We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Marie Kube. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Marie below.

Hi Marie, thanks for joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?

Thank you for this opportunity. I have found so many common ingredients in soaps that are not only unnecessary, but actually harmful, toxic chemicals that can pose serious risks to our health and the environment. On my website I have a soap blog where I have listed soap ingredients that I use and that I do not use and reasons why. Soap manufacturers add chemicals to their products for reasons (e.g., mass production, cheap prices, big profits, market exclusivity through patents, etc.) that are unrelated to your health and may even be at the expense of your health. For example, soap makers add preservatives, especially to liquid soaps, to give their products longer shelf lives. Preservatives can be harmful by killing the good bacteria on your skin, and there are other side effects as well. Fragrances are added to cover up the unappealing smell of cheap ingredients. Fragrance or perfume can contain phthalates that are endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Colors hide flaws and can pollute our water. No wonder so many people have so many skin problems. Since skin is our biggest organ, our skin health is a very serious matter.

The demand for effective and anti-allergic soap products is increasing rapidly, as more and more consumers around the world with delicate skin conditions choose anti-allergy soaps with natural ingredients. Therefore, many of the world’s largest soap companies and leading soap brands are incessantly focusing on innovative product development to furnish the unmet needs of their consumers. (BizVibe 2020) However, with their need to obtain patents granting them market exclusivity, it is hard to imagine how big corporations are going to make truly natural soaps.

Many soaps are made using palm oil because it is the most inexpensive vegetable oil on the market. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, large-scale conversion of tropical forests to oil palm plantations has a devastating impact on a huge number of plant and animal species. When tropical forests are cleared to make way for oil palm plantations, carbon is released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide (CO2), the gas that is the leading cause of global warming. Tropical deforestation accounts for about 10 percent of total global warming emission.

Dial soap is one of the top 10 soap companies according to a quick Google search. I think the story of Dial soap really shows why it matters that there are toxic chemicals in mass-produced soaps. According to Wikipedia contributors, Dial was developed in 1948 by a chemist from Armour & Company, a meat-packing company. Armour had produced soap since 1888 as a way of using the tallow that was a by-product of its meat production processes. Dial was made antibacterial by addition of hexachlorophene.

Antibacterial soap is a soap which contains chemical ingredients that purportedly assist in killing bacteria. According to the Minnesota Department of Health (10/20/2022), antibacterial soaps are no more effective than plain soap and water for killing disease-causing germs outside of health care settings. There is no evidence that antibacterial soaps are more effective than plain soap for preventing infection under most circumstances in the home or in public places. Therefore, plain soap is recommended in public, non-health care settings and in the home (unless otherwise instructed by your doctor).

Dial soap promised “round-the-clock” protection against odor caused by perspiration. Although researchers had never established a link between hexachlorophene and germ protection, Armour’s early advertisements graphically depicted microbes before and after use of Dial soap. While the chemical ingredient, hexachlorophene, was not necessary for its marketed purpose, it was necessary for market exclusivity through the patent system. The Dial Corporation has lots of patents. Unfortunately, hexachlorophene was removed from the consumer market and strictly limited to the hospital setting in the early 1970’s amid reports that it caused neurological damage in infants.

In 1972, the “Bébé” brand of baby powder in France killed 36 babies. It also did great damage to the central nervous systems of several hundred other babies. The batch of toxic “Bébé” brand of powder was mistakenly manufactured with 6% hexachlorophene after a barrel of hexachlorophene was accidentally mixed with talc. A batch of the contaminated talcum powder was sold in the north of France, resulting in the death of 36 children within a few months. This industrial accident directly led to the removal of hexachlorophene from consumer products worldwide. (Wikipedia)

This tragic event highlights the health risks associated with mass consumption.

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) outlawed use of hexachlorophene in non-medicinal products, Armour-Dial replaced it with triclocarban, a synthetic antibacterial compound. In September 2016, the FDA ruled that antibacterial soaps containing triclocarban and triclosan can no longer be marketed. Dial replaced these ingredients with benzalkonium chloride for bar soaps and benzethonium chloride for liquid hand soaps. Benzalkonium chloride is a human skin and severe eye irritant, respiratory toxicant, immunotoxicant, gastrointestinal toxicant, and neurotoxicant.

