A journalism student from DMJX got in touch with me a few weeks ago — about harmful chemistry, about distrust, about what you do with it. We talked for a long time — much longer than the few minutes that later became an article.
She asked good questions. Most of it didn’t make the cut. That’s how an article works — it has to have focus. Mine doesn’t.
Sarah was curious about more than the short case story the article showed. Among other things she asked about the difference between liquid shampoo, a solid shampoo bar, a hard soap — and my soap. She asked why my “chemistry” should be any different from ordinary chemistry.
It was hard to answer on the spot. The short version, which I should have said and didn’t:
Liquid shampoo is mostly water, synthetic detergents like SLS and sulfates, and preservatives — because water requires them. A solid shampoo bar is often the same detergents in solid form. A hard soap in the shop is typically synthetic, fragranced, and based on palm oil or cheap fat scraps. Real soap is saponified quality oils. It can be beef tallow, olive, coconut — in different proportions and combinations. Each combination gives its own character: more or less lather, more or less softening. Nothing synthetic. Your skin knows the fat profile. Nature knows it. And it doesn’t cost the rainforests in the process. Few ingredients. No preservatives, because there’s no water.
The difference isn’t that real soap is “chemistry-free.” The difference is which chemistry.
She also asked about exactly that — what I mean by “chemistry.” And that’s the piece I didn’t manage to put well enough. The long version is a blog in itself. Here it is.
The short version, the one I would have liked to say:
Comparing real soap to SLS is like comparing manure to synthetic fertilizer. Both make something work. They’re just very different systems — with very different traces in the soil, the water, and the body.
What I was left with afterward wasn’t “look at me” — it was this: one in four Danes doesn’t trust that the authorities have removed harmful chemistry from products.
That doubt isn’t new. Philippe Grandjean is seventy-five years old. Professor of environmental medicine at SDU and Harvard. He has documented lead, mercury, PFAS, and fluoride for forty years — and taken on authorities and industry to get it said out loud.
His new Danish book — You Are Toxic, in English — writes that Danes have accumulated so many toxins in their bodies that we would be banned as a food product.
This isn’t an activist saying it. It’s a man from inside the system. For forty years.
It’s the article I didn’t get to say out loud in my interview, even though I shared it on my own wall already last year. The doubt is justified. It’s just been ignored. You can read it here.
Sarah had an article to write. I have a blog to write. She had focus, I have room. Both are necessary.
You’re welcome to read hers at resonans.dmjx.dk. You’re welcome to read Grandjean’s book. And you’re welcome to turn your own bottle over — which, by the way, you’ve done a million times before, just without really reading it.
Sources
- Dagbladet Information, maj 2025: Læge med en mission: Befolkningen skal beskyttes mod farlige stoffer, som andre tjener penge på
- DR, 2. juni 2025: Philippe Grandjean: ‘Vi er så giftige, at vi ville blive forbudt som fødevare’
- Miljømærkning Danmark / Opinion-undersøgelse for Svanemærket, januar 2026: Ved du heller ikke, om der er skadelig kemi i de produkter, du bruger?
- DMJX Resonans, 6. maj 2026: Kemitvivlen vokser: Victoria tager sagen i egen hånd