 Hey, and I'm super glad that you guys joined me today I am here with Lisa Bronner and if you're looking at my picture here You're looking at a copy of her new book that just came out on Tuesday of this week and from what I understand It's already in the earth fares all across America and it's in bookstores as well So you can pick up your copy right now Well, Lisa Bronner is the granddaughter of dr. Emanuel Bronner who's the founder of all of those amazing South suds and all of the castle soaps that we love so much They're the magic soaps and it's the top-selling natural brand of soaps in North America And as we were just beginning to get ready for this show I was talking to Lisa and Lisa was telling me that not only are they in America but low and behold They're in 42 countries across the world. Holy smokes. So we're in for a huge ride today I'm really excited that we've got Lisa back she was on our show a couple of years ago and you guys gave me raving reviews and I was just so excited when she was willing to come back and say hello to us again. Yay This is like Christmas for me. So hello Lisa Bronner. How are you today? Thanks so much for having me Angela. I am great It's been a fun and busy week with the book launching and of course keeping up with all the other questions that come in About about soap and so I'm just great to be happy to be back here with you Well, thanks so much for your time and attention. I just I have so many questions now You just wrote a book called soap and a soul and I read it and it is an amazing book By the way, I'm curious to know why the title Well, I want people to see a big picture when it comes to how we care for ourselves and our spaces and The intangibles in our lives and I've talked for years about how to make cleaning products and routine For taking care of yourself, but I wanted in this book people to see a bigger more holistic picture What does it all fit into and it fits into this bigger life of simplicity of mindfulness of Being careful about what we bring into our lives what we allow into our lives not just in the products that we use But also in the influences that we have in our in our head and in our heart And so the book has lots of practical tips and if you pick it up just to get some recipes Then that'll be great, but it also has a lot about how you know the toxins that we allow into our lives Sometimes are ones that we we can't see they're not even chemistry. They're you know, their voices and their influences So it is about soap, but it's also about our souls Well, and it's a really overall reaching picture of a whole bunch of stuff I was really amazed when I read the book and I read it on an airplane I'm sitting there think saying to myself this is really phenomenal because I think it's the most thorough Account of all of the different types of labeling for different products Like we say this product is natural and I know from the house cleaning perspective when we go in a customer's home We want to say oh, we're using all natural chemicals on your your house And what does that mean? Right, right, and that's the thing as we as consumers when we go into a Store we are bombarded with messages from labels and there are words on there And it's really the only the primary way of communicating with us from manufacturers to consumers Is the message on the label both the words and the imagery the colors the fonts even the sheen There's all these factors that contribute to a label and to be a savvy consumer We need to know how to read those labels to decide, you know, are we going to believe this product? Is it making a valid claim? Does this word actually have meaning? Is it substantive or is it mirror? You know psychological imagery or influence? So you mentioned the word natural which has no meaning when it comes to labels Anything can be called natural. There's no regulation of it. And so that one's you know want to dismiss, but a word such as Organic if it has a USDA certification seal with it that one has some meaning so So there's there is a ton to learn. It's a big headache. I acknowledge that and I try in my book to give people a Bit of a guide for how to interpret it all but even I will tell you that it's a lot to take in And I've I've tried to digest it and make it a little bit easier for people, but it's it's a lot Well, I liked your visuals because you had like a little bunny for example And you're like if you see this bunny this one's fake this one's real this one's fake and I was like, oh my goodness I've probably been tricked by that myself. Oh, it's crazy. Yeah I mean and what what we're talking about is certification seal So, you know those nice little logos or symbols that that indicate something and there are Official ones that come from an actual certifier like leaping bunny that has a particular bunny in its Certification that a product is cruelty free and has not been tested on animals But if somebody just has a different bunny then and they're making the cruelty free claim They're not lying because they're like well, we're not saying we're certified by leaping bunny But they certainly are trying to imply imply. Yeah, that they are by using a different style of bunny That they do have a certification as cruelty free when they don't and what the all the consumer can do is familiarize themselves with With what the true certifications are so they can disregard the rest, you know It takes my mind to the idea of I don't know if this is true, but it's a great anecdote So I'll use it anyways that that People who are charged with investigating Counterfeit money that they prepare themselves by studying the real money and being so familiar with the real money that they can They can identify what's not that and it's kind of what we have to do with certifications and those seals is look study the real ones the USDA organic the Vegan action cruelty free so that you know what the real ones look like and then when you see others Those are just pretty little pieces of artwork that somebody in marketing designed Well, I know that the salsa is a big popular product for all the professional house cleaners That are probably watching us today and all the Airbnb owners and everybody else. That's a big fan of Your products. I know that South such is like one of the top products that we use for cleaning hardwood floors And it has the all one Let me see if I can show you this yeah all one tell us about this logo and how this came to be yeah, so that is a logo for my family's company and dr. Bronner's magic soaps and it's it's Other name is all one godfaith and that came from my grandfather's own personal journey, which is a story in itself It's in the end of the book actually of how he had a personal Mission to unite all people together to realize that they had a lot in common more than they had differences and so in that logo that represents that hands reaching around the world to clasp That indicating that We are all as he would say brothers and sisters Traveling together on spaceship earth and we are all one so he's trying to To capture that with both the earth and the hands He actually that logo like goes all the way back to when he was running the company We maybe stylized it a little bit differently, but But the logo was his I love that So that is a mission though that you have continued throughout your blog and throughout all of your Advocacies throughout all of your communications with the world for the last several I'm gonna say several decades 75 years we're celebrating this year as a this is this is so amazing. So share with me I don't know that you were always on this journey I remember there was a time in a story in one of one of the early parts of your book Where you were talking about that you just grew