 Hey, hey, hey, I'm super excited that you guys joined me today. Thank you so much. It is awesome to see you guys on a holiday weekend. So thank you for being here with us today. I am super excited about today's show because as you know, I love cleaning chemicals and it's a good chance for us to have a chance to clean and let the chemicals do what they're supposed to do. But as you know, many of us have chemical sensitivities. So today I've got a really special guest who's on our show with us today and she's created her own product line and I've been dying to have this conversation with her for a very long time. So I'm glad that you guys have joined me today to ask your questions and to hear from the manufacturer herself. Please help me welcome Kimberly Gonzalez. Hey everybody. I'm excited to be here. Thank you, Angela. I've known you forever. So thank you for letting me come be a part of your world. Well, I'm super excited that you've joined us today and I want to hear from the beginning all the way through to the end and you guys that are joining us. Hi and welcome. I see that we have James with us. We've got Priscilla here. You guys, it's super exciting to see you. Please throw your questions in the comments and put a Q in front of it if it's a question for Kimberly and that way I can bring it up on our screen and we can have a chance to get those answered in real time. So Kimberly, please share with us how you got started in the cleaning business first and then we'll switch over to your cleaning products. Yeah. So I was doing a program to help families and children just, I guess, find resources and I wasn't making much money then and I always have loved to clean. I'm like OCD. I like to just make people happy. Like that's where my heart is just to bring joy to people. So I went and helped out a friend clean her house and she's like, you need to do this for a living. You're really good. And I was like, I don't know about that. And I've been asked that before and I kind of just like, no, I don't want to do it. So finally, I think after the 20th person, I finally decided to break down and start a cleaning company. And I started and I wanted natural products for people like me with sensitivities because I have a ton of sensitivities. And so I started my cleaning business and it just brought me joy. And then from there, it just kind of grew and grew and I got employees and it just kind of took off. So I love it. Well, I'm like you having been in the cleaning business for many years. I don't know that I started out with cleaning sensitivities, but certainly developed them over time. And then I would find that I was agitated by a lot of things, you know, whether it was pet dander or dust or cleaning chemicals, or it all builds on top of each other. And I would go to certain homes. And when I would leave the home, my eyes would just be bloodshot. My nose would be all stuffy. And I'm like, this is, this is not healthy at all. And I know that you feel the same way. And you took it a step beyond just saying, well, I'm going to use better cleaning chemicals. You actually went to the extreme of manufacturing and creating your own. So how did that happen? Because that's a huge, a huge change for most people that just feel bad and don't do anything about it. I just after running my cleaning company for a while, my biggest thing was employees. So when you have employees, they, you have to do the training. So we all know you have to do the training with the employees. And it's like, how do you train them with, you know, six, seven products? You know, you're trying to train them like, don't use this, use this for this, and don't use this on this. And it was a lot. It was time consuming to train them. And I wanted to create something that was truly all natural because a lot of the products that are in the market right now, Angela, are green washed. They're not truly natural. Then one of the ways you can tell is that there is a residue or a buildup on things like floors and granite and like counters and stainless steel. And that's when I was like, something's got to give. So it literally took me almost two years to formulate it to save up money because it's not, I will tell you everything. So you can just throw up a product together. No, I saved up money. I got my SDS sheet. I got my branding. I got my labels made, like it was a lot of money and time. And when COVID happened, that's really when I just kicked me into full gear to really get this going. Well, COVID was an interesting time for us. And I know for my business, we've never been through a global pandemic before. And so we were doing the Ask a House Cleaner show on YouTube when immediately the entire world wanted to know about cleaning, sanitizing and disinfecting. And we got caught really off guard because people were asking us questions like, what do I do in this situation? And they were asking questions like, foggers, are we supposed to be wearing hazmat suits and all this kind of stuff? And I mean, I didn't know. I've never been through a pandemic before. I don't know if you're supposed to wear hazmat suits. And so we ended up answering a lot of questions, but also doing gobs of research on our own. Not just what is going to help make us healthier, but in these times where everyone had questions, we had not a chance for us to look away. We absolutely had to dig in and not run from the questions because now is the time when everyone was curious. And so I know that during the pandemic, you really doubled down as well to bring this to the forefront so that people could have the quality products and not have the after effects that so many people suffer with having the sensitivities. And it was hard, Angela, because when I first released it, that was like the pandemic had just barely, barely started. So it's like people weren't like they were wanting to go to the bleach right away and they're wanting to go to those things. So my first year when I released it, it was really slow and it's just it comes back to the education. And you know that education is so important when you teach people about, you know, cleaning in products. And that was my biggest thing. So it's, it's, I'm on year two and a half now, and I'm finally starting to make a wave. Well, I know, and you brought up the bleach thing. Bleach has its moments. And I love bleach for what it does when it's supposed to do it. But I think the misinformation during the period of time where everybody was like, Oh, we have to do something big. There were churches calling me saying we just had a cleaning company come in and they put bleach all over our church pews. And it ruined all of our the fabric that they were upholstered in. And it ruined the wood. They put it on there and left the bleach on there for 10 minutes I know on all the kneeling the kneeling pads and the backs of the wood on the chairs and everything. They're like, how do we fix this? I'm like, you cannot just just just because there's an awareness of bleach doesn't mean it changed the composition of bleach. And I think that's a really important thing to realize that chemicals have a certain they do a certain thing for a certain reason. And so if you're using it for the right reasons, yay. And if you don't need a strong chemical, don't use it, right? Yeah, exactly. And I know that during the pandemic, we had a lot of people who were saying, well, how do I sanitize my wood floors? And they're literally pouring bleach on their wood floors. And it's just stripping their wood floors. And they're like, well, my floors are clean now, right? I'm like, why, why are you bleaching the floors? Because most of the time we just walk on the floors, like we're not doing open heart surgery on our floors, right? Exactly. And it's like, what are they absorbing in their feet? Well, we just had, we just had so many misconceptions because there was a scare. So if we back up off the scare, we say, okay, let's get back to the regular cleaning now. Let's talk about not using such strong chemicals, because I know yours are more pH friendly. Yes. Tell us about that. When