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- Right now, about 550,000 people are experiencing homelessness in the United States, living without access to many of the everyday services most of us have grown accustomed to, like showers.
- Personal hygiene shouldn’t be a privilege, but for many Americans, it’s not a given.
- The Right to Shower is a new brand from Unilever that’s drawing attention to this crisis by donating 100% of its profits from its bar soaps (7.99) and body washes ($11.99) in 2019 to help build mobile shower units.
Drugstore aisles are filled with an abundance of bath and body products. You can choose what body wash you’d like based on price, scents, ingredients, brand loyalty, or just pretty packaging. Many of us take the fact that we can make these choices — and the fact that we can shower at all — for granted.
The fact is, for the 550,000 homeless individuals in the United States, cleanliness and personal hygiene aren’t guarantees. The Right to Shower, a brand recently launched by Unilever, is bringing attention to this issue by launching a line of basic bath products, and donating 100 percent of its profits in 2019 to mobile shower initiatives.
The mission
The name really says it all. The Right to Shower believes that cleanliness should be a fundamental human right, and it’s working to actually make that belief a reality. A shower, simple as it seems, does more than just physically clean a person. As the brand’s mission reads, "One shower can contribute to improving health and well-being and restoring one’s dignity in their community."
The Right to Shower has a simple line of bar soaps and body washes in four scents, and its using the profits to make showers more accessible through mobile shower initiatives. The brand is partnered with Lava Mae, an organization that brings essentials services like mobile hygiene and care units to homeless populations in California. In 2019, The Right to Shower will donate 100 percent of its profits to mobile shower initiatives. But, it won’t end there. At its core, the brand is a social enterprise, so it will continue to give back over the years in other capacities.
The products
The Right to Shower has a simple selection of products: body wash and bar soap. There are four scent profiles: dignity (charcoal and cotton blossom), hope (aloe and dewy moss), joy (tangerine and honeysuckle), and strength (red ginger and currant). All products are marked as "head to toe cleansers," and they’re gentle enough to be used on any part of the body.
Making a product that’s not sustainable would be antithetical to the brand’s mission, which is why all The Right to Shower products are 100% vegan, cruelty-free, and handmade without toxins in small batches. Even the packaging is made from both recycled and recyclable materials.
The bar soaps are very large, and at $7.99 for such a big size, I’d say they’re a great value. The body wash has a nice consistency and a light scent. I’ve been using the hope body wash, and what I like about these products is that the scents are neutral enough for anyone to use, and the natural ingredients mean you really can use them on any part of your body.
And, while some may think it’s a little kitschy, I like the names and the connotation that by supporting this brand, you’re giving more than just access to a clean shower. You’re also bringing hope, dignity, strength, and joy to someone who really needs it.
Get The Right to Shower Body Wash, $11.99, available at Amazon
Get The Right to Shower Bar Soap, $7.99, available at Amazon
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Source: Business Insider – rrosmarin@businessinsider.com (Remi Rosmarin)