thinking like everybody is on the soap mission and everybody knows what it's all about When you're right, it's not quite that the case Yeah, exactly, you know So my grandfather was Dr. Bronner found at the company in 1948 and it was his thing it was Not something that my immediate family was involved with in the day-to-day way My dad who was who was also a chemist? He did oversee the actual soap making but as far as the business side of the company That was all my grandfather wasn't not only was it not on our radar, but it just wasn't even part of my like consciousness What he was doing what that was all about You know, I was I was honestly, I think just not interested and I went on my own journey pretty conventional and graduated high school went to college and It was honestly it was when I became a parent that I began to take a closer look at Things around me and realizing wait a second. I don't know what's going on here I don't know what's going on in these products that I'm using at my son had a scary exposure to cleaning products at one point And I kind of circled back and realized I think my grandfather was onto something here And so it was when I personally, you know, I had to travel my own road and come back To you know what he had been doing all along would have been easier and more straightforward if I just you know listen to him in the first place, but That's that just wasn't what happened and so I about you know, I realized that the idea of simplicity Back to nature with your with your ingredients as close to nature as you possibly can with a plant-based ingredients and such and And that he really was so far ahead of his time with advocating for all of that starting in the 40s And and he really was regarded as quite, you know, quite eccentric for his time, but he was right Well, not only just a book that's brand-new and it's out on the market that I think is going to be one of the coolest books Of all time as far as all of the green at yourself recipes that are inside But tell me you you also wrote a blog and have really been advocating this message for a long time Tell me tell me about how you started that and how that process has continued this message onto where you are today Yeah, absolutely It is I mean we are family companies that dr. Brauners is still family run run family own And I think it's pretty typical with family companies that when there's a task to do you just find someone to do it Whether it fits what they think their job description is or not and so people end up wearing very different hats And so at one point my brother Mike who's now currently a company president. He was doing. Oh my goodness sales inventory customer service And some product development like all of that was kind of in his wheelhouse and If you've if you've seen a dr. Brauners label up close, you know, it says a lot We have a lot to say my grandfather a lot say to people is a lot of words on there Well, we can't really be surprised that when we say a lot to to our customers. They want to say a lot back So I know my goodness the cast you'll soap has even more than the cell sets So our I have to say that you guys should get an award for the most words on a label ever Because every single one of these labels is just like all the words and then it has more words And then it has more words and you're like, wait a second. I've got rating glasses on Absolutely. Well, in the picture of your phone and blow it up, but this is amazing Well, there's a little magnifier app on on phones. It really helps In the court in the court size. They're all different too The five court scents that came out in my grandfather's lifetime The all that little writing is different on every one So you have to read all five courts to get like and he wrote all of that Or somebody who wrote all of that before chat gpt Yeah, right. He was like his own chat gpt Yeah, there you go And he went so he wrote that and and oh the label was just as important to him as the contents of the bottle The you know soap was the messenger the the label was the message And that's you know, that's its own story but he He he wrote it all I put it on the label and and he actually went blind Before I was born I never knew him when he could see and he had that label All in his head all the labels and he would make edits to it like because he could remember every part of it Yeah, so oh, I'm so sorry. He asked me about my own history So everybody's doing all these different jobs and my brother just said, you know, could you take over customer service? I had kids at home and he said you could do it in the middle of the night when they're asleep, whatever And we're just I can't keep up with all the email that's coming in and so that's how I started And people asking questions. How do I use the soap? What's the best for my situation my acne my baby my sensitive skin my oily skin How do I wash my dog my hair in my car? And so all of those questions eventually led me to write a blog Called going green with lisa brahner where I answer those questions and mass people keep asking more which I love and that was 13 years ago and so After writing the blog for so long like I have the blog in my head I know that you know of the hundreds of articles on there I've got one for you on that topic but I wanted to be able to give it to To people who are interested all in one spot, which is why I wanted to write a book that was that was all together comprehensive, you know, you can keep it at your fingertips Well, I love the fact that you were willing to go to places that you've never gone before Because in the process of doing that I'm guessing that part of your own experience came out I know that in reading your book There were things that made my heart dance with joy when I read them I was like, yes, there was a moment where you were talking about Cluttering and disorganization and you said as a new mom You are holding your child on your hip and you were just trying to keep him from fussing And you said there I was frustrated because I wanted my house to be tidier And you were having this moment I think that speaks to all moms that are kind of a little bit overwhelmed And they need a second set of hands and they're like, uh, how am I going to make this work? And you made a comment that really hit home with me You said I realized I didn't have two hands because you're holding your son with one hand But you said I didn't have none I had another hand that was free and I realized I could start tidying up with that one hand And that spoke volumes to me because there are so many people that are living a life of excuses They're like, I can't do that. I'm overwhelmed. I just have too much going on and you're like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa I can do what I can do where I am starting with the resources that I have available to me right now Which in this moment is one hand That's absolutely right. I mean personally I was I was paralyzed because I was so focused on what I could not do And you know that I had been able to do in my pre Parent days or that particular son was my second son So I could do some things with one kid that I couldn't do once I had two And I was so focused on I can't do what I used to be able to do I can't do what I want to do that I was doing nothing My house was a wreck. I mentally I was frazzled. I was so frustrated uh, little things would set me off and And it really was that moment of just shifting my focus from what I can't do To what I can and what is the next step? I can take whatever that next step is if it's you know a physical go here and do this And then after that what's the next step and don't worry about the distant horizon and the big goal Just take the next step and see what happens and eventually