Now, thanks to a little company in Golden, BC (population: 3811, not counting bears and cougars), I can add soap to that list. Kate from Apple Island Naturals heard about my project, and was inspired to make soap entirely sourced in Canada. And she was serious about it. Here’s where the source materials came from:

The lye comes from one of two manufacturers. One is in Quebec and the other is in Ontario. My supplier uses both manufacturers, so he couldn’t really narrow it down for me any further. The essential oils were manufactured in Montreal from trees grown in Ontario and Quebec. The base oils were manufactured in Saskatchewan from plants grown in Saskatchewan and Alberta. The melted snow (and don’t worry, it was definitely clean snow!) came from my backyard.

Canadian right down to the melted snow. Now that’s what English soccer commentators call “a result”. I bought a bunch of bars, and it’s working very well for me. I smell so Canadian.

Kate kindly sent along some samples of some of the other, not-entirely-Canadian soaps. I’m giving them away over on the 1Y1C Facebook page. All you have to do leave a comment here, and you’ll be entered to win three bars of Apple Island soap.

Mr. Good was an excellent moderator of the phone lines. Earlier we had discussed my ongoing search for toilet paper that is sourced and manufactured in Canada. It’s a topic which never fails to delight the media.

We took a call from somebody who said he used to work at a local paper manufacturer in New Westminster, which I heard as “Cougar Paper”. He said they definitely made toilet paper from Canadian trees and wood pulp.

I noted down the name, and promptly went home to investigate. I googled, and did find a paper company, but they don’t have a plant in New Westminster, nor do they make toilet paper. I was foiled again.

Later in the week, though, I received a long and informative email from the good people of Kruger Paper. They did, in fact, have manufacturing facilities and a tree farm in New Westminster, and produced several brands of toilet paper. It turns out that they’ve been around since 1904, when Mr. Joseph Kruger opened a paper business in Montreal.

Success! I can now bask in the warm, smug glow of Purex EnviroCare, toilet paper entirely sourced and manufactured in Canada. They also make a couple of brands of paper towel, so that problem is solved as well.

Why did this take so long? Web searches were consistently disappointing. No one seems to be optimizing their website for people like me looking for “toilet paper made in Canada”. Even the aforementioned Purex product page doesn’t mention Canada. I then turned to the aisles of my local grocery stores, where I made an incorrect assumption. I stalked the aisles of Whole Foods and Choices, certain that they would be my best bets for earth-friendly and locally-made TP, as they have been for other products.

I was wrong, and should have instead started with the kitteny-softness (actually, the Purex EnviroCare is recycled toilet paper, so it’s more poodle than kitty) that is that familiar brand Purex.

Soap Works body soap – I’ve actually used this soap on and off for a few years. It’s typically available at Choices and Whole Foods, and I like that it’s usually sold without any packaging. There’s novelty in just picking up a plain bar of sold and sticking it in your shopping basket. More than any of the other products I’m trying, their soap behaves and feels totally like ‘normal’ soap. Their soaps are made in Canada–I’ve emailed them to check if any are entirely sourced north of the border.

Green Beaver Frosty Mint natural toothpaste – Setting aside the peculiar brand name, I don’t love this toothpaste. Its minty smell somehow reminds me of the vinyl waiting room of a 1960s dentist’s office. Like a number of these natural products, it’s got an off-white colour which I’ve never associated with toothpaste. It’ll take some getting used to.

Green Beaver Tea Tree natural deodorant – I’ve discussed the deodorant question elsewhere, but in general I’ve found that if I re-apply the pit stick at least once later in the day, it’s sufficient. Mind you, we’re still in winter. I may need to become still more vigilant. The tea tree variety smells nice, though I’m slightly disappointed by the mechanics of the stick–the lid is overly tight, and the little increase-the-stick-height wheel doesn’t work as smoothly as I might like.

L’Olivier lavender foam bath – I had a guest tester for this bubble bath. She reports that it had a natural lavender odor and it produced a robust cloud of bubbles that lasted the entirety of her bath. I received this bath foam as part of a set of samples that L’Olivier sent me (they’re pictured above).

Abeego food storage sheets – These are peculiar, reusable food wraps “created with hemp/cotton fabric infused with a blend of beeswax and plant extracts” in Victoria, BC. They smell like beeswax, as you might expect, and they’re semi-moldable so a sheet fits fairly easily over a bowl or plate. There’s also a little tie-able sandwich holder that’s kind of nifty.

Natureclean dishwashing unscented liquid and automatic dishwasher gel – These two products get the rare gold-standard of being entirely sourced in Canada. They do an adequate job of washing dishes, but both are inferior to their more toxic and less local equivalents. Mostly I have to chip the occasional piece of dried food off a dish or two when I’m emptying the dishwasher, and scrub the pots and pans a little harder.

Cascades recycled bathroom tissue – There’s no getting around this: it ain’t Royale kitteny-soft.

Any grand conclusions thus far? These products are, on average, slightly inferior to the common brands I was using last year. It’s an acceptable compromise, though, for locally-made, more eco-friendly products.

There are plenty more reviews where that came from. Have you tried any of these products? If so, what did you think of them?

