More Monkey-Friendly Soaps!

What-ho, what-ho, good folks. Guess what? Sometimes there are unmistakable signs that there is hope for mankind, despite all the previous evidence to the contrary.

We have been busy organising a publicity event for a women's shelter, and have been impressed rather than otherwise by the response from the businesses we have done our damnedest to cadge favours from. All the humanity has brought the roses back to this gnarled old toilet-blogger's cheeks!

Also, we found these lovely soaps from the Danish company Urtekram:

Here is Monkey, posing happily in the sunshine
with a couple of monkey-friendly soaps and his favourite citrus plant.

They smell heavenly of roses and lavender, respectively!

As regular readers are aware, we have certain requirements when it comes to soaps: they must smell nice and they must be monkey-friendly. The devastation caused by palm oil plantations is well known and requires no further description.

Our lovely new Urtekram soaps are certified organic, vegan and not tested on animals, but we couldn't find any information regarding palm oil on the packaging so we wrote to Urtekram to ask. They sent a very polite, very conscientious and very detailed reply, explaining about their palm oil policy [translated from Scandiweigan]:

Our oil comes from both coconut oil and palm oil, depending on what's available. It is RSPO certified , but unfortunately the demand for sustainable oil is greater than the supply. It can sometimes be hard to ascertain whether an ingredient is made from palm oil, as ingredients are broken down into several parts. Here's what our product developer Tom writes on the subject (pardon the Danish):

"Vi har anvendt denne samlende term for de ingredienser for der eksisterer ikke nogen direkte oversættelse fra INCI til normalt engelsk. Det betyder:
vegetabiliska oljeprodukter = polyglyceryl-3 dicitrate/stearate, cetyl alcohol, glyceryl stearate se, glyceryl caprylate, lysolecithin, beta-sitosterol, squalene.

Flere af disse ingredienser kan stamme fra palmeolie, men hvis de gør det så er det Segretated RSPO olie der er anvendt i henhold til de forskellige leverandører vi anvender. Det betyder at vore produkter ikke forårsager fældning af regnskov.

PS Der er en hel del af de ingredienser der anvendes indenfor kosmetisk industri hvor leverandørerne skifter mellem flere forskellige olier – det kan f.eks. være kokos og palme olie, da de har meget ens fedtsyreprofil. Det er på nuværende tidspunkt IKKE muligt at garantere produkter er uden palmeolie – hvis der på et produkt står at det er uden palmeolie, så skal man straks være meget skeptisk – jo sikkert uden palme olie, men mange af ingredienserne er muligvis fremstillet ud fra palme olie!"

We're totally happy with that, and even happier with our gorgeuously scented soaps!

(If you find this sudden effusion of sunshine and roses trying, here's something you can worry and rant about: Antibiotic-resistant bacteria breed in sewers. Remember, also, the multi-drug-resistant gonorrhoea bacteria.)

Let's have a festive video.

Festive video - Ashley Monroe, Like a Rose


Related Reading
Soaps, Lovely Soaps!
The Lord Privy Seal Brings a Badly Needed Touch of Class. Also Monkey-Friendly Soaps.
Toilet Song: Soda Soap
We Get on Our Soap Box and Rant for a Bit about Colonialism

The Lord Privy Seal Brings a Badly Needed Touch of Class. Also Monkey-Friendly Soaps.

What with having a monkey among our resident staff, our preferences in the soap department are firmly centred in the orangutan-friendly end of the spectrum. Although we love sandalwood soap to the point where we go all giddy and have to sit down and have a brandy just thinking about it, we have yet to find one made with certified monkey-friendly palm oil.

Monkey gives these products the thumbs-up!

Last time we wrote a piece on soap made with sustainable palm oil was in January 2012. You'd think the world would have hardened the fuck up and stopped destroying orangutan habitats since then. However, mankind is apparently quite prone to not hardening the fuck up, and has happily continued to kill orangutans in order to enjoy cheap microwavable popcorn, instant noodles, and washing powder. (Honestly, sometimes the fucked-up-ness of the human race makes us want to down large quantities of gin and indulge in morbid rants while waving our hands about in a thoroughly cynical manner. And we don't even like gin.)

However, we managed to procure some totally monkey-friendly soaps recently! Monkey capered with joy at the sight of them, clapped his hands and went to show them to his friend the Lord Privy Seal!
But forgive us, we haven't introduced the Lord Privy Seal yet. This honourable member of the Privy Counsel was brought round to HQ one lovely day in August by Exuberant Archaeologist Friend. Once there, he got drinking with Monkey, ended up too legless to leave, and has been with us ever since. We're very happy about this - the Lord Privy Seal adds a badly needed touch of class to our establishment!