Clearly, obtaining patents on soaps by adding synthetic chemicals that are unnecessary and even harmful is the business model of top soap companies. There is a growing need for truly natural soap that could largely be due to problems caused by these chemicals. That is why I, a chemist and a biologist, am in the truly natural, handmade soap business using carefully planned and sourced ingredients that are known to be good for skin. Even though I am a patent agent, which means that I could apply for patents myself, and even though I have patents on other inventions, I have no plans to patent soaps because my soaps are truly natural, designed to be good for your skin, not to be patented. I have even been made aware of competitors who put bleach in their soap/bodywash and market it to young boys. Unfortunately, when bleach comes into contact with your skin or eyes, it can cause severe tissue and nerve damage. This is known as a chemical burn. In severe cases, bleach in the eyes can cause blindness. Consumer beware, and please check the ingredients of your soap! The Environmental Working Group is a great resource offering free consumer guides, including the Skin Deep® database to help people protect themselves from potentially toxic chemicals in personal care and beauty products.

Marie, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My soapmaking business is called “Dr. Marie’s Handmade Soap.” At markets, customers often laugh when they see my business name and me. “Are you really a doctor?” they ask. I tell them that yes, I have a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology and a bachelor’s degree in Chemistry. But then why would I be making and selling soap? I have been long-term unemployed like so many scientists. I started making soap more than 8 years ago as gifts for family and friends. Several of my family and friends have skin issues, and my partner, Michael, and I have skin issues as well. We all decided that the essential oils that everyone uses to make “natural” soaps had to go. Essential oils are not really natural because they are plant extracts that are so highly concentrated that they would not be found in nature in that form. The essential oils in the soap irritated some peoples’ sensitive skin, and neither Michael nor I could not handle the overwhelming scents of the essential oils, especially since we are both chemically sensitive from overexposure to chemicals working as scientists in the laboratory. Besides, soap is for your skin, not your sense of smell. The average person uses many different scented products daily, such as shampoo, conditioner, lotion, perfume, laundry detergent, candles, etc., so there is no need to add yet another scent to the mixture. Some people seem to have largely lost their sense of smell because it has been so overwhelmed for so long. But when you back away from all the perfumes and fragrances, you may be amazed by what you can smell and taste.

I spent about 6 years figuring out how to make truly natural soaps using plant materials including oils and herbs that are known to be good for skin. I have studied herbalism and have grown and used plants as medicine for over 10 years. As a scientist, I always wanted to have my own laboratory, and soapmaking gives me that. I used to grow human skin cells in plastic dishes for scientific experiments, and I learned a lot about how to feed skin cells, care for them, and keep them alive and thriving. Soapmaking allows me to use my hard-won knowledge and skills in the challenge of producing the best soap.

I make different soaps using different combinations of high-quality ingredients including herbs that are known to be beneficial to the skin such as chamomile, yarrow, chickweed and cleavers. While it is not known what happens to all the components of herbs during the soapmaking process, it is known, for example, that the unsaponifiables can have beneficial properties such as antioxidant properties. What is clear is that soaps made with different herbs are different.

We use food grade olive oil as a base, preferably organic because it is likely to have fewer chemicals that could irritate the skin. Then we use shea butter or coconut oil or both with complementary herbs. Shea butter gives a softer, creamier soap while coconut oil gives a harder soap with a lot of lather leaving your skin with that squeaky clean feeling. Some of our soaps also contain avocado oil, and we recently started making a cocoa butter soap as well.

Here is what one of my recent customers had to say about the soap:

“Marie this is the most wonderful soap that has ever touched my skin!!! It feels so creamy and luxurious. I have used so many different natural products and many of those have not agreed with my skin. . . . Thanks for creating a wonderful product.”

This customer is going to drive a half hour each way to come to the next market and buy more soap.

