ChopSaver inventor discusses why ChopSaver does NOT contain petroleum. (Recorded on Feb 18, 2021 on Instagram Live. Please forgive the low resolution. Full transcript below.)
Hello everyone. My name is Dan Gosling. Also known as The ChopSaver Guy. I am doing a Instagram live here on February 18th. Most of the country is going through what we’re all going to remember as the Blizzard of 21, whether you’re in Minnesota or in Texas. So wherever you are today, I hope you are safe. Hope you’re sound hope you’re warm. Or if you’re not, you soon will be. I’m doing a little presentation on all things petroleum. And why would that be? Uh, one of the things that often comes up when I’m talking about ChopSaver the product, say contains no petroleum, no petroleum, no petroleum, no petroleum. And for some people that’s, you know, they understand that they get why I’m saying that, but I’m starting to wonder maybe people don’t understand why that’s a big deal and why petroleum is in a lot of products and why petroleum or any petroleum derivatives are not found in ChopSaver.
(1:06)
So a little disclaimer, here I am a trumpet player turned inventor. I’m not a doctor, I’m not a chemist, but I do consult with both doctors and chemists. We have many, many doctors, dermatologists specifically who are huge fans of ChopSaver, and I will discuss why that might be. Um, and I do consult with chemists when it comes to my formula and improving it and all these kinds of things. So no petroleum, what what’s, what’s up with the petroleum? Well, my first encounter with petroleum or petroleum jelly, it was of course my trumpet, all things from ChopSaver seem to derive from the trumpet and I would use, this is the tuning slide, right? This is something that has to move as same with these. And you’ll find moving parts on any brass instrument, the trombone, tuba, euphonium. And also you have to assemble a clarinet.
(2:06)
It comes in pieces and they have cork that keeps those pieces together. And so people use grease like cork grease or slide grease for their instruments. And typically we would use petroleum jelly. Now of course, there’s, there’s a brand name here. Everyone knows the brand. I’m going to try not to give those big companies a lot more publicity than they already get. Um, but we’re talking about petroleum jelly. What’s the difference between Petrolatum, which is the other word for petroleum jelly and petroleum. Well petroleum, we’re talking about, you know, this stuff, motor oil, um, gasoline kerosene, all these things that are derived from that stuff that’s drilled from the ground, which was, discovered as a thing, you know, in the mid 1800s, something that, you know, they in the ground, they realized, Oh, we can burn this stuff. We can refine it.
(3:02)
We make products out of it, you can heat our homes with it. You know, that was the beginning of the petroleum industry. And Robert Augustus Chesebrough discovered this product or created this product out of the petroleum, um, derived out of petroleum. He saw that the workers who were, uh, working on these oil rigs, they would take this stuff. It was kind of gloppy and they would often use it on their hands or on cuts and things like that. So he took that, added some paraffin, some wax to it and created what we know as petroleum jelly. Again, really good for things like this.
(3:47)
You do find petroleum in a lot of cosmetics, a lot of products and lots of people just use straight petroleum jelly on their skin. Doctors will recommend that you use this to cover a wound or something like that. And the reason is, is that it’s generally hypoallergenic, which means it’s not something that most people are going to be allergic to. Uh, it’s fairly inert in that way. It’s not going to cause a reaction. It does create a seal or a kind of a barrier to keep moisture in. So if you have a wound or something and you want to keep it covered up so that it can heal naturally, you know, this is probably not a bad thing to use. The problem comes if bacteria or things get trapped underneath that layer of goo that you’ve put on that can cause, you know, infection and things like that.
(4:47)
So when you do use this product, you need to make sure that your area is very clean. And if it’s not, that’s when you run into problems, um, it’s also non-comedogenic, which is a fancy word, which means it’s designed to not block the pores. Even though it’s kind of, you know, it’s thick and it still does have a little bit of permeability to it, but keep in mind, we’re talking about lips here, at least with my product and lips don’t have pores. So what are you doing to, are you sealing in moisture? Are you trapping the moisture? Are you trapping things? That’s why I chose to use ingredients like shea butter and mango butter and avocado oil, which are natural products. Um, yes, they come from the ground as they’re plant-based, but in a different way that this product is so part of my point here is not all natural products are good and not all chemicals are bad.
(5:47)
For example, poison Ivy is a natural product, right? It’s nothing you would go out and just rub all of your body just because it’s natural. You know, that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Carefully chosen ingredients, like the things you would find in ChopSaver are good for you by and large. So you do find a product like this, a product like this, and certainly this, which is 100% Petrolatum. They have a lot of petroleum based products in them. Again, maybe not such a bad thing. My point was making ChopSaver was making something better, make something more therapeutic, something more healing. And that’s why I did not put petroleum in ChopSaver. I think that kind of sums up the, the whole idea of, you know, when you say dNo petroleum, no petroleum. Oh, and I should also point out there are some, uh, some that claim that, these products are carcinogenic that they, they cause cancer.
(7:01)
And if you were to grab a petroleum-based product that was not properly refined, yes. That might be a problem. Generally speaking things that are cosmetic grade products that you’re going to buy in this country. And certainly in Europe, um, they’re using cosmetic grade petrolatum you should not find, uh, any carcinogens or cancer-causing agents in those. I may not be popular by saying that in, in some, in some camps. But I just think just to be honest about the reasons I didn’t, I didn’t put Petrolatum in ChopSaver. It wasn’t because I was worried about cancer it’s because I just thought the other products that I did put in it were just better for your skin. And I’ll talk more about those kinds of ingredients in a future video. So thanks for joining me today. And this is Dan Gosling, The ChopSaver Guy signing off for now. Thank you.