I developed it, I wanted something that was truly safe to put on things like everything. I wanted a product that was safe for kids to use and families. So my pH is neutral. I do use a hydrogen peroxide base, but it's not. You can use it, it's still safe to use on anything, because I do dilute it down with distilled water, but it's food grade. So it's very strong, it's at 35%, but when I dilute it down, it's safer. And so that is what I use right now, and it's, it's just been amazing, like it's safe for everybody to use. Well, I appreciate having the safety in products, because there are a lot of folks that want clean, but they don't want the chemical sensitivities, and they don't want things that are going to affect their kids and their pets. And because there are babies that are rolling around on the floor and they're playing with the animals and the animals are close to the floor, we want to be careful of the chemicals that we put there and also around our furniture and things like that. There's, there's a lot of stuff where there's not one size fits all. I want to stop for one second and I want to say hi to Rudy. Rudy just jumped in. Hi Rudy, how are you? We've got Priscilla here. Hi Priscilla. We've got Rachel Rose, and Rachel is joining us from England. Hello, and I know, and Rachel has always been so supportive. So thank you so much, you guys. This is really awesome. We've got Carol. Carol says, I'm wanting to start, but it scares me to death to leave my job since 1985. And I'm thinking that starting a house cleaning business. So if, if Kimberly and I can start the cleaning business, so can you as well, Carol, if you don't let fear get in the way. That's right. That's what we're talking about. XRP Junior says the pandemic. That's right. Helen says hi from Iowa. You guys, this is awesome. It is so good to see you guys here. Hello Betty. We've got, we've got Chanel. She says, hey, we've got Maggie Smith. I used to volunteer at a place that had a pantry for what not covered by EBT, maybe a fund where we could donate to provide some of your products to ResourceCute would not expect for free. That's a great. I want to chime in there really quick, Angela. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Actually working on a nonprofit right now and I'm almost done, but it's actually going to do something with products, natural products for the home for women that are getting out of safe homes. And my goal is to supply them with products. I'm actually in the process of doing that. Oh, wow. What was it that sparked the interest in that specifically? There's a local nonprofit that I sponsor with my business every year. And it's called Alternatives of Violence and women that go into the safe homes when they get ready to transition out. They literally have nothing. Like, and my goal was to do, it's going to be called a fresh new start. So it's called Healing Hands of Home. And I'm talking a fresh new start. So my goal is to provide natural products like vacuum, brand new vacuums, not used ones. I want to be able to provide them with supplies with a fresh new start for their home. So that's my nonprofit I'm kind of working on right now. Are you taking donations now or do you have a kick starter or what are you doing as far as that goes? I have two more pieces I got to put into place so people can message me if they're interested in being a part of it once I do get it going. But I want to say hopefully by the end of next month to maybe August, I'll be starting it. So. Oh, that's amazing. That's so awesome. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Okay. So I'm curious. When you decided that, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna jump out there and I'm going to create my own product line. What was your, what was your first defining moment where you realized I'm, I'm the person that's going to go ahead and do this? Why you instead of someone else, why you just not buy someone else's products? I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make an impact. I wanted to help cleaning companies just have less products because I feel like they had so much and I would see it in the cleaning groups. And I'm like, I want to do this, I want to make a difference. And I'm one of those people where if I say I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. And then I don't look back. And it's just fear. Yes, fear is there is very much there because there is so much research and so much learning and so many steps and negative comments that I received from people. And I just had to keep pushing because I wanted to make that difference for people with sensitivities or that wanted to switch to a natural company. And I just, I did it. It happened. And I'm still doing it. And I'm still like, what the heck? Where am I? How did I even do this? Well, you bring up a really interesting point because I see this a lot. And I get this question asked a lot where house cleaners will start a cleaning business. And then they get enamored by, I don't know, late night TV or infomercials or grocery store shopping shelves or whatever. And they walk down and they see a new product that's packaged differently than the one they have. And they say, oh, look, it's a new product. I must have this not because of what it does, but because it seems to promise different items than what their cleaning supplies already have. One will say brightens everything and one will say leaves no residue and one will say easier for pets. And one will say, you know, better on the sinuses or whatever. And while many products will do similar things or the same things, they'll buy one of everything. And then they try to go into a customer's house with 27 different containers of spray. And then they're like, how do I carry it all in? I'm like, don't, why are you doing this? So tell me about the consolidation process and how you settled on the products that you chose. So pretty much I have two aromas and I call them aromas because they're not sense because sense is from synthetic sense. So that's how you get the word synthetic is from sense. I use real essential oils. Yes, they're safe for the pets. People freak out when they say, Oh, there's oils in it. If you put the essential oil directly on the pets and the paws. And yes, that's an issue, but because mine still looted down. I wanted to create a product that cleaned everything. So it cleans mirrors, granite, stainless steel floors are very kind marble. Like you name it, you touch it, it cleans it. So it's one cleaner but two aromas. And it cleans everything without smudges or smears. And it brings it will actually remove the old residue, Angela. So if you have like something that you were using, you can clean it on there and it will remove the old residue and it brings stuff back to their natural state. Well, that's awesome because we know lots of people will try to use a dishwashing soap on their granite, for example. And it leaves this cloudy film and they can't figure out why do I have a film on my granite? All I used was dishwashing soap or vinegar. Don't use vinegar on stone. We know that. Please don't. Please don't. Okay, but can I go back and don't use toilet ball cleaner in your showers, please? Oh, we could get on a roll right now. We could just go through and have all the please don't do this and don't do this and don't do this and let's stay away from TikTok. Oh my goodness, I watch these people just mixing cleaning chemicals and I'm like, don't, don't. There's a reason you're not a chemist. Yeah, so yeah, we could get on a roll there. So when you decided to create some products, I know, like you said, you saved your money and you did a lot of research. Tell me about the process of doing that. Did you go to the little library? Did you go online? Did you take a course? What was it that helped you get from I'm just a house cleaner and now I'm going to go create my own product line because there's a huge gap there between thinking about it and actually being there. What was the process? Well, the process was watching what people were using and kind of seeing what