A great part of our soapmaking journey is that there are always opportunities to support others along the way. For example, we have donated lots of soaps to homeless persons and organizations that serve them. Fees for many of the markets where we are vendors support community-building organizations. We also help support those who produce the ingredients we need. For example, we buy shea butter and cocoa butter for soapmaking from a small Canadian/Ghanaian family-owned business called Baraka Shea Butter. Buying from Baraka provides income to women in Ghana who handcraft shea butter using traditional techniques passed down through centuries from their ancestors that retain the beneficial properties. Although lots of other shea butters are sold as raw, unrefined shea butter, they are often mechanically processed using chemicals and solvents like hexane and bleach. Up to 75% of the bioactive ingredients are lost during the refining process, according to Baraka. On the other hand, Baraka Shea Butter is pure, unrefined, handmade and certified organic and fair trade. Better ingredients make better soap. Purchases also help support educational and economic projects in the community.

Dr. Marie’s Handmade Soaps are vegan and unscented. They have a pleasant, subtle, clean scent of high-quality ingredients, and some of the herbs are more fragrant than others. We do not use palm oil, pomace olive oil, colors, preservatives, essential oils, fragrances or perfumes. With fewer ingredients and less processing, there is less chance of reacting to something. This is soap for people who care about their skin, which is their largest organ.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Why is a PhD scientist making and selling soap when there is supposedly such a need for STEM professionals? I am a privileged white woman in her 50’s living in Minnesota, and I am a story of resilience. Although I may not look like it or sound like it, I am an immigrant, which requires resilience to survive and try to thrive in unfamiliar territory. If it is unfamiliar to your parents, then it is unfamiliar to you as a small child. My parents left Germany after my older sister was born, when my father, a PhD Geologist, got a job in Canada. Not long after I was born, we left Canada and moved to New Mexico and then to Denver, Colorado where the family stayed. My parents were obviously German because of their accents, and they named me “Dagmar.” I should have changed my name when I became a naturalized citizen of the USA at the age of 19, but instead I finally did it during my divorce since the bullying for being German never stopped. When I got bused into the ghetto for middle school, the kids chanted “Nazi, Nazi, Nazi!” during the whole 45-minute ride. Nothing could stop me from going to school, though, not bullying, not being beat up by a gang and getting a concussion, not even getting stabbed in the behind with an ice pick. My parents valued education, especially since my mother and her father and other relatives, too, were teachers, all of which makes me privileged. I have always been an “A” student, even though one of my teachers in middle school raped me when I was 15, and that was how I lost my virginity.

My father lost his job when I was finishing high school, so I worked in restaurants to support myself and pay for my education. I lived with my boyfriend until he came home one day, knocked me down, sat on top of me and punched my face until I somehow got away from him. I locked myself in the bathroom and, when I saw my bloody face in the mirror, I screamed for help until the police came and took me to the hospital. My teeth had ripped through both sides of my upper lip as they were bashed in by the punches. I got many stitches in my face that turned into scars that trapped ingrown hairs until they rotted. Now my body attacks its own hair follicles. My bashed in teeth are difficult to clean and the gums are receding, but I am privileged because I can get my teeth cleaned professionally sometimes and I can cover up my scars with makeup.

I became even more determined to get a college degree and a good job. Along the way, I experienced poverty, hunger, drugs, alcohol, smoking, and abuse from drunk people while working as a cocktail waitress. I rented a room in the ghetto. I was drugged and raped by different men and sometimes more than one at a time. Since I had to work full time, it took me 5 years instead of the usual 4 years to finish my BA in Chemistry with a minor in Math. Regardless of the difficulties I endured and resilience I showed, I am privileged because “I was able to make it through school,” I have been told by people who are even more privileged than I am.

I was so happy to get a job at a pharmaceutical company, even though I had to move to the Midwest where I did not know anybody. I wanted to help people by reducing needless suffering. I made new friends. I survived abuse from my boss. I helped get an insulin product on the market. Eventually, I saved enough money to buy a house, get a roommate, and go to graduate school, where I met my husband.

I was working on my PhD degree in the field of human gene therapy when, during my qualifying exam, I was interrogated as if I were a Nazi. They were questioning whether someone with German ancestry should be in the field of human gene therapy. They asked questions about superiority and inferiority of certain traits. I was expecting and had prepared for a scientific examination of my fitness to continue pursuing my PhD degree and not an attack due to things that happened in a country I never lived in when my parents were children. I almost quit, but with the support of my husband and some serious resilience, I did not quit.