Monkey and the Lord Privy Seal both approved hugely of our choice of soaps. We got a cinnamon, orange and clove soap from the Visionary Soap Company, which contains fairtrade oils and spices, and smells lusciously Christmassy. Feeling the need for more hygiene-inducing lovely soap, we lurched into the Body Shop and grabbed a mango soap and a satsuma ditto. These soaps are all made with sustainable, monkey-friendly palm oil - three cheers for that!

Monkey and the Lord Privy Seal approve of these lovely soaps

At the Privy Counsel we reckon that, if life hands you lemons, then make yourself a really kick-arse rum and lemon cocktail. Or, you know, eighteen. In fact, Monkey and the Lord Privy Seal have already started, out in the kitchen. We'll join them in a minute, but first, let's have a festive video! We've had this one before, but we just love this song so much we'll hear it again:

Festive video - Sierra Leone Refugee All Stars, Soda Soap

If you'll excuse us, we'd better go check on Monkey - sounds like he's getting a bit rowdy out there. What? Monkey - no! Not on the fucking stairs! If you need to throw up, go do it in the bathr... Jesus Christ.


Related Reading
Other soaps we love, not all of which are, sadly, monkey-friendly: Soaps, Lovely Soaps
Totally Monkey-approved soaps: Not Nearly Enough Monkey Business
More products from the visionary Soap Company: A Visionary If Not Strictly Toilet-Related UpdateMore info on sustainable palm oil from the WWF
A list of companies that use sustainable palm oil
Palm oil - the hidden truth lurking in your home
A festive video involving lots of seals
All previous posts on soap

Post-Christmas Stupor

How are you feeling? Christmas is a funny thing. In our experience, it's either over too soon or not soon enough. Monkey, however, has been enjoying Christmas wholeheartedly this year, and was most excited by his gifts of Icelandic yoghurt and schnapps!

Monkey loves yoghurt, but he loves schnapps even more.
Luckily, he now has both!

We hope you've enjoyed Christmas as much as Monkey!

Why Today Is a Toiletally Important Day

It only happens once a year, so make sure you celebrate - today is World Toilet Day!
And what's more, it's Enlightened Friend's birthday - happy birthday, Enlightened Friend!

We gather this information thanks to the labours of Australian Friend.

[For a most informative video, see this, from The Age. It was originally inserted here as a video, but we find that the embedding code no longer works.]

We are thrilled to learn, from a very interesting newspaper article, that at the Western Treatment Plant in Melbourne, a cover designed to limit bad smells means that the sewage plant can harness bio gas, thus producing enough electricity to power 15,000 homes! Read the article, from The Age, here! Our favourite quote: "The cover's quite effective at controlling odours from the treatment plant." (We just love Australian accents.)

Did you know that the dual-flush loo and the black box on airplanes are Australian inventions? We didn't, either! But Australian Friend tells us that the big country down under is simply brimming over with water-saving toilets and mixer-taps! Imagine! Read an article about amazing Australian inventions here.

Monkey is a great fan of Australia, here represented
by a water-saving flush and a flip-flop - sorry - thong!

Since we're being all festive, let's have an amusing Australia-related video!

Festive video: Monty Python, Bruces

Might as well do another festive video, while we're at it. This one seems to be about some kind of loo (presumably a dual-flush one), and is subtitled, to be on the safe side.

Festive video: Muriel's Wedding, Waterloo scene

Read more about why World Toilet Day is important at the Water Aid site, or, if you're that way inclined, at the World Toilet Day site.

Further reading
World Toilet Day 2011: Taking Our Baths and Our Women 

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!

As previously mentioned, nobody quite knows where Semi-Intellectual Friend is, geographically, intellectually, or spiritually. Having gone to a tropical country to find himself, he seems instead to have got lost in a hideous morass of odorous, horror-filled drains and incurable skin diseases. Since it's Halloween, we're sharing some of the horror with you, gentle reader. Behold, the description of Semi-Intellectual Friend's shower - a tale to freeze the blood and addle the brain (or what's left of it once the zombie apocalypse has kicked in).