their problem was. So like we all try to solve the problems. And the main problem was too many products and I'm finding a cleaner that's safe to use on everything. So I did a lot of my research through the obviously the internet and I learned from other people just, you know, what they were using, what they liked. And it literally took me almost two years to master just the right amount of different plant based soaps and my hydrogen peroxide and my oils to get that balance. And once I found it, it worked. But I just had learned over the years of owning a cleaning company knowing what's safe to use on what because we see mistakes when you're in the groups and you learn and I took all that information and just learn from it. Well, and I think a lot of the mistakes are innocent enough. I know that by speaking with house cleaners every day and cleaning companies, we find a lot of I don't want to say new house cleaners but they're new to the cleaning industry. And so they see something on TV or they see something on a grocery store shelf and they go, Oh, let me give this a try. And they try it on a proper surface and it works really well. And in the back of their mind, they think, Oh, that's great. It worked really well here. Let me move it to this other surface and try it as well. And now they're experimenting on the customer's surfaces. And then they create damage and all kinds of stuff. They're like, Whoa, what happened? Or they'll say this cleaning chemical worked really well. And so did this one. If I mix them together, it's going to be twice as good without realizing that they're either equal. They're either cancelling them out based on pH levels or they're creating some kind of toxic fume version that's going to create more havoc to the respiratory system or something. Right? Yep, I've heard stories and that's one thing I recommend. Like, if you do purchase my products, please either use one of my bottles or use a brand new bottle and then disinfect it before you use it. Because I had people come back and they're like, it doesn't work or I mixed it with my vinegar bottle. And I'm just like, Oh my gosh. So yeah, don't mix stuff. So tell me about the bottles that you use for your packaging. Actually brought them so people can see them that are watching, but Oh, awesome. This is my empty bottle. So this is my spray bottle. It's like I have, you know, the label and my tagline is simplifying your life naturally because my goal is to create a natural product that can simplify our lives. But I have the directions right here. Here are code and I just have fun facts. So I try to make my bottles fun. But it's the spray nozzle itself was not cheap. I wanted to get a good quality one that you can reuse again and again. So these are my products. I didn't do glass because I didn't want glass breaking in the clients homes. And then I do that's my eucalyptus. And this one is the experiment. And the spirit mit smells refreshing. So it's kind of the same thing. And then these are my two ounce bottles. And I call them my teaser bottles. Because once you try them, then you're, you're hooked. And these one of these bottles where we fill is 16 bottle twice. And then once you decide you want to become part of our pure family, I created the industrial size. And these are 32 ounce bottles. So this is more for like cleaning companies. So you can see I have all the warnings and I have to do this for my SDS sheet. But I had to do my warnings uses. And all you need is a half a capful to a capful to fill up a 16. So it really is it saves you money over time. But yeah, that's why I created my bottles. And when you say a half a capful to create a 16, I'm assuming you're talking about a 16 ounce bottle of spray. Yes. And at 32, you would do a full capful. So that's a concentrate. Yes. For really strong concentrate. I recommend gloves because it does have hydrogen peroxide. So if you don't, any open wounds you have on your hand will be disinfected and cleansed. And so you said you had to have the warnings on the side. Tell us a little bit about that. I know that some of the folks that are joining us today may not know about safety data sheets and the regulations and the regulatory stuff that you have to put on there that deals with whether there are respiratory issues or toxic issues or it's kind of the environment and you got to have all kinds of stuff. Tell us about that process. That was probably the hardest part. I think, well, as I say, it's probably the second hardest part in developing this product. I'm lucky my dad is like really a genius at math and chemistry. And I was not. So I came to him for a lot of the chemistry part for him. And then I heard somebody to do my SDS sheet. And so when we did that, he told me what I needed to put on my bottles for the warnings, like for eye contact and contacting a doctor. And I will tell you my project is safe. So I mean, if you do burn yourself with the hydrogen peroxide, just use soap and water, but you have to legally put it on there. So it's just part of the process for you to look at any product. So that's how I know that's how you should know if the product is legit. So you're not just buying it from somebody who just put, you know, a paper labor label on it. So well, and like you said, if you're using it as a concentrate, you will be putting it into a separate container. So do you sell your separate, your spray bottles? You said you had an empty one there. Do you sell those spray bottles empty so that people can use those to refill and it's got the label and everything already on it? Yes. So the label is ready there. It's ready to do. Like ready to go. I sell this as a set. I don't know if you can see it. So I sell like the two spray bottles. And they come empty just because I don't want them broken open during shipping. So they come like this is a set. It's called a do a set. And then I have a starter set that is double the bottle. So it's twice as much. So you get four spray bottles and then for the two ounces. And that's what most people start with. But if you just wanted to do like jump in the game and you're like, uh, yeah, I'm one of those people I trust you. And I recommend doing the bottle and then one of the 32 ounces. It breaks down to right about 45 to 50 cents a refill, which isn't bad if you want to add in all your other products. So if you have like 10 products in your bag, how much have you already spent? Well, I love that you brought that up because there are a lot of house cleaners that are just getting started in the business. And they'll say, well, I'll just go to the dollar tree because I can get a product for a dollar. And I don't know why a dollar seems like a little bit of money. I guess it's compared to the ones in the grocery store that are $4 and $5 per spray. But that's really a lot of money when you can, like you said, get the spray that you need. That's like 45 cents per spray bottle. That's, that's a heck of a savings. And that adds up over time. It does. And I just actually had my BA do a graphic. So I can like put that in our little information. But she did a graphic just explaining the cost breakdown. And I've noticed too, with my employees that once they started using this, their time went quicker because they weren't having to fumble through and grab products and spray this product and get this product. It was like they had one product that can just go and do everything and they were able to cut their time down. So if you're charging a flat rate, then you're making more money because you're able to get it done faster, but everything looks amazing. So is it, is it a, is it a product line then of a variety of different products? Or is it just one or two products that works on everything? What, what is the lineup of the products that you have? So for my cleaner or for my other products? Well, first with the cleaners and then your other products. I want to hear about them all. So for the cleaner, it literally will clean absolutely everything. And I have a list. So it cleans, you can use it on your stainless steel. And I recommend people when