You know, I got somewhere and and I think anybody can too My grandfather's own story was very inspirational to me. He had every reason Not to do it not to have a full and productive life I mean anyone would have excused him for just like Trying to survive and sit quietly in the corner. He he he immigrated To to the united states from germany when he was 21 His family was uh was well established from germany that they were jewish And they were utterly destroyed by world war two his sisters escaped his parents did not They perish the concentration camps are the family soap factories in germany were confiscated by When they were aryanized and then in the united states his he married had three kids That was wonderful, but then his life had a breakdown and eventually died when my dad was was seven He had his own health issues He was arrested because he sounded so crazy talking about world peace and return to nature Nobody was ready to hear that in the 40s. He lost his eyesight I mean he had so many things to look at and say I can't do anything look at my life And yet and yet he kept moving forward and finding what he could do and he you know using his voice and making his soap and You know if he can do that and I haven't had nearly the the trauma that he had in his life Then surely I can find the next step forward in my own life Well, he's not with us today But he would be so proud of you for taking his message and spreading that to the world Because little did he know at that time that his products would reach 42 countries around the globe And then it would become the national best-selling natural soap in the united states I mean that's that's huge and how did he know that at that time? He didn't and would have no way of knowing that but to watch the legacy that he created Doing what he could do with the resources that he had available to him and then watching the family carry that message on Because right now we are in an era right now 2023 where people More than ever are very conscientious of what they're putting into their bodies They're like wait a minute There are so many chemicals that are in the air and people have allergies like nobody's business And the air is not getting cleaner all by itself And the water we drink is not getting cleaner by itself and the stuff that we're dumping Into the the lakes and the streams and the rivers and the it's not getting cleaner by itself And so I think everybody's becoming more consciously aware like hey, wait a second Maybe I can do my own little part and what is that? And I love this book because there are a lot of misconceptions about as a professional house cleaner. Oh, I'm going to go green And then what does that mean? Right, right. I mean that's almost the the What's the opposite of a silver lining like the the dark side of something becoming popular is that then you have a lot of People wanting to jump on the bandwagon who either intentionally are misleading or with the best of intentions are misinformed or You know aren't aren't educated in what they're talking about and so they're offering advice that isn't valid And as much as I don't want people to be upset with me I also I also need to debunk some of the common myths You know, for example, you can't just go mixing two green cleaners together and thinking you're you're making A better cleaner That like one of the first questions I ever wrote a blog about still one of my most popular I mean blog articles are not supposed to be enduring You know, they're supposed to you write them and then people read them for a little bit and then they stop reading them This one people still read and it's why you cannot mix castile soap with vinegar Those are both excellent products and that people can do a lot with in their house But they should not be mixed together because vinegar is an acid and it unsupportifies soap It may it breaks soap down into its original ingredients, which is oil So when you mix vinegar and soap you're you're getting a gunky concoction that is very oily. And so, um, you know People do that with the best of intentions But they need to understand that that one doesn't work and there are others like that Some are more dangerous. That one's just messy I'm glad you said the word dangerous Because you did something that you were willing to do in your book that I was not willing to do and that's become really unpopular You said, you know what? I'm going to tell you that this is dangerous And I was kind of like me if I say something I'm going to upset some some house cleaners that are trying to make a living Being a tick tocker or something But I see people mixing chemicals in a really dangerous sort of fashion And they're like, hey, wow, check this out and they're plugging 20 and 30 chemicals on top of each other And the colors are amazing and whatever and it looks like it looks like paint And I sit there and like my eyes turn red and my nose clogs up just watching the video and I'm like, oh, no, you didn't And I just want to pick up the phone and I want to call the person and say stop being so irresponsible This is one of the worst things that you could do in the name of entertainment Because there are people out there that don't know any better and they're watching this and they're thinking Oh because they did it and wow, look how clean the toilet came when they were done I can do this myself and my message has always been you are not a chemist You are not a chemist and chemists go to school And then they go into a lab controlled environment so that they can learn and practice what they did in a controlled environment Where if something malfunctions they've got eye wash stations and they've got people that can call 911 and all those things Do not do not in the privacy of your own home experiment with these things Right, right. I I hate it because in the professional cleaning world You walk down an aisle and you see all these things with fancy promises and house cleaners I don't know why but they erroneously think this worked so well on one thing if I mix this one over here It will work twice as good. No, it does not Yeah, I want to make a shirt like a shirt a hat a scarf that says chemistry happens Because I think people don't realize this chemistry happens you mix two things together And there's going to be a reaction And yeah, there is a section in my book I talk about dangerous cleaning mixtures and I've written about them online and people say Oh, you're giving people instructions on how to make dangerous things. I'm like, no I'm actually going after the people who think they're doing great things Making a great cleaner Taking care of their their house and making it better for the people living there They're actually doing the reverse there that they could actually hurt themselves or the people that they live with I mean mixing bleach with anything I think bleach and ammonia has had a lot of attention that that's a bad one that makes mustard gas But also mixing mixing bleach with uh with alcohol mixing bleach with vinegar like don't mix things together Yeah, we can can you say one thing right now for anybody that's watching and anybody that watches the replay and once and for all Please do not mix bleach with anything You can dilute it with water, but please do not mix it with anything ever under any circumstances And if you forget that please call me or text me and I will remind you Okay, because that's not cool or I'm glad you can write to me too because that's the thing I think people think yeah, as you said, this is good and this is good. So together they must be better That's that's not how it works. The other thing that I think people Are mistaken about is when they they see products that do the same thing This is a carpet cleaner and this is a