She also sent me a bunch of their products to check out. I haven’t cracked them open yet, but I’ll report back on what I think.

1Y1C: A couple of my friends actually recommend Sapadilla to me. Tell me a little about why you started the company.

Jill: I was working as a copywriter for big ad agencies, and Steve, who holds a Masters of Environmental Science, was working in his field – but in stuffy offices. We both wanted to do our own thing, partly because we’ve got entrepreneurial genes and partly because both of us felt frustrated about being a small piece of a big puzzle. We wanted to create a company that allowed us to be involved in things full circle. And, of course, it had to be something we felt good about bringing into the world.

Several years ago, we took a look at the cleaning category, and found it lacking. Natural cleaners have been around for quite a while, but we felt there was nothing to love. No companies producing the type of high quality product you might get excited about, the way you can about some products in other categories, like fine foods or bath and body. And so, we set about researching and developing our line, aiming to create high quality natural cleaning products that were enjoyable to use. We stuck to three key factors: essential oil aromas, package design and earth-friendly formulations.

1Y1C: When you hear from customers, what do they like about your products?

We actually receive regular emails from enthusiastic customers telling us how much they love our products, which is definitely very rewarding. What we hear the most is how much they love our aromas. People are generally exposed to synthetic fragrance, so it’s a very refreshing change to use only pure and natural essential oils. Next to that, customers get excited that we’re local.

1Y1C: How do you differentiate your cleaners from other natural cleaners on the market?

Again, it’s all about the essential oil aromas. We worked with a natural perfumist to create our blends, so they smell wonderfully fresh and natural. We use these oils at high concentrations, making our products more special and high-end.

1Y1C: Are any of your products entirely sourced in Canada? That is, do all of the ingredients come from Canada? If not, what are the barriers to sourcing Canadian ingredients. I’d imagine price would be the major one, but can you simply not get some ingredients in Canada?

No, not entirely sourced in Canada and here’s why. Cleaning products are made with ingredients called surfactants. Some good, some bad, some really bad. Conventional cleaning products use petroleum-based surfactants (among other nasties), while most natural cleaning products use plant-derived ones. Of the plant-based surfactants we use, one is made in Canada (Cocamidopropyl Betaine), but our main cleaning ingredients are from the Alkyl Polyglucoside family and, as far as we know, these are not manufactured in Canada.

We use this ingredient because it is has a far superior environmental and health profile to other plant-based surfactants that are available in Canada (like Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Sodium Lauryl Ether Sulfate). We get our plant-derived APG’s from a manufacturer in the US, but they can also come from Europe or Asia. We purchase all our ingredients through Canadian suppliers, but they come from all over: Canada, the US, Europe and other areas. That said, all the manufacturing of our products is done here, so they are made in Canada as far as NAFTA is concerned.

To clean your home with ingredients 100% grown in Canada would be very difficult. I’m not sure if any basics like vinegar or baking soda are manufactured anywhere here, but you could look into that. Probably safe to assume lemons are out!  Plus, you’d need some sort of soap for dishes, laundry, etc. and, actually, you’d have a tough time making basic soap entirely sourced here too.

You could find corn, hemp or soy oil (or animal tallow), but unless you can find a Canadian manufacturer of lye (sodium hydroxide), which is required to saponify the oils (that is turn them into soap), you’d be out of luck. You could get really extreme, I suppose, and made your own wood ash lye, but I don’t imagine too many people are up for that!

The issue isn’t really cost, it’s the availability of one of our major ingredients. It would be wonderful for us if all ingredients were made in Canada.

Note: Jill heard back from more of her suppliers so the above answer was amended slightly on March 11, 2011. It now reflects the fact that you can find one surfactant that’s manufactured in Canada. Previously it indicated that no surfactants were made in Canada.

However, I do occasionally want to check in on the question of dollars and cents, and how much more–for surely it’s more and not less–I need to spend to live my Canadian life.

Here is a sampling of Canadian household goods that I picked up. Not all of these meet the gold standard of sourced in Canada, but these are at least silver medalists (manufactured in Canada). Click to embiggen:

I purchased these products at my friendly, neighbourhood Whole Foods store Choices (whoops). Collectively, they cost $41.76. Here’s the receipt (again, click to bigize):

More than $40 for six ordinary, household consumables. That’s quite pricey, eh? At least I got six cents off by bringing my own bag. Score.

I got to wondering…what would the “normal” versions of these cost at my local Save-on-Foods? I went downstairs (yes, I literally live above Save-on-Foods–I can take the elevator down) to the store and priced out the products that I would normally purchase instead of these wacky Canadian ones. Here’s what I came up with. Prices include any savings I might have enjoyed with my magic Save-on-More card:

• Speed Stick antiperspirant – $2.25
• Pears soap – 3 for $3.59, so one bar is $1.19
• Garnier Fructis shampoo (because my hair gets too much sucrose and glucose) – $4.79
• Alcan aluminum foil – $4.29
• Colgate Total toothpaste – $2.99
• Western Family toilet paper – $8.99

Add tax, and that gives me $27.44, or about 65% of what I paid at Whole Foods.