There was an eggy smell coming from the water in our shower. I was grateful. It wasn’t even close to the worst thing that I’d smelled in the shower up until then, and I thought that it would go well with the smells I was about to slather on myself to cover up the fact that when I hosed myself off in that shower I spent most of my time trying not to get any of the damn Siberian water actually on me.
We had left Koh Samui a few showers before and joined up with two other guys at a collection of beach huts on Koh Tao called Saithong Resort. It had a number of selling points:

• Electricity is supplied to rooms between 6pm and 6am.
• No aircon.
• The rooms have holes in the walls and floor. Probably the roof too but you can’t always tell because in some a floral blanket is stapled to all four walls to cover the ceiling.
• It is inaccessible by car. Either a 25 minute trek from the pier is necessary or you can catch a boat taxi.
• Cold showers. So, when people are looking into your bathroom through your mostly-curtain- and completely-glass-free windows/the holes in your bathroom’s walls, you always look your best.
• No wifi. Obviously.
• It has bugs. Many, many bugs.
• It might be the best hotel-resort thing I’ve ever stayed at.

  This is not the authentic Thai experience, or even just an authentic Thai experience. Thai people have ipads and kindles, electricity, hot and cold running water, and houses without holes in the walls. It’s a country that has made remarkable strides in the last twenty years in terms of overcoming poverty, putting its children in education and offering healthcare, despite a number of natural disasters. And the 10% of the country who do remain in poverty don’t compensate for not having electricity by snorkelling or playing pool.

 What can one say, except "Haaarrrrrgghh"? Well, quite. Having one's brains eaten by zombies does tend to impede one's speech capacity.

Happy Halloween!

Monkey lost in an improving book. A hideous morass of images
from New Scientist, Anglopole, and Inriodulce

Further reading:

See photos of this shower here (if you dare):
Brownian Motion, or, Brownout, or, A Brown Study - Semi-Intellectual Friend's Shower
More general horror:
A Note on Desperate Measures
Are You British? Does Tap Sanity Elude You?
Tap into Pain
Oh! the horror! SCREAMING BLOODY HORROR HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: The British Workplace

Halloween Horror!

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!

Blogging Something Rotten

Phew! What a week it's been! You must be fed up with staring at Eminem's face (or rather arse) from the last post, a whole week ago! We've got good news for you, though. It seems everyone's favourite toilet country, Denmark, has discovered the Privy Counsel! Those great Danes have, according to our readership statistics, spent the last few weeks doing very little else but reading your darling toilet blog! So we thought we'd reward them with a feature on a historical toilet from their own dear country. Voilà, here's Christian IV's toilet from Rosenborg Castle!

Christian IV's toilet. Image from Free City Guides

According to dkks.dk,

This room, formerly known as “The Secret", is the lowest of three toilets, each with its own disposal chute. Originally it had a door in the wall to the left leading to the bathroom (where the Garden Room is now situated).

There was a water cistern in the room used for flushing. The drain led to the moat which surrounds the Palace. During drier periods it was difficult to get water circulation into the moat, resulting in an unpleasant smell from below.

The stucco ceiling dates from the time of Christian IV and was probably made by Valentin Dresler. The blue and white tiles on the walls were put up in connection with Frederik IV's refurbishing of Rosenborg in 1705. The original tiles were Dutch and were delivered in 1706; some of them are still on the walls. Later – in the 19th century – they were supplemented with tiles originally made in 1736, in a factory in Store Kongensgade in Copenhagen for the "Dutch Kitchen" in the Hermitage Palace.

Christian IV, as Australian Friend knows, was a busy man. Not only did he have toilets installed, he founded cities and pawned royal jewellery left, right and centre, too!

Close-up of the beautiful Dutch-made tiles. Image from Our Travel Pics

Australian Friend spent a memorable day investigating the ins and outs of Rosenborg Castle, in the company of friends.

HONK IF YOU LIKE ROYAL TOILETS!

Further Reading:
We Receive a Postcard
Waltzing around Amalienborg
Sing If you're Glad to Be a Dane
Cowering in Copenhagen
On the Tiles
Christinehof: A Woman's Er, Bog Is Her, Er, Castle?

Not Nearly Enough Monkey Business

Monkey has long been annoyed with his local supermarket for not supplying soaps made with monkey-friendly sustainable palm oil. However, he happened perchance to go to Sainsbury's one day, and was flabbergasted with joy over finding that all Sainsbury's own-brand soaps appear to be made with Monkey-approved palm oil!

Monkey posing happily with his monkey-friendly soap. Also visible are two of his favourite soaps,
the eco-friendly rose-scented Bliw and the Bubble and Balm lavender soap

No bunnies or orangutans were killed during the making of this soap.

Smells nice, too.

HALLOWEEN HORROR!