carpet cleaner. Therefore they must have the same Ingredients in them. Um, so it's okay if I have a little bit of this one a little bit of that one To put them together that is not the case They uh manufacturer might claim that they do the same thing, but the chemistry involved The ingredients that they put in are different. You cannot mix them together. Um, so it's uh One of the messages I really hope people take away is is that chemistry Happens and even mixing with castile soap, which is a beautiful, you know Simple product, but there are some things that you you shouldn't mix with it vinegar as I've said You epsom salts. This is body care a little bit more than house care of it You can't mix epsom salts with castile soap either And bleach of course as we've said don't mix bleach even with castile soap. There's a reaction that takes place In your book, you have 85 green it yourself recipes and now tell us about that and tell us what is the difference between that And mixing two commercial cleaning products together Yes, what green it yourself is is uh, it's a phrase I came up with that obviously off of diy Thank you I forget sometimes that I made that one up and I use it people like what is giy Okay, anyhow, but it's the idea of take control of what you're doing take control of Your cleaners so you know what you're bringing into your house. You know what you're exposing yourself to You know what you're exposing your your housemates or pets whatever to just so you have more control because There is no required ingredient disclosure in cleaning products in the united states You have no idea what is in most of the cleaning products unless they have a really high hazard Ingredient in which case it gets the hazard warning on the label So green it yourself means you take control and you know what you're using And so that's where the 85 recipes come from a lot of them use dr. Bronner soap Castile soap and the sal sets And but then a lot of them are are unrelated to our products just Tips for ways to take care of your house You always want to use the least intensive means needed to do the job You don't you don't need to ratchet things up really high to get a job done So you always I mean not only for the sake of the surface not to corrode it or etch it or degrade it But also for the safety of of you. It's it's this risk-benefit analysis Something like soap or sal sets That those are are cleaners that remove their surfactants that will take care of most Situations most messes most grind most surfaces. We do not need to disinfect everything We do not need to sanitize everything because those have their risks and the risks are not Merited in most situations. You know, we're not doing for the most part surgery in our homes We're not eating off of our floors. We don't need to disinfect these things And so the recipes they're really simple sometimes. I'm like, oh, this is too simple I shouldn't even say it but no, I want people to know that these simple ways can You know can work and do work and are all that's needed and they don't need to make it more complicated It saves their Pocketbook it saves the space in their cleaning cabinet. It saves their time and it saves their health too So the recipes are all very simple and easy to do I want to stop for just a second highlight something that Lisa just said because this is really really important She said because it was so simple. I didn't feel like I should say it But I want to highlight the fact that there's a whole entire generation right now that has grown up on tiktok And what you think is real is what you see on tiktok And I just went on a little rant about what I see on tiktok and how angry it makes me because it's so incredibly Irresponsible people mixing chemicals that are toxic and that are incredibly harmful to the waterways and the earth Once they flush that toilet. Okay bad bad bad bad bad So what happens is that's a whole entire generation that grew up on electronics and watching things and they think oh, that's okay Okay, a lot of those same people have never been taught how to clean and every day in the cleaning industry We run a training company that trains house cleaners and maids And I can't tell you how many times a day embarrassed kids come to me And they say i'm in my mid 20s and I hate to admit it and i'm really embarrassed to say this But I don't actually know how to clean at all. I was never taught. I was never showed And so can you show me or can you tell me or how do I learn? And so we need to go back to the basics and I love lisa's book for this fact It's very clear about here are some recipes of things you can use Here are some tactics that you can use and she even goes into the decluttering end of things Before we clean you've got a declutter and here's the mind-body connection between the decluttering and the cleaning I'm sure with this a little bit if you will on that while we're on that topic because that was really interesting to me Yes, and this was something I stumbled into i'm not a naturally organized person And so, you know, I have really have to think about organizing and and decluttering I have to be very intentional about it. It's not something I do Involuntarily, uh, and so it was a journey I went on And the thing about clutter is that it gets in the way This is the this is the really the biggest issue about it It gets in the way of first of all being able to clean things if they're if they're inaccessible Because there's stuff on them, but it also gets in the way from of the things we really need in our day-to-day lives It takes longer to find them. We can't see them. We can't appreciate them We're distracted by what's there and what's unnecessary and Eventually for myself as I was looking at clutter. I'm like, what is this? What is this? I mean, I can identify it piece by piece. But what is it? I I realized that what my clutter was Were identities I have had that I no longer have Or identities I thought I might have but I don't and I bought stuff for those identities So I used to teach high school. I had some high school teaching stuff sitting around my closet blossom plans and various props and Things like that that were in my way. I used to do crafts that maybe I enjoyed at the time, but I don't anymore You know, and I I used to I used to have jobs that had various, you know Objects associated with them and all of these things and they were important But they're not now and so once I started saying, you know, I'm not a high school teacher anymore I'm not a quilter anymore um, it helped me to pull those identities out of my closets and off my shelves and Decide, okay, who am I today and where what do I need for that identity and once Once those identities were all that was there. It was just so much easier to To access them to appreciate them and then of course physically to clean around them because I just didn't have as much stuff in the way I'm still working on this because even now I'm shedding identities and taking off new identities I'm putting on new identities and so it's an ongoing process And that's not weird I'm glad that you brought that up That's not weird at all because if you look at a brand new baby a baby is born and they're like this big And that's an identity. They're a little baby They do certain things they cry they poop and they eat that's it like that's all they do And then they grew up to be a little bit bigger and then now they're like a toddler And they have a personality and they're like no and then why and they ask all these things, you know And they run around and they get into stuff and they pull drawers open and they're just curious And it's a completely different personality and a completely different identity Then it was when they were this big and then