they use it on their stainless steel, that if there's a buildup, it may take a hot moment to get the buildup off. But so it cleans glass stainless steel mirrors, floors, everything. Like you can literally use this on everything. I spray my toilets down with it, my chrome, like anything you could think of to clean with this does it. It replaces all of your products. It even took out like blood stains. It takes out rust stains. I have a new puppy. So if you can imagine the messes on my, my rugs and floors, it's been my, it's been a game changer for that. And I use it in my car too. So everything. Well, it sounds like there's a lot of opportunity there for using the products on a lot of different stuff, which I absolutely love. That suggests to me right off the top that it's pH neutral. And I love that. That's just, that's awesome. We had a question from Priscilla that I wanted to address. She said, are your products antiviral considering the hydrogen peroxide base, I'd love to not add peroxide myself to my homemade cleaning products. And so I would like to address that if possible. And I love the fact that she's not adding stuff to her own cleaning supplies. I love that. Yes. Thank you for that. Because as I, as I remind people every day, most of us are not chemists. And so to be mixing cleaning chemicals always scares me a little bit. It's not like making a new recipe where something might just taste a little funny. We're actually dealing with chemicals that could harm our health. Mixing stuff. Yeah. And your eyes and the vapors and who knows what you're putting in your, your client's houses, you know, you're putting them at risk too. So it is a hydrogen peroxide base. And that's one thing that the CDC does recommend for killing bacteria and germs. And I actually copied and pasted what they said and I put it in my website so people can have that information. But that's one of the things that they recommend for killing bacteria and germs. So, and it is in there. So is there anything that we can't use hydrogen peroxide on something that's got a peroxide base? You can use it on everything because it's diluted down to a point where it will still be effective for killing the bacteria and germs, but not harm any surfaces. So I made that balance so that it is safe on everything. So Chanel says Kimberly Gonzalez products are amazing. Yes, we got a testimonial from the fan club. I love that. We've got Rita here from Minnesota. She's just listening to learn. Hi, Rita. Good to see you here. We've got Karine here. She says hello from Australia. This is so awesome. You guys are from all over the place. This is cool. Yeah, this is fun. So you mentioned that it's not just one product, but you have a product line. And so once you got into this and you started saying, okay, I'm going to live better and I'm going to show my clients how to live better and my house cleaners how to live better. What was the expansion process of going from the one product to multiple products? One thing that I always recommend for businesses is obviously save and reinvest in your business. That's been my thing. My company's debt free. And the reason why it's debt free is because I took little steps and I reinvested and then reinvested. So once I got the cleaner, then I got Swedish dish class. And I've gotten, I'm looking at my products right now, Swedish dish class wool dryer balls. And I've got my newest product that just released was laundry detergent, but they come in the form of a sheet. So it's not dryer sheets. It's laundry detergent. So you can throw it in your washing machine and it washes your clothes. So tell me more about that. Do we use less detergent by using a laundry sheet? Or do we use more? Use less. So a lot of times when you get those big bulky containers at Costco or whatever, you've got those big, heavy things. It's a mess. One of my friends, it was so funny, she took a picture and she goes, okay, I'm transformed. I want your product because she had it on our washing machine and from the washing machine moving it vibrated and it spilt blue all over the place. So mine comes and I didn't bring it with me on my desk, but it's a box and you just slides out and it's a sheet. And it's like literally this big. And it's, it's, it's ready to go. So there's no water because when you have those big bottles, they use a lot of the water. You're ruining your carbon, carbon footprint when it ships because you're using more weight when you ship. And these are just sheets and you just throw it in your washing machine and it washes your clothes. That's it. It's the soap. So you could take it with you when you camp, you travel, it's less like less clutter on your washing machine. There is light, it's light. So the carbon footprint is easy. There's, it's recyclable. So that was my goal. Well, I love the fact that you are not just thinking safe, but you're also thinking small for instead of having a great big container and saying this is a great big concentrate, you've got the little tiny bottles and the little tiny bottles are concentrate that you then make bigger bottles. And instead of having bigger bottles, which is all that plastic into the landfill when you toss those bottles, now just a little sheet. What happens to the little sheet at the end? Does it dissolve? Does it eat up? Like what happens? It just dissolves with the water. So when you put it in your washing machine, you start washing your clothes, then it dissolves and it turns into the soap. So that little sheet is your soap. And they just put it in a, like a sheet form and you just throw it in your washing machine. Oh, isn't that interesting? And then it just mixes with your clothes and it's your soap. And I love it because my manufacturer did, it took me about a year research to find a manufacturer that I really wanted. And they're from Sweden. And Sweden has such strict rules and policy of what can go into what. And that's what I loved because a lot of the other products are in the market. Again, they put hidden stuff in there. They're toxic people with sensitivities, they break out. And that's why I liked them because they were very basic and it's been a great product. So I know that on the market, there are a lot of products like the Safer Choice or the Earth Choice or some of the different brands that are out there that are moving towards being less chemical, harshness and more user friendly. How do your products compare with the other, the other groups that are out there that are focusing on similar content? I just know for mine, I just have really taken the time out to really just put a lot of heart and soul in my products because I wanted something that was true and genuine. I don't know about a lot of those other ones. I mean, I know some of the products claim they're natural, but they're not. And you could tell because if you're still having sensitivities to them and if they're leaving a residue or if you're just, if you're not feeling too hot, that tells me that they're not truly natural and they're had, they have hidden, hidden hidden ingredients in there. Well, what do you have to say about products that make claims? Like you said, what they'll say, we're fume free. And then you try them and you're like, whoa, the fumes are so still intense. Or they'll say it's, it's green cleaning or whatever. And then you read the safety data sheet and you're like, uh, no, it isn't. What do you have to say about over promising like that? I would say do your research. So if you guys are out there really do your research, um, research is good. Um, I just, yeah, I do your research. That's my biggest thing. And really know and you can ask me, um, you know, I've had a lot of people just like asked, you know, is this product okay? Or is this product okay? And that's okay. Ask me. I'm open. So I did my research already. That's how I got started on my product. So what has been the response from your family? Cause I know a lot of times parents and siblings and relatives will have, they'll either be naysayers or they'll be full on board support. How has your family been in receiving