After finishing my PhD degree in Microbiology and Immunology, I got a postdoctoral researcher position at the University of Pennsylvania in a famous laboratory. I lived in a Philadelphia ghetto full of violence where I could afford to rent an apartment. Within half a year, my conscience would not allow me to continue working there. I correctly predicted the first death due to gene therapy in the USA. I tried to warn the head of the laboratory, but he was obsessed with being first. I tried to warn others in the field, but the only thing I accomplished was to disadvantage myself. Within a few years, I was proven correct when 18-year-old Jesse Gelsinger died a horrible death from a gene therapy experiment. I was in Switzerland when I got the news because that was where my husband and I got jobs working as scientists. We were the foreigners there. Nevertheless, we both ended up as inventors on patents. The system decided that the death of Jesse Gelsinger was a price of progress. One modern sign of this progress is that we are all being pressured and even forced into being vaccinated with new gene therapy vaccines while peer-reviewed scientific publications documenting deaths and adverse events are being retracted because unnamed people don’t like the findings.

After 9/11 we returned to the USA to avoid potentially coming back as non-residents, as our government threatened for any USA citizens who lived abroad more than 3 years. My husband and I started over again in temporary positions as well as in alternative careers. Still, we are left with one underemployed position between the two of us. We never got to have any kids because we were so busy moving 13 times in 15 years trying to work as scientists in an industry that has turned to temp agencies to turn science into gig jobs. People with bachelor’s degrees have more opportunity and make more money than two scientists with PhD degrees and proven success by any metrics: product on the market, patents, and peer-reviewed publications on cutting edge technologies in top journals.

Being the one without the job, I networked, searched for jobs to apply for, and applied for jobs for two years until my mental health became so poor that I had to take a break. I worked as a volunteer to help my husband with his excessive workload. I kept busy as a housewife, cooking, cleaning, gardening, shoveling snow, and raising dogs. Then my Bartholin gland cyst needed surgery again and I was left in extreme pain for 10 days. I ended up with a nervous breakdown and a diagnosis of C-PTSD because of so many very bad things that have happened to such a privileged person.

All the resilience I have described so far has been dwarfed by the resilience it has taken to survive C-PTSD and get much better during the past 7 years. It takes a long time to retrain one’s brain in order to lower one’s baseline level of reactivity to being triggered. It is the autonomic nervous system that controls the fight or flight response that is PTSD. While therapists may claim that we can control our reactions, that just isn’t true when it comes to PTSD. When people with PTSD get triggered, the response is fight or flight, which cannot be controlled any more than one’s heartbeat can be controlled because these functions are controlled by the autonomic (or automatic nervous system). If we could control the autonomic nervous system, then there would be no need for heart pacemakers or defibrillators. The stigma associated with PTSD makes matters much worse. No wonder so many veterans with PTSD commit suicide and people with PTSD have a very significant decrease in overall life expectancy.

I am still looking for a job as I have been for 13 years now. Unfortunately, I am not even considered qualified for an entry-level job as a human resources assistant with on-the-job training, even though the salary would have been what I made at my first job as a chemist 30 years ago. Most people do not seem to realize that an estimated 100,000 or more scientists in the USA are unemployed or underemployed due to realities including all the mergers and acquisitions of pharmaceutical and other scientific companies over the last decades, the contracting out of science to the lowest bidders in other countries, and the influx of immigrant scientists who have to do what their employer wants or they will be sent back to where they came from. They should get instant citizenship so they can stay in the USA and change jobs. Otherwise, one cannot be an honest scientist because one can be coerced too easily. It’s about having power to stand up for the truth versus being totally at the will of a particular employer who sponsored one’s work visa. If immigrant scientists don’t get instant citizenship, then the statute of limitations for any crimes they may experience or witness should start when they get citizenship. A glut of scientists relative to jobs for scientists disempowers scientists when it comes to standing up for the truth, which is supposedly what science is all about.