they grow up and as they grow up to be nine or ten years old Oh my goodness They turn into something completely different than even the toddler and you're like, uh, no, you didn't just say that to me I'm your mother. Don't you dare, you know, and then they grew up to be a teenager and then it's like right here You know, and you're like, oh no, you didn't and then like the next 12 or 15 years is like really horrendous But those are all different personalities and different identities and that's natural That is the human evolution process of us growing from being tiny to growing to be an adult And so it would be really unusual For someone to think well because I was once this identity. I must always stay that identity No, you don't we evolved we develop as humans and the more information we have The more evolved we become and I think right now this is a new evolution for all of us Where we're saying I don't need the fragrance in my cleaning chemicals right now. I understand That clean has a particular smell. Tell us about the smell of clean. What is the fragrance for clean? I'm curious Oh, yes. The smell of clean is nothing at all If something is truly clean, there's no debris on it. There's no Grime or you know detritus from whatever then it's there's nothing there to give a scent So the smell of clean is a smell of nothing now. We like smells I like I like scents of course, but to think that those scents are clean Is is is the opposite of what they are if there's a scent there that means there is a residue There is a substance there that's giving off the scent um, and so, you know and they're powerful our our our brains A recognition of scent is right there with its processing of emotion and memory And so that's why scent is so evocative and so transportive Um, but it's all psychological and so we do need to separate ourselves and our understanding from oh this smells clean because it's you know smells like Lemons or some fake lemon smell or even because it's scouring the inside of my nose and making my eyes run therefore it must be clean No, that's that that I mean think about that that doesn't make sense It means that there is something there that is On the surface or or in the air So fragrance is one of my One of my big topics with people you need to separate your understanding of clean from how things smell Laundry detergent is often sold based on how it smells, but laundry detergent is supposed to clean fabrics not leave things on fabrics And what we have in our air you were talking earlier about Our interaction with the environment The pollution inside our homes is is usually unless you live in a Extremely polluted urban place the pollution inside our homes in our air is far worse than what's outside We've gotten really good at sealing up our houses in the name of efficiency to keep them hot or cold or whatever It is they're supposed to be And so we've really gotten good at sealing up our houses where we also Are more and more comfortable in a very narrow Temperature range and so we shut the windows as soon as it drops, you know to below You know, I don't know 65 and we shut the windows as soon as it gets warmer than 75 and if it's if it's outside those We don't allow fresh air and we need to unthink that because we have got to flush out our houses Stuff gets in the air all the time from fragrance from cooking from breathing From all of these things from textiles outgassing We need to clean up our air and definitely the first thing is not to Pollute your air intentionally with fragrance ingredients. So what's wrong with fragrance? Why am I so keen on getting rid of fragrance fragrance ingredients are If they're meant to be durable, you know the the advertisement that your laundry will smell fresh for three weeks How is that possible the way it's possible? Is because there are ingredients that make the scent very durable very enduring It it doesn't break down. It it stays. That's what's happening If it goes into your body because you breathe it which is meant to be breathed Then it's going to stay there and not break down our bodies cannot process that now our bodies are incredibly resilient We can put up with a lot but day in day out repeated exposure This can add up to a lot and more and more people are acknowledging they're having you know Breathing issues maybe even full-blown asthmatic issues because of the scent of products And it's because they they do impact our bodies. They're not just a little thing that's right here in our nose that they penetrate um, and so we need to to To dial that back to reduce the fragrance to acknowledge that the smell of clean is the smell of nothing at all And i'm glad you explained that so well because when we go into a customer's house as a professional house cleaner It's kind of like when you have a headache if you've matched it with I don't know some kind of an ibuprofen or an aleve or a I don't know whatever the over the counter things are that make your headache kind of like numb to you It removes the need for you to take a look at wait a second. What did what caused that headache? Yeah, and so when we mask the the headache for example, I'm talking about a headache for a second What happens is instead of us saying wait a second. I didn't really cure it I didn't remove the the root of it. I just kind of numbed it for a little bit Then what happens is we're going to eat the same foods or we're going to not get enough sleep Or we're going to be dehydrated or whatever it caused it in the first place And then we are our go-to as we take more of the same and the exact same thing happens when we keep masking smells We're just masking it And so if you go into a home and you're cleaning someone's home and you walk in you know Something smells a little unusual in here. What is that because i'm looking around i'm not seeing anything Is there something that's dead inside one of the under the cabinets? Is there something that was left like in in one of the drawers or one of the bathrooms? And maybe it's like starting to turn moldy or mildew like what what is that smell and where is it coming from? And so if we don't keep masking the smells it's going to help us recognize things a whole lot sooner I know that one of the challenges that many homeowners have is mold in their homes And because they can't smell the mold they're like, oh, it's not there if I don't smell it It's not there or they're in denial if I can make it like not smell like that Then it's not there we've got these musty basements and you go in there and guess what? There's actually mold growing on the sides of the wall of your basement and that can really contribute to your illness and and poor health And so don't don't be just like spraying stuff like on the carpets and they're tv commercials I kid you not they're tv commercials and just like take this spray and spray it on your sofas and spray it You know on the the carpets and whatever and everything smells lovely again. Yeah, it's cured. It's not cured You're just masking it And so I'm really glad we had this conversation today because well, don't get me started because that's my rent too Yeah, but you're absolutely right You've got to get to the source of the problem because sometimes, you know, it's not just a bad smell It's actually something harmful. I mean if it's old if it's um, okay So one of my current identities right now is is cat wrangler. I I'm having an issue with my two female cats They're not happy with each other So I end up cleaning up some cat issues If I just you know mask that smell that would be like extremely unhygienic You have got to go and figure out where it's coming from and clean it. Don't just cover it up Um, I've got a couple of questions that have come in. I want to say hey to