best I’ve found.

I’ve been purchasing some new towels from my local painfully organic vendor, Future Green located on 2352 S Kinnickinnic Ave in Milwaukee, an area that is a pocket of low-rent hipness these days, with a coffee shop, a Harry Schwartz bookstore, a bookstore called “Broad Vocabulary,” a nice little sandwich shop by the name of “Wild Flour Bakery,” and a bunch of other interesting places, like a small guitar shop. It’s a fun area, easily reached by bike from downtown.

The towels are from Under The Canopy, and are the softest, fluffiest, nicest towels I’ve ever had. They are made, of course, of organically grown cotton. The washcloth was $9, the big towels about $30. I honestly don’t know what good towels of the non-organic variety go for these days, but these are very nice and I’ve figured out that this is the sort of item that lasts for years, so I’m satisfied. Recommended.

Ezra Klein is a liberal blogger and, according to Google, pee expert.