Man, I am getting hosed. Whose idea was this project?

In fairness, I knew that I’d end up spending more money on Canadian products. Hopefully I discover some that are of a higher quality, and last longer than their foreign equivalents.

Are there any Canadian products that you buy, even though they’re more expensive?

I’m not one of those moist-faced dudes who look feverish despite being in the best of health. But suffice it to say that if I go on a 45-minute run, you could water a ficus by wringing out my shirt. I sometimes evaluate how hard I’ve exercised by the size of the peninsula of sweat that appears on my baseball cap. Sometimes when the sweat dries, it leaves a little shoreline of salty deposits behind.

I’ve always been an antiperspirant man. I’ve read the claims about antiperspirants causing Alzheimer’s, but I’d rather forget a fragrant life than live a smelly one.

I’ve tried deodorants over the years, but they haven’t proved, shall we say, Strong Enough For a Man. I remember, in my university days, trying one of those crystal deodorant sticks–truly a New Age solution for an old-school problem. If memory serves, the crystal stick was pink and odourless, and about as effective as rubbing a parsnip under my arm.

I’ve only begun my search for gold-standard (sourced, manufactured and designed in Canada) antiperspirant or deodorant. I suspect that I’ll have difficulty finding anything as effective as good old ‘sport scent’ (surely a misnomer–aren’t I trying to avoid smelling like sports?) Speed Stick antiperspirant.

I’m starting with some tea tree deodorant from Green Beaver. How could I resist the hockey player on a frozen pond on the label? It’s not entirely sourced in Canada, but a good place to start. I’m deploying it twice a day.

Have you got any suggestions for a, uh, pit stick manufactured and, ideally, sourced in Canada?

Photo by Jon Jablonsky

And yet, my searches–both offline and on–have turned up bupkis. I was optimistic when I spotted Cascades toilet tissue at Choices. Their toilet paper is manufactured from recycled paper in Quebec, and they have a strong commitment to sustainability. Plus, you know, they have an absorption guarantee.

I contacted them to confirm the origin of their recycled paper, and this was their reply:

Unfortunately, it is impossible for us to attest that all of the ingredients used to make our products originate in Canada.  In the paper making industry, we deal with big suppliers in North America that have multiple locations.  It would be hard for us to know where every single component is coming from.

We wish you the best of luck with you project to consume only products and services made in Canada.

Zut alors! So, I think Cascades toilet paper becomes the first of the compromise household goods. According to this month’s rules, I can use a manufactured product that isn’t necessarily sourced in Canada if I can’t find a product entirely sourced here.

Sidenote: In writing this post, I solicited my tweeps for synonyms for toilet paper. Popular choices included bathroom tissue, TP, ass wipes, dunny roll, bun wad, sh*t tickets and bog roll.

Photo by Mandie.

Kitchen Stuff

• Dish-washing liquid
• Dishwasher detergent
• All-purpose cleaner
• Paper towel
• Saran wrap
• Garbage bags
• Aluminum foil
• Laundry detergent

Bathroom Stuff

• Soap
• Shampoo
• Conditioner
• Hair goo (at least, that’s what I call this stuff)
• Toothpaste
• Deodorant
• Floss
• Mouthwash
• Shaving cream
• Disposable razors
• Hand sanitizer
• Eye bag remover

I’m just kidding about that last one. I mean, who am I, Patrick Dempsey?

In short, it’s everything under your kitchen sink, and in your bathroom cupboards. I’m calling this stuff “household goods”, though I’m shopping around for a better name. Any suggestions?

The Rules

Household goods are the first category of Canadian stuff I’m consuming. What’s my criteria for this month? Ideally, I’m looking for products that are entirely sourced and produced in Canada, excluding the packaging. Lots of products, of course, are “made in Canada” (more on this later), but few are completely sourced in our country.

There will no doubt be items which, no matter how hard I look, are not sourced in Canada. In that case, I’ll have to settle for manufactured in Canada.

Images courtesy of Don O’Brien.

I later visited Choices as well, and was surprised by the broad array of Canadian-made cleaners out there. I took my list home, typed it up, and began contacting companies to determine whether their products are entirely sourced in Canada. If you’re particularly keen, you can check out my spreadsheet of products.

I quite liked the sound of Green Beaver toothpaste, though they haven’t gotten back to me yet. I was also pleased to find a brand of laundry detergent called “Vancouver Only”. I made a note of it, and went home to search for the company’s website. Amusingly, the top search result begins “Vancouver Only, the brand with absolutely no web presence”. So, no joy there.

After some research, the good folks at Nature Clean Living told me that their unscented products are entirely sourced in Canada. Score! I’m now the proud owner of their laundry detergent, dish detergent, hand sanitizer and dishwasher detergent. The dish detergent doesn’t quite have the grease-cutting crispness of our usual liquid, but otherwise it’s doing a good job.

I am, however, slightly troubled by the eerily-cheerful children featured on the Nature Clean bottles. There’s a kind of creepy vacancy in this kid’s eyes, isn’t there?

Mom, those neighbourhood dogs won’t be keeping us up anymore.

Next up, soaps and shampoos.