everybody that's jumped in and joined us here I really appreciate your comments today. Thanks for being here Ceto sky says I have multiple chemical sensitivities with cfs Slash me so I I'm always just used baking soda and unscented holistic cleaners. I'll be it Expensive so excited to learn new ways with old basics. I know that you have a whole Section on cleaning with baking soda and other things like that share with us a little bit about What some of the sensitivities are that we can remove by Cleaning with holistic or natural products and I say natural tongue and cheek I shouldn't have said that word, but you know, that's okay Safer products label. Yeah, exactly. Um, absolutely. Well, the thing is and it's it's funny because well, I I did write a new book A lot of this is old wisdom soap itself is a very old substance Mankind has known how to make soap for millennia. It's one of its oldest Like intentional chemical reactions And so so it is new but it's it's returning returning to the old So the the issue here is that a lot of cleaners You can actually be guided by hazard labels on them if they say they're harmful to the skin like that that means that that even accidental exposure or slight residues on surfaces that sort of thing is going to be a problem for somebody who's already sensitive Whether the sensitivity is diagnosed with a specific name or just they've noticed Something's not right there. Um, and so once again, we want to dial things back One of the reasons why I do Recommend, you know, keep it simple use natural soaps or or very mild detergents And your cleaning and things like baking soda vinegar is because they they Breakdown so easily not only in the environment, but also when they're exposed to our bodies And one of the problems with the more complex synthesized ingredients is That our bodies can't process them and they're very durable so a very very common ingredient in conventional cleaning products is Formaldehyde and you will not see this on a label. Nobody's going to say they put formaldehyde But there are many ingredients that are called formaldehyde releasers. They release formaldehyde into the solution Uh, the longer they sit in the in on the shelf and formaldehyde is Very irritating to the skin. It is a known cause of allergic contact dermatitis And so anybody who suffers from reactions easy reactions needs to look at whether their ingredients contain formaldehyde releasers And these are super common ingredients. We're talking quaternion compounds ureas that super long A preservative the mesoethylocythazolinones, which are the words that are this long. I know But you know, they're And it's only up to the consumer to look for them. There are no regulations against them Formaldehyde is also a known human carcinogen. That's a problem too, but honestly what you will notice first Uh is actually the allergic contact dermatitis. Um, and so, you know, keep it simple dial it back Don't use these complicated things that, you know, first of all, you might not have known that these ingredients release something like formaldehyde But if you if you dial it back to things that are closer to nature Things that are, you know, a mineral like baking soda and sodium bicarbonate It's a it's a very simple ingredient that Our bodies know what to do with and and when they come into contact with us, uh, that That don't cause this, you know, flare up of, you know Our body is trying to tell us that there's something wrong when it flares up when we have an inflammation or a reaction It's saying I don't recognize this and I don't know what to do with it. So do something um, and when we ignore those by you know, just Carrying on and doing what we've always done. Um, our body's gonna, you know, get really angry and sun off a bigger alarm Than than it did already. So to keep it simple There's no reason to use things that are really really complicated. Um, I am going against so much advertising and saying this I I have it a little easier. I live out in the country. We don't have cable We can't have cable and so I don't get, you know, television advertising Um, it's really hard to ignore the advertising that's telling you how easy it is to use this product How much you ought to use this product because it gets rid of all the germs um That that needs to be ignored and you need to look look at the ingredients, you know, learn for yourself Uh, unfortunately, there's nobody that's going to learn it for you And make your the decisions that are best for you and for your household And I want to add one thing to what Lisa just said because this is really important The words and it's true when you try to read the ingredients on the safety data sheets The words are like really long words I'm going to call them 20 words because they're huge and they're very hard to understand But they do have what's called a pictogram and the pictogram is a little tiny red triangle It's more or less a little warning label and it's usually in section two of the safety data sheet And so when you look at the safety data sheets and there's a little picture of like a guy and he's like choking to death That's like not a good sign and if his heart is exploding That's not a good sign and if they're like little dead fish that have popped out of the water That's not a good sign And so most of the pictograms will give you the hazard warning and you look at the picture like well Not good. Not good. Okay. So keep it simple But read the safety data sheets and what's really cool right now Is the safety data sheets by the globally harmonized system are pretty much available everywhere And so if you're thinking about a new cleaning chemical and you type in the safety data sheet on google because we all have our phones at our fingertips, right It will pop right up and you can look at all different 16 Sections of that and you can see exactly what the safety hazards are and you can see look at the storage and disposal Because that's a dead giveaway If it says something like Of this can't be thrown away in a regular trash can and you have to take it to the landfill Guess what? That's a safety concern because it can't be disposed of like a regular ph neutral chemical, right? That means it's got to go down there where there's somebody that's licensed and they're trained to separate that into a hazard chemical A chemical category So there are things like that that you have to be aware of and I I love the fact that we're having this conversation We do have a couple of questions. Uh, somebody asks Can I mix Don and Sal says And don is a dishwashing soap Yes. Yes. So, uh, as I said earlier, um ingredient There is no required ingredient disclosure of cleaning products across the united states California does have one And I do live in california. So it's a little different for me here but across the country there is not and so not even I as a manufacturer Of salcets knows what is in dawn So I can't speak specifically to the interaction of dawn and salcets, but honestly, I don't know why you would want to mix the two There's nothing that dawn can do on its own that salcets can't and there's nothing that dawn will benefit salcets By mixing the two together. So best to use them separately There is no secret database that I have access to that tells me what's in dawn unless they choose to disclose it Which you know other companies like like dr. Ronits have done. So and so But best don't mix cleaners and you don't need to mix dawn into salcets I have a personal philosophy and i'm glad that you brought that up I have a personal philosophy about safety data sheets and what the disclosure is If I see a product and there's a really popular product on the market right now And I won't use it and I won't use it because I don't know what's