that you're creating your own cleaning products now? Well, it was kind of interesting. You brought that up. Um, as a little girl, I just did always wanted to make my dad proud. I had a learning disability grown up. So math was hard for me and reading and stuff like that. And I really struggled hard in school. I went to college and again, I struggled and my brother was one of those kids that got straight A's. Like he just was like the golden child for smartness, but really in reality, I think I was smart, but it was just, you know, not in that way as being, you know, myself and creating things. I always liked to experiment in the kitchen. Um, but the other day my mom told me, it was just, it really just touched my heart because I've always wanted to make my parents proud. And then my mom told me the other day, she's like, your dad just isn't, ah, he told me, you know, that he just can't get over like how you created this product and how you started this. And then you've grown and like he's just in on, he's just so incredibly proud of you. So that just, that really hit home because I think we all want our parents to be proud. Um, and I think that sometimes when we start, it's hard to get family and friends to like try your products out or to use your services. And, um, I've just been blessed. I'm true and I'm genuine to the people and my heart is in it. And I think that's what really shines through for getting people to try my stuff. Well, I appreciate the fact that your parents were kind enough to say we support you. I know a lot of people, um, including my own parents, when I started a cleaning business, they were like, Oh, that's cute. When will you get a real job? I'm sure they all think that I'm sure my parents thought the same thing through too, but they probably didn't tell me that. So, well, but I love it when parents are like, Hey, you know what, this, this, this comes full circle and we're really proud of this. And this is, I love the fact that they're supportive of you. That just, that makes my heart sing. So, um, but I'm curious, what kind of challenges have you run into? I know that, I mean, this is, this is a huge uphill battle to go against the great big cleaning companies that are out there that have billions of dollars in advertising and marketing. And they've got, you know, onsite chemists that are doing lab work every day and they're trying new experiments and they're creating different versions of stuff. And you've got a really uphill battle. And I love the fact that you're like, Oh, get out of my way. I'm coming through, you know, but what challenges have you faced? I want to say my biggest challenge is probably the education part. I'm getting people to actually believe, you know, that I'm not just, you know, because I'm not big, you know, give me a chance. So I go into cleaning groups and I try to like, I'm not, I know it sounds silly, Angela, but I'm not there to sell my product. I'm there to educate. And that's where my heart is. So it's like, when I do get into these cleaning groups, I want to help these, these people to have less. And I want them, if they have allergies, or if there's, you know, having issues with, you know, just breathing or even their families, or like if they want to go natural, I just want to help them. Like my heart is into helping them. And that has been the biggest challenge to get people to make that change, to have less products, to not have bleach and Clorox and to have all these caddies. I see these people with caddies filled with stuff. And I'm like, you guys don't need that. You don't need it. Like, I think that's been my hardest thing is to get people to make that change because they're scared. But I've got you guys, I've got you guys, I can hold your hand. I can be here for you. And the people that have bought my items and have used up my products, they're my superheroes. They're literally, I call them my superheroes that wear capes, because they share pictures. They talk about my product because they're proud and they've made that change. And they're my superheroes because everything I do right now is word of mouth, because I don't have millions of dollars, like he said, like this company to pay for advertising, like, it's literally word of mouth. Everything I've done is word of mouth. So that's been my hardest, I think uphill battle is for people to have that in their mindset that they don't need 20 products to clean with. That's been probably my hardest challenge. Well, as a house cleaner, why would you want to carry 20 products with you? I know that our rule is whatever you can fit in both hands is what you get to carry with you from the car to the customer's house. It's a sticky issue. Well, I want people to think about it because if you're carrying 20 supplies with you, you're responsible for every 20 of them. Okay. And so if they get left in someone's house or if they fall over and they spill and a dog licks it up or something, you're responsible for that. If a kid gets into it, you're responsible for that. Not to mention that if you're going up and down flights of stairs and people's homes, you have to carry all that stuff with you. And so if it fits in both hands, you can, you know, march up the stairs with both hands full. But what happens if you leave some stuff downstairs, it's now out of sight and it's not in your control anymore. Someone could come in, and I'm not saying they would, but theoretically someone could come in and swap out one of your cleaning supplies for a different, a different solution. And you come in thinking, oh, this is my cleaning supply because I brought it in with me. But if it's out of sight and it's out of your control, anything can happen. And if you spray that on a customer's surface and it damages the surface, you are responsible. And so I don't like to let anything out of sight. And I don't want to be like a nerd about it. But I am, right? If I bring a chemical inside someone's home, I am responsible. And I don't want it out of my sight. If you bring more than you can carry with you, just from room to room, if that's out of your sight, you're still responsible. And so I can't, I can't reinforce enough, bring less, consolidate. Yeah, you don't need it. And I like, I know one of the things that you and I were kind of briefly talking about is like, you know, my heart is like, when I, when I talk to people, I'm like, your job is to clean these people's homes. But if you truly love your job and love your clients, what are you putting in their house? Are you putting toxic stuff in their house for their kids to absorb? Like I try to picture this night. And if you guys are watching and listening, I want you to think for a minute. And if this is okay, Angela, I just want to do this really quick. Sure. I want you to think for a minute. And I want you guys just to close your eyes. And I want you to think you're walking to the house. And if you have your toxic products, and you're spraying it on the floor and you're mopping the floor, what are you putting on the floor? What are those little kids doing? Those little kids that are crawling, what are they doing? They're crawling and they're putting stuff in their mouth. You know, so whatever chemical was on the floor they're putting in their mouth. What do kids do on last sliding doors? They stick their mouths on it. They lick it. What are you putting on that sliding glass door? What are you putting on your stainless steel? You know, we're using an oil base or using like WD 40. What are you putting on there when those kids are crawling up there? Or let's say the mom is grabbing the handle and then she goes to prepare food. Think about your families. If you love your families and love your job, love what you're putting into their home, providing something that is safe that you're not harming them. Because you don't know if that mom's trying to conceive and you're putting toxic chemicals in their house. And she's inhaling all that. Maybe she's not able to conceive. So really think about, you know, if you really love your families, what are you bringing into their