All-Natural Snake Oil/Quotes

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


"Do you know what I do want in my hair? Chemicals. That's right, I want sodium lauryl sulfate, which has been used for many decades because it is safe and effective at cleaning hair. I want emulsifiers, preservatives, and yes, a mild fragrance is nice. I do not want bamboo in my hair. I don't care if the ingredients are "natural" or not. "Natural" is a meaningless term, in this regard. Water is just as natural as cyanide (it comes from fruit!), arsenic, uranium, and Ebola for that matter. I WANT WHAT IS SAFE AND EFFECTIVE. And I don't care if it comes from a lab or a forest."
Jeff Wagg, SWIFT
"Ah yes, Splot, thought Moist. It contained herbs and all-natural ingredients. But belladonna was a herb, and arsenic is natural."
'Oh, herbal medicine been around for thousands of years!' Indeed it has. And then we tested it all. And the stuff that worked became "medicine", and the rest of it is just a nice bowl of soup and some potpourri.
Dara O'Briain
"After a lifetime of eating, no words mean less to me than "all natural." A bottle of Arrowhead water claims to be 100% NATURAL* CALORIE-FREE. Why did anyone speculate that I'd think differently? Was there a conspiracy going around that their product was bottled android sweat? Outside of a hydrogen fuel cell, where does one even find unnatural water? Witch toilets? Arrowhead, are you implying that your competitors get their product from witch toilets? Because that's fucking crazy, Arrowhead."
Seanbaby, Cracked's 6 Words Advertisers Love (That Don’t Mean A Damn Thing)
"The word 'natural' is completely meaningless! Everything is natural! Nature includes everything! It's not just trees and flowers! It's everything! A chemical company's toxic waste is completely natural! It's part of nature! We're all part of nature! Everything is natural! Dog shit is natural! It's just not real good food..." [1]

Kramer: "It's organic."
Jerry Seinfeld: "Organic? So's Buddy Hackett."

Nature is floods and famines and earthquakes and viruses and little blue-footed booby babies getting their brains pecked out by their stronger siblings! ....Nature doesn't care about me, or about anybody in particular -- nature can be terrifying! Why do they even put words like "natural" on products like shampoo, like it's automatically a good thing? I mean, sulfuric acid is natural!
—Julia Sweeney

  1. Although to be fair, unstable isotopes and inorganic elements like ununoctium are stretching it, despite the fact that the humans who synthesize them are definitely natural.