inside and they have a really vague Safety data sheet and it's like it's got good stuff in it and like how much of what we won't tell you And i'm like oh and i'm not going to use it because I don't know what's inside And that to me is really scary and if you're not scared, you should be because we live in an era right now Where they're starting to make check this out soda pops that are crystal clear They're removing the colors from them and they're removing the dyes And they're removing a lot of the stuff that has been known to cause angst in our bodies We are becoming more consciously aware as a society that all of the chemicals stacking on top of each other on top of each other From laundry soaps to shampoos to deodorants to all the different stuff we use in our homes It's becoming a toxic world that we live in and I say it's becoming it's already a toxic world But please and this was this was great that lisa brought this up if if you don't need two soaps Don't don't use two soaps if you're going to use them use them individually But don't use them both together not necessary But I do want to say something about cell suds since I got it right here And it happens to be the house cleaners favorite soap of all time for hardwood floors And literally and i'm not kidding one drop one drop in your mop bucket Do not use a squirt or you'll have suds everywhere But tell us why this is so effective and why it makes hardwood floors shine Yeah, absolutely. So cell suds was a was a product that my dad came up with in 1975 My dad was a chemist a self trained chemist he's he went to the school of curiosity and trial and error and he developed cell suds as A result of his frustration with hard water in los angeles and castile soap all soaps react with hard water They're fine. You it's the harmless reaction that doesn't cause any problems except that it leaves water spots And it can make fabrics stiff or anything that's supposed to be absorbent like a towel Would be stiff. And so he was he was really frustrated with the hard water in LA and so he wanted to come up with a cleaner that was super effective no matter how hard your water was And cell suds was the result of that. He's still he's still wanted it to be extremely mild extremely Concentrated so that it was valuable And a little bit goes a long way And so he's very careful about the blend of surfactants that he put in it. And so it is a it is a detergent But it's not I mean you never can make a generalization that soap is good detergent is bad because there could be good and bad of both But it's a detergent which means the molecule is much more stable. It doesn't react with hard water And that it um, but that it's also still extremely mild and it's not it's not too aggressive on on skin or On your surfaces and so the ingredients that he He put in there are just the right blend that they grab anything any oil And they are extremely clean rinsing and they leave no residues behind so hardwood floors It's fantastic on them all floors. I have a blend of hardwood and tile in my house I actually also have carpet and just this morning I was using my carpet cleaner with that one Drop of salsas. I promise you do not need more. You will have And you never want to leave a cleaner on your floor because a cleaner a surfactant like uh, Like salsas or castile. So it holds on to dirt. That's what it does. That's how it works It holds on to dirt and then when you rinse it it rinses it away But if you leave it there and you don't rinse it away, then you've just got the the cleaner holding onto dirt sitting there And if more dirt comes along it's going to hold on to more dirt and then the surface actually will get dirty or So you always want to make sure you get all the cleaner off of it So salsas is all I use for laundry for floors for my car for my dishes Anything in my house that needs washing I wash it with salsas my painted walls All of that Yay, and that's not what this conversation was about but because I know there's so many people that are so In love with salsas. I had to bring that up And so somebody asks and it's myra and she says is this something I can use to clean floors that may not cause harm to my dogs Absolutely. Yes. I mean first of all, it's it you need so little of it to clean your floor So there will not be very much uh very much there. Uh, and then it is extremely clean rinsing That's why it was a feature my dad was most concerned about And so it does not leave a residue there. Uh, the scent of salsas is from two essential oils spruce and fir And it makes a nice light pine scent, but there's nothing in it that makes it Enduring like I was talking earlier. Uh, it also rinses away In fact, some people say I wish yourself said let's stick around and we're like it's designed not to stick around It's designed to be clean rinsing. So, um, so it would be it would be excellent for Not leaving any residues that could harm dogs or cats or babies or Anything that would be in contact with the surface afterwards And speaking of babies, I remember one time inside a lethal store I'm walking inside the lethal and I see that in the baby section They have some castile soap from dr. Bronner's and I got so excited took a picture and I sent it to Lisa And I'm like, oh my gosh, you guys are in my lethal and she's like, I know we're everywhere I love it. Well, my grandfather made the the unscented at the request of the uc la maternity ward because they wanted an unscented castile soap um for use uh with their patients and And so he he already had the peppermint lavatory eucalyptus at the time I think and so he just pulled the essential oils out simple simple soap very simple And there was our unscented. So it was returning to its home by being in the baby section I wanted to go back to the topic of ingredients He just mentioned because another thing that uh is out there is this sort of faux disclosure It's like a fake disclosure. You see an ingredient list. So you think oh, it tells me the ingredients But then if you read it, they're not ingredients they're categories. So it'll say ingredients surfactant preservative fragrance But it doesn't tell you which surfactant or which preservative and there there are Of range huge range within these categories. So what are they not telling you? Why are they not willing to tell you what? The specific ingredients are and why are they trying to fool you into thinking? Oh, we're disclosing our ingredients when they're really not even if that says natural surfactant Not even quite sure what that would mean, but um, you know, it's just another thing that consumers have to be savvy about And in your book you talk about something really interesting You talk about longer lasting chemicals and washaway chemicals as in shampoo for your hair For example, is it something that i'm going to put in my hair that i'm going to wash it away? Or is it something that like conditioner or a leave-in conditioner or something that i'm going to leave on for a long period of time? Tell us a little bit about that because that was incredibly fascinating When you talk about the different chemicals that linger in your home Right exactly. Well, when when you're just getting started, especially in looking at your products and your ingredients It can be really overwhelming. Where do I start? I always want people to start with the products that they're exposed to the most and those are For personal care our leave-on products the ones that we put on and they stay for the day our deodorant our lotions our makeup Uh sunscreen things that you know, it's not just we're washing with soap You know, we can barely make it the 20 seconds to wash our hands and and then we rinse it off I think it's important to look at those too, but but more important