Clean and green

Former hockey player heads down
the eco-beauty product path

by CHRIS BARRY

Name: Philippe Choinière

Age: 28

Occupation: Co-founder of Ecoterre Distribution (ecoterredistribution.com)

Bio: This almost maniacally jovial St-Armand stud was making a nice living playing pro hockey in Europe when, last winter, he started questioning the relevance of his career path “because inside I felt like I needed to do something else, something that would add meaning and purpose to my life.” Heading to Vancouver Island post-season with his wife Stacy “to find some ideas and get inspired,” the couple’s quest was soon complete upon meeting the people behind Organic Trader, a father and son team producing superior organic/fair trade/etcetera skin and hair care products. “Inspired by [Organic Trader’s] mission,” Philippe says he immediately recognized he’d “found something extremely meaningful to do, I’d found my own path. So we came back to Montreal to embark upon this wonderful journey—distributing these products while educating consumers about the valuable benefits of supporting organics.”

How using organic hair care products will make for a better world and a happier, healthier, you: “Because 97 per cent of the products on the market right now are made with synthetics and petrochemicals that don’t biodegrade very well. Just think of how many people wash their hair on any given day. That’s a massive amount of chemicals infecting the water supply. And then there’re the health issues. There’ve been so many diseases documented that come from these chemicals: fibromyalgia, arthritis, cancer, birth defects, infertility. Many people are very sensitive to these ingredients but the reality is that most don’t have negative reactions right away, the complications arise with time and continued use—which is why so many people never even look to see what their beauty products are made of.”

One “myth” Philippe would like to dispel: That natural products don’t work. “We’re proving every day that you can achieve results with all-natural beauty products. It’s a cutting edge technology now.”

Something that they don’t currently distribute: Organic pit rub.

Is that because organic pit rub doesn’t work? Sort of. “We want every product we carry to be impeccable, and so far we haven’t been able to find any deodorant products with the right formulation. It’s a challenging process, but we’re getting closer, the research and development is going well.”

Something Philippe did in order to spread his organic hair care products message: Deliver his products on his bike, in the nude, when the temperature was a cruel -19 C, as part of a publicity stunt. “We needed a creative way to get peoples attention, to make people want to learn more about organic hair products and hear our message of love and care for the Earth.”

Does he think he would have been as keen on doing the naked delivery thing if, instead of having an athlete’s body, he were cursed with a pointy little baby wang and/or a saggy pockmarked old man’s ass? “Ha, ha, ha, a saggy ass! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! Ha, ha! But oh boy, it was cold out there. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! But I wanted to do it. The bottom line is the message, it really was about the message.”

Musical preferences: Manu Chao, Moby, Pavarotti.

Last book read: Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World, by Gary Hirshberg.

Words of wisdom: “Go green or go home.”

Comments: dimwit@hdot.net