 As you no doubt know, the moors are best avoided at moonlight, and at Halloween - shudder, scream and recoil - they are extra dangerous!
We came across this toilet in a car park in the little village of Goathland. As you can see, it is quite full enough of horrors without werewolves creeping about the place and howling at the moon! One particularly evil monster stalking the moors is the creature which, reportedly, has a retractable leg so it "can leap up at you better", has a tremendous fear of stamps, and has no mouth, but instead has four arses.

Very sad sinks, with objectionable separated taps. The sign says, quite reasonably, "Please do not clean muddy boots/shoes in the sinks or toilets".

A very scary air-dryer

A terrifying toilet

  These toilets get, on the Privy Counsel scale, exactly 0 points.


Beware the moon and stay on the path...

Monkey getting a Halloween thrill with separated taps

Related Reading
Oh! the horror! SCREAMING BLOODY HORROR HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: The British Workplace

It's Halloween - Time for Some Spine-Chilling Horror!
Leaky Pipes - A Tale of Cold Weather and Incontinence

A Note on Desperate Measures

A Semi-Intellectual Treat

Semi-Intellectual Friend has been at it again, sending us light-hearted little blog tips that don't strain one's intellect too much. We're immensely grateful for this as we went to an academic event yesterday, and are simply exhausted from being on best behaviour and talking about proper academic subjects, as opposed to toilets. (There's something in it for you though: we received a hot tip about some kick-arse bogs, that we hope to be able to report on in a few days' time.) So today, instead of writing something, we're simply going to be showing this video clip which, we might mention, had Hygeia hopping with glee:




Hot air blowers are incubators and spewers of bacteria and pestilence. Frankly, dears, we couldn't have put it better ourselves.

Monkey, who also hates air-dryers, couldn't agree more about the plague-infested gibbon monkeys

Soaps, Lovely Soaps!

  With autumn comes flu season. Schools coop up children to the comfort and ease of the various germs and viruses they harbour, universities force students to get up early in the morning and breathe on each other in seminars, and the country's work-force succumbs to a violent desire to stay in bed and spend entire days watching The Simpsons.
  Hand hygiene is so important. The most effective way to protect yourself from disease is to wash your hands. Frequently and thoroughly. (You can read about all the reasons why you should wash your hands often here, and how to do it properly here. Or, if the audiovisual is more your thing, here.) We find it helpful and motivational to have lovely soap, and thought we'd share some of our favourites!

The scent from these soaps is truly divine!

  We've been to Oxfam again recently, and picked up this lovely lovely stuff from Bubble & Balm. These soaps tick all the boxes: they are made with fairtrade ingredients, using sustainable palm oil (palm oil plantations do terrible damage to the environment and make orangutans homeless), and come in a box made of recycled card, with no unnecessary plastic wrapping. And they smell delicious! Monkey couldn't wait to get a good lathering with this monkey-friendly soap!

Monkey loves lovely soaps!

  We've got some more favourites: one from Chandrika, a company from Bangalore. This is an Ayurvedic soap, containing among other things coconut oil, sandalwood oil, and orange oil. It is lanolin-free but contains palm oil, and we doubt very much that it is sustainably sourced. However, it smells gorgeous!

Contains all sorts of lovely things, according to the website:

Coconut Oil : it nourishes, moisturises and lightens your skin tan.

Wild Ginger : soothes the skin and helps prevent infections and rashes.

Lime Peel Oil : for a refreshing cooling effect and rich, penetrating lather with an astringent action.

Hydnocarpus Oil : helps prevent skin problems, rashes and outbreaks.

Orange Oil : tightens pores, helps prevent pimples and blackheads.

Sandalwood Oil : to cool, refresh and gently prefume your skin.

We think this writing might be in Kannada, the main language in the state of Karnataka, but then again it might not.

Just lovely

We wish we could send some of the fragrance your way!

  Last, but not least, here is another soap from Bangalore - the Mysore Sandal Soap. This one seems to be quite readily available in the UK, at least in Asian supermarkets - hurrah! It does contain lanolin, so is not free of animal products, but on the other hand it is, apparently, the only soap in the world made from 100% pure sandalwood oil. Then again, that sandalwood is reportedly not sustainably sourced. The commercial website claims that the Mysore Sandalwood Soap was the favourite soap of Queen Victoria, which is interesting as the company was founded in 1916.

A very cheerful-looking box

We LOVE sandalwood...

...and surely everyone loves elephants!

  We hope this abundance of lovely, and sometimes environmentally friendly and ethically sourced, soaps inspires you to keep washing your hands, for health and well-being! Hygeia will bless you!

Wæs hæl!

P.S. If you're Scandiwegian and enjoy reading about beauty products, check out http://skimmerskuggan.blogspot.com/!

