Author Archives: Janice Shade

My Aim Is True

It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since I sat in my attorney’s office with my friends Rob Conboy and Jason Pelletier and created what is now TrueBody Products. The origins of TrueBody go back to a series of “water-cooler” conversations way back in 2003-2005 between Rob, Jason and me when we were colleagues [...]

The Way We Give

Launching our True Community Project by Birgitta Polson, True Community Manager If someone had told me two years ago at this time that I would now be working for a soap company in Vermont, I would have had a lot questions about how I got here—questions framed by an overarching sense of relief that at [...]

Phenoxyethanol is the new Paraben

My new co-worker, Birgitta, asked me the other day if I knew anything about phenoxyethanol.  Said she’d seen it in a lot of personal care products that claim to be natural.  A little research showed that phenoxyethanol is the “new darling of the chemical industry” as it is increasingly being used as an alternative to [...]

Instant Karma

Instant Karma by John Lennon is one of my favorite songs.  I was reminded of it today when I received not one but two signs of instant karma – good karma, for sure.  First, when I picked up the TrueBody mail this morning, I found a lovely card from a woman who lives here in Richmond, [...]

True Community

It’s the time of year when people think about giving and sharing – and I’m thinking especially hard about it right now.  TrueBody has always been about making natural, good for you and the planet, products at a price that makes them widely accessible – our way of sharing with you and our fragile planet.  [...]

Win a Phish Ticket from TrueBody!

As some of you may have guessed from the launch of our TrueTunes Tuesday campaign, I love music. And some of my favorite artists got their start in our little state of Vermont .  Of course I’m talking about Phish and Grace Potter & The Nocturnals.  They started small and  local (my husband used to [...]

Happy Birthday to “Story of Cosmetics”

Just over one year ago, The Story of Cosmetics– a short animated video about toxic chemicals in personal care products — was launched. If you missed it the first time around, I strongly recommend taking a few minutes to watch. It’s well done, informative, and gets even those of us who consider ourselves savvy to [...]

The Road Not Taken

In my quest for balance, I treated myself to another hike this morning. I’ve been stressing a lot about finding the last $85K of investment capital to close the current round of financing and figured I could use some head-clearing. My hike today was to Libby’s Look, a 3-mile loop that takes you to a [...]

Being True…to Myself This Morning.

I’ve been trying hard to schedule exercise time into my life and with a full-time business to run and two young daughters, this usually takes the form of 20 minutes of hopping around my living room to some exercise video at 5am. Some mornings I just can’t get out of bed that early and today [...]

Top 10 Reasons Dads Love True Soap

We know from market research and personal experience that the women in the family tend to do most of the purchasing, especially when it comes to soap. But, we get a lot of true love from our men friends too! In fact, my husband, Chip (pictured here with our girls) was a big part of [...]