Now I am labeled as disabled with a mental disorder, I am getting help from a job placement professional through a state-funded program, and still there is no employment for me.

Combining my resilience and privilege with the support of my now ex-husband, I started blogging more than six years ago, which has made my life better. I became a Zumba dance fitness instructor four years ago to make a little money at least, and I started my small soapmaking business. I spent years developing my soapmaking process before I started selling my soaps. I also spent years learning about herbalism and growing and using medicinal plants. I have figured out how to use plant materials that are known to be good for skin to make uniquely wonderful soaps, combining my understanding of chemistry and herbalism and skin cells, which I used to grow in cell cultures for experiments. Making soap is like working in the laboratory doing experiments, and I think that is why my ex-husband and I love it so much. We are both scientists who belong in the laboratory, who trained extensively to work in the laboratory, and who succeeded in the laboratory but didn’t get what we were promised. My soapmaking business is borne of privilege, hard work, and resilience; therefore, I believe that it can continue to succeed with a lot more resilience, hard work and privilege because “it takes money to make money.” The system is clearly not based on merit, not even in science, and that needs to change for all our sakes. I am so grateful to CanvasRebel for helping small businesses to get exposure that can be so elusive. Thank you for reading.

We’d love to hear about how you met your business partner.

I met my cofounder/business partner, Michael, in graduate school almost 30 years ago. He was golden boy on campus because his picture was on the cover of the medical center magazine, he was an MD/PhD student, and he was studying heart cells made from embryonic stem cells that could form grafts in adult hearts and hopefully one day repair damage caused by heart attacks. A guy he knew from high school was using a high-tech piece of equipment that was shared by researchers. Michael explained to this guy the proper cleaning and maintenance of the equipment that he wasn’t following. “You should meet Dagmar!” the guy replied. Michael asked who Dagmar was and the guy said that he just had to meet her and see for himself.

I was Dagmar back then. I have since changed my name to Marie to reduce the bullying for my German ancestry. The guy that Michael knew from high school was a researcher in the laboratory I chose to do my PhD thesis work in, so he was a mutual acquaintance. I was just starting in the laboratory while the guy, the mutual acquaintance, was finishing up his research and preparing to leave the laboratory. I had to share a laboratory bench with this guy, and I had similar complaints about him as Michael. He regularly inconvenienced me by leaving messes and misplacing needed items. Still, I ate lunch with him sometimes at the food court on campus.

Halloween was coming up when our mutual acquaintance planned a party and insisted that I attend. I found out later that he did the same to Michael, and Michael also hesitated. It was a weekday and we were working on our research day and night. But our mutual acquaintance insisted.

Near the end of the party, our mutual acquaintance introduced me to Michael. I asked Michael out to lunch, but he turned me down. I said okay and left with my roommate who had been chasing after Michael during the whole party. I had no idea that Michael was saying “no” not to me but to eating at the food court that I suggested because he couldn’t eat at any of the places there without getting diarrhea because the food was such low quality.

But it wasn’t just me. Our mutual acquaintance was so mad at Michael that he would not even talk to him after that. Later Michael found out it was because our mutual acquaintance wanted to date the African beauty who Michael had been dating. Michael broke up with her after she broke his trust, and she wanted him back. If Michael were dating me, then our mutual acquaintance would have a better chance of dating the African beauty who looked like a high school classmate he had a crush on and later married. Meanwhile, to keep me away from Michael, the African beauty hooked me up with another guy who wanted to date her and who drove a Porsche.

Our mutual friend finally gave Michael my phone number. He called and asked me if I wanted to go bicycling with him. I had a bike that I rode regularly, and I said yes. When we took a break at a scenic spot overlooking the river, he offered me apples that he pulled out of his saddlebags! I was so impressed with him. We were married within a year. Everyone thought I was pregnant, but I wasn’t. We are divorced now because we suffered too much adversity, collectively and individually. But he is still my partner and the best thing that ever happened to me. We love making soap together and working together as we have for a long time.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://myspiritualconnection.org/product-category/soap/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DrMarieSoapmaker
• Other: https://myspiritualconnection.org/soap-blog-3/

Image Credits
Michael Klug