house? I love that because it brings a new awareness to your responsibility as a house cleaner. And if our job is to leave the world a cleaner place, we need to think about that when it comes to in terms of chemicals and even the way that we handle products. And as far as the plastic bottles that we put out into the waste systems, I love the fact that we're working with concentrates and we're not just buying more plastic that then our single use ready to use containers that then go in the landfill. So I love that for a variety of reasons. So thank you for that. Maggie says cleaning products were left in my house when I bought it that I would never use. And I wanted to bring this up because one of the things we do on move and move out cleans is we request, Hey, if there are any cleaning chemicals that you're not going to take with you, please leave them in the house and we'll discard of them properly for you because we've learned how to do that. And the reason being is there are moving companies that will not move because of the toxicity. They will not move cleaning chemicals. So they buy them, they put them underneath their kitchen sink or their bathroom sinks, and then they're not able to take them when they move. We're like, don't worry about it. Please leave them there. We know how to discard them properly. Yeah. I love that idea. That's a great idea. That is a wonderful idea. Tell me about the shelf life on your products because I know many cleaning products only have an 18 to 24 month shelf life once they're opened. My shelf life is a lot shorter just because it is natural. So one thing you'll notice it still is effective. So it's still clean and still does the same thing. But one thing you'll notice is that maybe the aroma so the experiment won't be as strong or the eucalyptus won't be as strong. And it's because I use essential oils in it. I always recommend people to shake the bottles before they use because the oils do settle. So my shelf life that I want to say is maybe right around three months, four months if you want the aroma to stay put. I recommend keeping it underneath in a dark spot because of the hydrogen and peroxide. Yes, my bottles are clear, but they still do a good job. I recommend bringing your cleaning bag in at night so it doesn't freeze and you don't want the heat to get to it. So it's just like you would proper care for your products. And this is just more of a gentler, natural product that anything if you have like think of it like homemade bread, Angela. If you make homemade bread, that homemade bread is going to last what two days if you didn't eat it all three days because then it's going to start getting moldy because there's no synthetic ingredients in it to keep it preserved. So that's kind of like my cleaning product. It's not going to last as long as the other products. But honestly, you're going to go through this because this is going to be your only cleaning product you're going to use. So then you'll keep using it again and again. And for those of you that are not professional house cleaners, if you've joined us and you're just a homeowner, yay, I love that. Thank you so much. I know that we've got some fun folks here. Rudy says cleaning his work. We've got Maggie. Oh, Maggie just we just talked about her buying the products. We have Shay Nanagans. Shay Nanagans. This is true. I never left my bag out of my site. We've got Rudy. Rudy said we're retired. Being help helping apartment tenants, clean bathrooms, soap scum and hard water on shower doors are tough to clean. I use vinegar, don plus stainless steel wool and water and muscle. That sounds like you're using all the right stuff. But you're right on tenants homes. You're going to get a lot of that. We've got Helen here. She said fantastic things. I'm learning great to obtain information from that helps everyone. That makes my heart happy. I know. I love that you guys. Rudy says also a blue scotch bright shower telescope bath brush. Yes, that's also a good a good recommendation as well. But for those of you that are not professional cleaners, Kimberley just said something that was really interesting. And I want to share with you what we do as professional house cleaners because this you may not know because there are chemicals that will deteriorate with sunlight hydrogen peroxide being one of them. And if you buy hydrogen peroxide straight in a bottle, it's in a brown bottle. For that reason, you want it keeps out the sunlight and whatever it blocks the sunlight. So if you're using a product that has been exposed to the sunlight inside our vehicles, and she said bring your supplies in at the end of the evening. But many of us carry a high wall cleaning caddy that blocks out that sunlight every time we use it. We use it and then it goes right back inside the cleaning caddy and that blocks the sunlight from regular exposure. Then when it's inside our vehicle, because many of us live in extreme temperature weather where it's hot hot in the summer or it's frigid cold in the winter, we get those picnic coolers, they're like beer coolers that will hold like 60 cans of beer. And we'll put them inside our car but keep our cleaning supplies inside the car between jobs. So if I have one job and I've got my cleaning caddy with me and I have any extra supplies out in my car, they're not just sitting out in my car being exposed to the sunlight and whatever, but they're inside a dark closed beer cooler so that it doesn't have the frigid temperatures of hot hot heats or cold cold weather. And then when you take them in at the end of the day, you've protected all your cleaning chemicals so that it expands that shelf life. Because what people don't realize is when you leave it and you have those extreme temperatures and the temperatures keep changing it can actually change the compound of the product. So and a lot of people don't realize that it breaks down stuff so it may not clean as good or it may have like fogginess. It's just yeah you have to bring those stuff in or like you said have a cooler. Well you know I live in North Carolina and it gets really hot in the summertime. And when I started my cleaning business I didn't know this, but I had some cleaning supplies out in my car and I just left them there for a couple hours while I went to clean another job. When I came out to the car like a bottle of spray was empty. It was completely empty and I was like oh no where did it go? And it didn't leak. I'm like touching the floor of the car and I'm like it didn't leak. Like where did it go? It's gone and it had like evaporated and I'm like how is that even possible? And then I started realizing that because of the temperatures right and people will also experience this like here in Colorado I believe it gets really cold in the winter time. And so there are areas where and I know in really cold weather like in Boston and stuff where it's icy cold in the winter time we have to stand up against the car door coming out of a job and like let our body heat up the door of the car just so that we can get our key in right? But if you don't take your cleaning supplies in at the end of the day you bring them in and they're like ice. And so how do you how do you thaw them out? And the freezing thawing, freezing thawing changes the chemical and the stability of the product. So again we try to take all precautions to keep pH neutral products and then to make sure that they don't freeze and that we care for them properly. Yep. All that stuff. And what's nice is like in my bag like when you carry a bag of my products you literally need like like this is it like this is all you need two products you just put I have I don't know what kind of bag you use but we have the Husky bags and I just put these two on the side and if you need more then you know obviously you can fill up these with those 4X or whatever but that's all you need and it's like you don't even need to keep products in your car like it will last you a while for like three houses. Nice. So do you just take the little tiny bottle with you and use that as a refill in the event