to start with the ones that are leave-on all day uh, and then as you talked about uh earlier talking about the layering and the um, the cocktail effect of our Of our chemicals, uh, so you may look at your deodorant and say oh these all look just fine You may then look at your lotion of these all look just fine. Um, but there are some ingredients that are fine Unless they're combined with other ingredients and if you don't look at how those two are going to interact Then um, you know, you could be thinking this is fine and this is fine. Therefore, I could put them together Just like we were talking you can't combine cleaning products. You just have to be careful I'm not saying don't wear both lotion and deodorant, but you know pay attention to both And and how they might interact with each other. Uh the same thing with what we have around our houses The things that we use the most that's where you should start with Cleaning up your products take a look at them. What's a product to use the most it might be your laundry detergent We are in constant contact with our with our fabrics. We wear them. We sleep on them. We try with them Most of us are contacting fabric at every moment of the day So laundry detergent is one that you should look at our is it leaving residues that are constantly touching me And is this you know, is this is this residue going to cause a problem with my body? Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow, but every day over the years The constant exposure is your body someday going to say enough So look at those ingredients do a little research There are some great resources out there that'll help you break down all the complex Ingredients the environmental working group has a great healthy cleaning database A lot of people know their skin deep database, which is for personal care But they also have a healthy cleaning database which will help Breakdown you can put in a product if it's a popular enough one They have about 20,000 products in there now. It's pretty big They'll specifically tell you, you know, what the concerns are with the different ingredients And then, you know, of course learning from people who have already dived into this already Angela your your stream if you yeah itself is helping people to To just dissect all of this crazy information that's out there Well, it is crazy, but the cool part is in your new book soap and soul You have lab code experiments. Tell us about that Oh, this is where I was having some fun. And so I thought well, you know I know I'm a complete nerd when it comes to chemistry But maybe there'll be somebody else out there that would like to know I don't just like being told what to do. I like finding out for myself Why and how and so I put these lab coat moments in the book where you can do experiments That with very normal stuff around the house to teach various And understand the various chemical concepts that I'm talking about For example, don't mix ingredients There is a lab coat moment where I intentionally have you combine castile soap and vinegar I want you to see what it does. I want you to feel it. It's not dangerous. It's just messy Same thing with castile soap and epsom salt a very common, you know, therapeutic remedy people say or a bath to take Put your your castile soap and your epsom salts in your bathtub and have a soap Don't do that again. Not dangerous just messy and really really bad for your pipes Because functionally what you're creating is what we call soap scum except you're creating it in mass From the reaction between the magnesium in the epsom salts and the castile soap And so but these are controlled experiments in which I have you do these things I have the reader do these things so they can see for themselves what's happening and understand The greater impact of these, uh, you know, I do all of these in my kitchen I've actually got one going on in my kitchen right now. I'm looking at the various Cloudy points of the soap where the soap turns turns white My family doesn't even question when they find, you know, mason jars of soap in the fridge As long as I've labeled them which I did this time sometimes there's Lisa again Yeah, did you know that graded bar soap looks a lot like cheese? It's awesome. Yes. Oh, that's funny We've got so many questions here you guys and our time is running out So we're gonna have to come back and I'm gonna ask Lisa if she will jump in later Whenever she gets a chance and answer some questions that are coming through here I'm gonna go back through this stream and I'm gonna answer as many of them as I can in the notes below There are some really valid questions that I want to pay attention to Can the salcettes be used on fake wood and laminate floors the answers? Yes, absolutely Somebody says can I use it on laminate flooring? We got a lot of the same kinds of questions Somebody said I never heard of salcettes. Where is it sold? It is available and I believe all of your online retailers So check them out. It's available in all of your health food stores. It's now everywhere and like I said It's in 42 countries. So even if you're across the pond and you're our friends from far far away You can find it as well. I've seen it. I've taken pictures in stores over in london and I sent them to Lisa I'm like look you're everywhere. She's like, I know it's really awesome. So Is it available online? Yes, it is and so if you are in a rural area like my mom and dad You can have it shipped to you as well And so there you guys have some fantastic questions And I really appreciate that you've asked those questions of us here today because I want to make sure that we do get those answered So I do want to highlight the fact that Lisa's book is now available And it is let me see if I got a picture of it here. Yes, there it is and that is um I got a comment here. I'm trying to minimize Hang on one second But I Lisa will you tell us where people can go to get a copy of your book? Yes, so soap and soul is sold in in booksellers everywhere. So your favorite one Barnes and Noble amazon books a million Target.com is also selling it. We're selling it through the dr. Bronner website as well And it is available in a hardcover an e-book and an audiobook And I got to read the audiobook for it myself, which was super fun too. Oh, that's so awesome I'm so proud of you for that. That's fantastic. That's where I learned to pronounce. I wrote I had to read my own writing I was like, who wrote this and I'm having to say in a mess. So I thought science all alone I got um, well, there you go for writing it But I'm so proud of you for writing this book This is a book that is long overdue And I want to highlight the fact that it's got a bunch of really awesome personal stories in there that make you go Oh, wait a second That's me and it tells a story that I think many of us can relate to at the different phases of our journey And lisa said one thing that I want to leave you with today She said start where you are today and make a tiny change and then make another tiny change You don't have to change everything at once But as you're starting to pay attention to changing a fragrance or changing out a particular cleaning chemical For one that doesn't have the dyes or the formaldehyde or whatever start out with one Remove it and change it and then go on to the next one start small start where you are and then move out That's right. That's right. It's the best we can do start where we are with what we have and then Take the next step after that All right soap and soul book dot com. This is lisa brawner. You guys i'm so excited Thank you for joining us today and thank you lisa for your time and attention. You are amazing Well, thank you so much antelah. It was a my privilege to be here