Body products are my concern right now, but it’s evident in general, too. Automobiles have more features than they did 50 years ago, and those features didn’t all appear last year, they appeared gradu- ally. We have more kinds of kitchen appli- ances, office machines, fabrics, television programs, shoes, sports and ethnic restau- rants than ever before. In general more variety is good, and interesting, so we may not think about the downside of “new” and “improved” products. But for body care products, we should.

Everything you put on your skin will potentially be absorbed; therefore every product should be scrutinized for safety. Which ingredients are beneficial for you? Which benefit the manufacturer at your expense? Which ingredients have a history of safety? Which ones are newly approved? Which ones aren’t listed on the label?

Take soap, for in- stance. The basic recipe is lye, water, and lard (or oil). But you can’t buy plain soap off the shelf anymore. It all has additives like fragrance, deodorant, color, bactericide, or exfoli- ant. A good consumer should not assume that just because it was simple to buy soap in the past it is still that way. Each ingredient should be scrutinized before you can feel confident about using it on your skin. At best, each ingredient should be something you recognize as edible, because some is going in your body. We feel good about every ingredient in our Pearl products. We would not hesitate to eat most of them! (I dare you to try that with your deodorant!) But it’s not easy coming up with products that work using only food ingredients. How do you keep them from going bad? How do you compete with chemicals honed to perfec- tion in extensive laboratories and testing facilities? To be honest, we can’t. But we come close. For instance our hairspray uses a little gelatin for stickiness. It won’t hold as well as a concocted can of chemicals, but it’s pretty good, and yes, you can eat it.