that you get close to running out? Yeah and I do bring distilled water. Distilled water is really like the best because it's so pure. So a lot of times people fill up their bottle like their cleaning bottles with my cleaner and then use tap water. I'm like well the tap water the hydrogen peroxide is trying to kill all the stuff in the tap water you know because I know our tap water here is horrible and so you're not going to get the same effect as you know the perfect stainless steel or the mirrors may become hazy and that's because of the water you're using so I recommend distilled water for the most purest cleanest water like cleaning products. So do you buy the distilled water then to mix and then when you do your inventory at home you use like a little funnel or something in a cap full of your solution and then just distilled water with a little funnel into your 16 ounce bottle. Yeah I just fill it up and it's and then you just put the half of the bottle. So if you have these little bottles the starter one you just need half to pour in there so it's already pre-measured. So like when these little ones can fill up a 16 one twice. Okay and then once you decide you want to go to a bigger bottle then you only need like a cap full half a cap full to the cap full so it's already pre-measured for you. Nice I love that I love the pre-measured thing. Simplicity. Yeah I know there are a lot of people that try to guess and I'm not great guessing because if you guess and you just use more on one than on another you're going to get an inconsistent ratio. Yeah. So for me I've loved those with the gallons they've got those pump sprays that are one ounce pump sprays and every time you hit the pump one ounce of liquid comes into your unit I love that because it's duplicable anybody can do it and then you're not guessing is it too strong is it not strong and then you use twice that two pumps for your deep yeah for your deep cleaning stuff. And I do that people can use a little bit more and it's not going to harm anything I always add a little bit more sometimes when I do taco nights you know and I know stuff's going to be greasy but it degreases stuff as well so it takes all the grease off and yeah simplicity it's we got to bring simplicity back like it's too busy. So tell me are your products mainly for homeowners or they mainly for professional cleaners or is it a good mix of both can anybody use them what's the what's the breakdown there. Both it's meant for families and cleaning businesses and I was trying to look at my numbers to see where I was at I think right now I have about a thousand two hundred cleaning companies that buy my products you know like it's growing it's the movement it's working and I love it because the families are starting to see the difference in their homes from the cleaners using it and then what they do is they buy it now so they buy the starter set and they keep that in their home or they buy like five bottles and then they buy the 32 ounce and they keep one in their kitchen they keep one in their shower their bathrooms so it's it's it's perfect for everybody to use and I love that so you know is there is there anything it cannot be used on like stains or coffee or no everything pets or no I have a dog and he rolls in chicken poop I have chickens everybody you know me if you know me and you want to get to know I love chickens I'm a chicken girl I almost wore my chicken earrings today and I was like no I'll be good but I have chickens and he loves rolling in the grass and my chickens roam free and he loves rolling in the chicken like like the chicken poop and so I'll get my little Swedish dishcloth and I'll spray my cleaner and just wipe his back and it's fine so he's and it's he smells good after that but no it's it's literally safe I've used it on my rugs car everything I use it in you can spray it in your dishwasher so if your dishwasher in between cleaning dishes you can spray it in between your dishes if you've got your I know a lot of people with front loaders you know how it gets that smell and it gets the nastiness and stuff you could spray my cleaner down there and it will help clean it um use it like yeah I use I use it on everything I use it in my everything so what is the official name of the product we've seen the products but what are the names of the products it's pure evergreen is my business um and that's the name of the product and then I have it broken down to like all-purpose cleaner like laundry detergent sheets little jargon so I have that whole selection so my business is pure evergreen and I actually came up with the name Angela because my cleaning company was evergreen eco clean and so the word evergreen just I wanted part of my cleaning business to be a part of this new business so that's how I became pure evergreen oh I love that so so where are your products are they only on your website or can people find them elsewhere if somebody was going to buy them and somebody asked here can they be shipped to Australia I don't even know if that's a possibility but um yeah I can talk with them um it's the shipping's expensive that's the only thing that's a downfall because you're shipping water or well yeah if they get the 32 ounce yes but if they get these little ones it's cheaper but um I've noticed I got an order from Canada last week and it was a pretty big order and the shipping wasn't as bad because I think they ordered more in bulk and so the shipping went down a little bit um but they can order it on my website or um there is some places I'm slowly expanding and some stores are starting to slowly pick up on stuff so if you're in Colorado I have a few places here but right now it's all online um and yeah it's it's an education so I think that's where people don't fathom they need to learn about it and have that education behind it so well anytime that there is something that's new on the market there is an education phase and I love the fact that you're willing to go through that because like I said earlier you're up against some really stiff competition and you're like oh don't worry about me I'm coming through you know what I mean and I love that but but in a perfect world where would you like to be as far as the distribution of your products um I know right now I'm not interested in big box stores I would like to just focus on mom and pop places um so if there's like a mom and pop place in your town or a smaller store then yes I would like to be a part of that because I want to support them I feel like these big box change they have so much money already and my goal is to support these smaller businesses because they're like me we just we're trying to just make you know get our foot in the door so if I'm able to have a product in their little mom and pop place then that means I'm supporting them and they're able to make money with my product as well. Talk to me for a second about Airbnb's I know we've got a lot of Airbnb's that join us that are looking for ways to use safer products where they're not doing chemical and top of chemical and top of chemical where they've got two and three cleans in a week if they're turning those properties all the time with people coming and going. Yeah Airbnb's I you know you could talk to the owners and they can keep that there it's super simple like they can have a caddy and like my laundry detergent sheets it's super easy because like I said it's just a small box um the products you just keep it safe and put them up and like a caddy and you can take them with you I cleaned Airbnb's and I just brought my own stuff and I let them know you know what my goal is and it's good for your business too Angela is like if you guys are wanting to switch over to be natural more and more families are looking for um companies that clean with natural products and especially with sensitivity so it's a great business move. Oh I love that so we've got a couple of questions here I just wanted to now's a good time to ask questions if you guys have any yeah I wanted to uh to pay attention to these um hang on one second here we had Priscilla