Tea at Trianon: Bar Soaps

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Bar Soaps

From Tree Hugger:

So, how do we keep clean and stay healthy while not contributing to the plastic crisis? If you've haven't already, it's time to embrace the humble bar soap yet again. Four years ago, Treehugger's (TH) Melissa feared that bar soaps might be banished due to misguided fears and convenience. She wrote about what this pivot away from bar soap meant in terms of plastic pollution:

If we consider that $2.7 billion was spent on liquid body wash alone in 2015 — even if we randomly (and generously) assign a cost of $10 per bottle — that’s 270,000,000 plastic bottles with pump parts that end up in the waste cycle. And remember that’s just body wash. While some people refill their dispensers and create less waste, it’s still decidedly more plastic than the paper wrapper of a soap bar.
But, there is good news. Bar soap sales have been been slowly increasing as more people try to go plastic-free. The Telegraph reported in 2019 that "it comes amid a major consumer backlash against unnecessary plastic waste, as households are searching for more eco-friendly versions of everyday items like bags for life instead of plastic carriers, reusable coffee cups instead of paper ones, loose fruit and vegetables instead of those wrapped in plastic, and now bars of soap instead of plastic pumpers." (Read more.)

More HERE. Share