Onto the Bleach: The Battle Continues

We imagine you're still reeling from our recent bacterial onslaught, so we thought we'd kick you while you're down, by introducing this thought: when cleaning the bathroom, do you clean frequently touched surfaces like the toilet flush handle, door handle, and light switch (or, if you live in Britain, annoying string light pull)? We rather thought not.

Personally, we favour bleach as a cleaning product, not necessarily because we're bacteriophobic, but because we live in Britain and British bathrooms are notoriously mould-infested.

We've done some research for your benefit, for instance into how to protect yourself from the dangerous flying toilet bacteria which are, if you believe the bleach companies, every moment plotting death and destruction for you and your family.
Here, feast your eyes on these pictures!

Morrisons bleach: kills all germs, apparently

"Kills all germs. 24 hr protection against flying toilet germs"

Domestos doesn't just kill germs, it "kills them dead".
This superior efficiency might be why it costs twice as much as Morrisons' own brand.

Domestos likes to think of itself as the Spiderman of bleach products, clinging to the toilet even after flushing.

Apparently there is such a thing as a Royal Society for Public Health.
Whatever it is, Domestos has been approved by it.

Our bathroom has a towel ring in rather an odd place. Personally we'd rather eat our own liver than use a towel hanging this close to the toilet. (Hygeia feels faint and has to sit down with a glass of brandy at the mere thought.) We've been trying to think of an alternative use for it, since someone went to the trouble of putting it there, and our landlady probably wouldn't be best pleased if we removed it. Monkey, for instance,  likes to use it as a trapeze. If you think of a clever, amusing or useful use of this towel ring, feel free to leave a comment or send us an e-mail at theprivycounsellor@gmail.com!

The-Day-After-the-Night-Before Toilet Musings

There was quite a party in the jungle last night, and today Monkey, quoting Bridget Jones, just wants to be left with his head near the toilet, like normal people. We'll leave him to it.

Happy new year, everyone!

We Wish You a Flush Christmas!

 Monkey has many fans worldwide, not only in his native Ape Town, and he would like to wish them all "a super merry Christmas" (and sneakily show off some of his many presents)!

We join in the well-wishes, and remind you to check on your pipes! Spending the holidays up to your knees in freezing water and unable to make yourself a cup of tea the morning after the night before does not promote Christmas cheer!

Remember also that as well as being an opportunity to get festively drunk in a whirl of pagan merrymaking, Christmas is a good time to do a good deed and consider those less fortunate than oneself. Perhaps even consider some hygiene for the soul?

Merry Christmas!

It Finally Happened: World Toilet Day

It was quite a party

We thought the day would never come, but here it is: World Toilet Day!  Finally, a cause for celebration!  As we have reported previously, life has had a tendency to grimness recently (being a semi-employed academic isn't all it's cracked up to be), but finally there is a silver lining!  We stayed up until midnight last night, awaiting the arrival of this auspicious day, occasionally bursting into giggles and jumping up and down.  Happy Toilet Day, everyone!

For those of you who are not quite with it, see also:
The Privy Counsel: SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN: World Toilet Day 19 November
The Privy Counsel: Good Deeds Galore! Oxfam Unwrapped: Build a Bog


P.S. For more reasons to smile and to give your eyes a sparkle, check out our second favourite blog: http://skimmerskuggan.blogspot.com
Skimmerskuggan: Fredagstävling: Vinn Cliniderm Barrier Repair
(For Swedish speakers only. Terms and conditions may apply.)

SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN: World Toilet Day 19 November

Despite the mixer tap at the City Art Gallery, those dark moments have been pretty damn opaque lately.  However, it has come to our attention that Friday the 19th of November is World Toilet Day!  Can you contain your excitement?  We can.  Just.

The clever people who have invented this exciting day are Wateraid - apparently, there are people who have no toilets at all, and thus suffer more than we do, from having to use crap ones.

Here are some facts to improve your mind:

2.6 billion people do not have somewhere safe, private or hygienic to go to the toilet.

The simple act of washing hands with soap and water after going to the toilet can reduce diarrhoeal diseases by over 40%.
Anyone REALLY concerned about such matters should pop along to Oxfam Micklegate and buy one of their wonderful "unwrapped" gifts....specifically the "build a bog" one, as it is clearly the most appropriate!

Check out some more wild facts at the Wateraid website: http://www.wateraid.org/uk/get_involved/world_toilet_day/default.asp

 It's even got a quote by Stephen Fry!  This has certainly brightened our day.

HONK IF YOU LIKE TOILET DAY! (Monkey does).