say a number one ingredient in supplies to stay away from or to five you never bring into your home um I guess from zero to five that you never bring into your home what would you say as far as as far as that goes um I would say for me like for me it's bleach because I'm allergic to bleach so and I get the respiratory issues are hard and I've noticed so many other people that I've talked to throughout my time of doing this it's bleach has been hard ammonia so stay away from those kind of things so like those are like the other one um there are some other products that I don't recommend that people use that um and I don't want to get in trouble so I don't want to say them so if you want a private message me then we'll get sued but I've done my research and on behalf of bleach I want to say one thing about bleach because we we knocked bleach before and I really want to pay attention to the fact that the Clorox company has done a phenomenal job especially during COVID they really stepped up to the plate when the whole world was learning about bleach and they started creating they went from the gallon jugs to 55 gallon drums and they started producing bleach around the clock because one 55 gallon drum of bleach would clean 14 000 hospital rooms and do you remember at that time when the hospitals were full and they were like not taking anybody and they were telling COVID people to stay at home and it was it was this huge phenomenon and at the time when everything started going on uh do you remember we'd go to the grocery stores and everything had run out there were there were no supplies they went to great extremes to make sure that there were enough supplies that they could keep creating bleach in spite of the fact that their costs skyrocketed and during the pandemic they kept all of their pricing the same they did not price gouge anyone during the pandemic because they knew the whole world had gone on high alert for bleach and although a lot of people misused it they made it readily available and affordable and my hat is off to them i cannot thank them enough because they did an enormous uh service to mankind just to help everybody kind of through that time now since then their prices have tried to recoup and our gallons of bleach have gone from you know 96 cents a gallon to 496 a gallon but we're not using it as much as we were and just for them to stay in business there had to be a a balancing of the the whatever it was but during the pandemic they stepped up like nobody stepped up i mean i was just i was i was really impressed with what they did i will say uh there are a lot of people that misuse bleach by mixing it with things you know exactly and i i want to say one thing about bleach because we brought it up and not to knock bleach because like i said there's a place for it exactly the only thing please mark this down if you take one thing away from today the only thing that we mix with bleach is water the only thing we mix we do not mix anything else with bleach except water bleach is phenomenal for what it does leave it and let it be okay so i'm glad we got that out of the way um and i have one that i would like to add we've got just a second left there's one that i want to add about things that you would never bring into a home for me it's a pumice stone i love pumice stones for the human body to rub off cracked heels and things on your feet but because of my situation i get to see a lot of property damage that happens on a daily basis inside customers homes where again like unbeknownst house cleaners that didn't know that you can only use it gently on a particular type of surface will go oh that worked really well on this surface let me try it on all these other surfaces and they've damaged all kinds of stuff and so we don't even let house cleaners go out with pumice stones anymore it's just yes they do work if and that if that if cannot be guaranteed and so by all shred of the imagination we've got house cleaners that are efficient and they're hurrying along and they're not gentle and they just scratch the heck out of surfaces with pumice stones pumice stone is a rock made from lava from a volcano it is a rock and you don't put it on gentle surfaces that can scratch okay so that's my one that don't take into a home because angela said no and really said no to the bleach and angela said no to the pumice stones yeah and it's my my bleach part is just for people with like chemical allergies like me like sensitivity so that's my whole part for bleach because i can't use it because i'm allergic to it i literally will break out and hide from it yeah uh marcellus is i use a weak bleach solution for cleaning and all my humming bird feeders every two to three days will this uh will this clean them well will this clean them well love tearing all this don't think i learned this much in nursing school oh thank you so much marsala i'm super glad that you shared that with us and i'm sure that your birds love having a clean bird feeder uh tony says hi angela when i use uh why why when i used otoban am i always coughing uh that's a great question and i don't know which version of the otoban you're using i know that they had a line and this is during covid before covid they had a line that was called earth choice and it was a safer choice product it was an earth choice product and that's the kind that we used as professional cleaners during the pandemic otoban this is a shout out otoban as well oh my goodness during the pandemic they went on high alert they pulled all their products off the market they stopped producing everything and they went into high gear producing around the clock their otoban disinfectants because the entire world was then focused on disinfecting and so we got a lot of their lavender and their eucalyptus brands but they went on high alert and it was not the earth choice safer choice version and so while they were trying to service mankind they had to they had to make a judgment call are we going to go all out and go disinfecting because that's what the world needs right now or are we going to stay with our regular product lines and unfortunately they pulled a lot of their product lines because they were literally producing around the clock i kept calling them up going hey when is this product coming back and they're like go away we love you but go away and so we leaned on people like kimberley to come up with a new product line that could fill that gap and so i love the fact that kimberley has risen to the occasion and that she's shared this with us today so kimberley our time is up and i hate this but i love learning about your product so much fun this was fun i love education tell our listeners and our viewers where they can go to learn all about your products where they can buy them from you and how they can share that information with their friends their neighbors and the small mom of pop stores that could then carry your products yeah sure my website is um we just go to www or https whatever you want to do peer pur evergreen e v e r g r e n dot com um and you can go on there and if you have questions you can reach out to me i do have a chat option i love questions um so you can buy it on my websites um the only product i have on amazon right now is my laundry detergent that comes in a sheet form so you can get off that off by amazon um if people want to reach out to me for hostels they have a storefront um right now i do not do hostels for cleaning companies until i get my education out for them but right now store storefronts that want to do like refill stores they can reach out to me for a hostel account and i can do the hostel for them and that's how you can order my products right now well thank you so much this was so informative and i really enjoyed our time together so thank you so much thank you for the rest of you thank you for joining us this was really enlightening and i appreciate your questions and i just enjoyed hanging out here and spending some time with you today so thank you very much thank you everybody all righty we'll see you guys again soon and until we meet