While glancing through the business section of the newspaper today, I saw a headline that caught my eye: Clorox Bleach is buying Burt’s Bees for almost a billion dollars in CASH! Evidently Clorox wants to get into the natural products market, and decided this was the way to do it.
I LOVE Burt’s Bee’s products. They are natural, and have some of the best beauty products out there, in my opinion. I also like that they are one of the industry leaders in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, being one of the first companies to sign the pledge in May, 2005. The signers of this pledge vow “not use chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects in their products and to implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives in every market they serve.”
I’d be lying if I said I never use bleach, in fact I have a bottle of good old Clorox in the laundry room. It definitely has its place, but it makes me leery and suspicious when a cleaning product company, who makes chemical toilet brushes, among other things, purchases a natural beauty-cosmetics-baby product line. I can’t help but wonder if the quality of Burt’s Bees products will suffer.
I certainly hope not, but after reading this today, I don’t think I will ever be able to apply some of my beloved Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm, on my lips, slather Baby Buttermilk Lotion, on my sons skin, or rub their soothing Diaper Ointment on my baby’s delicate diaper area, without thinking of a big bottle of chemical bleach and toilet brushes! Not exactly the image you want in your mind, when applying natural products on yourself or on your baby I might go stock up on my favorite items before the production is turned over to the bleach company.
I have to say that I am disappointed in Burt’s Bees too. Obviously this was an enormous amount of money, but they didn’t have to agree to be sold to Clorox. Their customers have built them into the company they are today, which commands their sales price and market value. It just seems like they “sold out” to a big giant corporate company, that does not fit their brand image at all, and too bad for their loyal customer base. If Burt’s Bees wanted to be sold to a big company, couldn’t they have at least tried Proctor & Gamble? At least P&G has a beauty product line, and at least for me the first image I get from P&G, isn’t a toilet bowl filled up with Clorox. I guess the almighty dollar wins again.
I just hope Clorox doesn’t try to take out the natural ingredients, and replace them with cheap, chemical laden crap, “improve” the products. Burt’s Bees products are perfect the way they are.
At any rate, after using Burt’s Bees products for years, it is sad that I can’t look at the company the same way, sad I can’t trust it now, and will always be wondering if Clorox will try to substitute, and sneak chemicals in the products in order to cut costs, and try to make some of that billion dollars back.