What Makes Us Different

We've all seen the memes of people who are knocked out in their bathrooms after using some toxic cocktail of cleaning products.  Good Vibes is often tagged on those posts and there are scores of comments from people who can relate to that experience.  I once read a comment about how it caused the death of someone's aunt and it made me so sad that this was normalized for us. 

This is no laughing matter to me.  There was nothing funny about seeing my 2-year-old struggling to breathe during a cleaning product-induced asthma attack.  That experience was scary as hell and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.  It is my why.  It is the reason I started making my own cleaning products. But it was what I learned on that journey that prompted me to create Good Vibes All Purpose Cleaner and share my gift with the world.

After I started making my own cleaning products, I noticed that my nose would get irritated if I stayed in the cleaning aisle of the grocery store too long.  It was so irritating that I would rush through shopping in that aisle (they often place paper products in the same corridor) or just avoid it altogether.  I wondered why it never irritated me before and realized that it probably did, and my body was just used to it, normalizing the reaction. 

In addition to the overpowering aromas, using toxic cleaning products can cause respiratory distress, headaches, and skin issues for people with sensitivities.  And that’s just from using one product. We, in the African-American community, have a tendency to make cocktails of different products to clean with.  We out here "seasoning" our bathtubs, with layers of different products, just to get them clean.  So, not only are these cleaners toxic, they don't work, and they run the risk of knocking you unconscious or putting you in the hospital when you mix them to make them work. 

Then, after cleaning with these toxins, what do we do? We burn candles and incense to cover up the chemical odors and open all the windows in the house to air it out, allowing all of our good heating and air conditioning to escape out the windows with it 🤦🏾‍♀️.  This is unacceptable. We shouldn't have to do all this to clean.  Cleaning should be more simplified than this. We should be able to clean using simple ingredients that work on a variety of surfaces, with products that do not cause us harm and are reasonably priced.  So why is it like this? Who came up with the idea that using toxic chemicals was the only way to clean?

While creating the Good Vibes brand, I realized that it really isn't expensive to make safer cleaning products that work well.  I have pretty good profit margins with Good Vibes.  I know because whenever I share my margins with my business coaches they all have the same positive reaction.  I realized that big companies use toxic chemicals to create cleaning products because they are cheaper to produce and come with enormous profit margins. But, those profits are being made at the risk of our health and safety.  I'm going to write that again.  The profits being made by us continuing to use toxic cleaning products come at the risk to our health and safety. Our personal health, the health of our children and pets, and the health of the planet when we pour that shit down the sink. At the end of the day, it's just not worth it.  We deserve better.

 We deserve to use cleaning products with simple ingredients that we can identify and pronounce.  We deserve to use cleaning products that don’t compromise our health or the well-being of the planet.  We deserve to save money by using one cleaning product that does all the jobs, well.  We deserve cleaning products that make us feel good about using them, not only because of their safe ingredients but because they smell naturally good, not so overpowering and toxic that it irritates our nose or gives us a headache.  Cleaning is something that we all have to do, and we all deserve better cleaning products.

That's why I forged ahead and created this brand. I could have continued making my own products for my household alone.  But, as I did more research and talked to my friends and family about Good Vibes as an idea, I knew I needed to share this with the world and I am happy I did.  Building a business is challenging, but when I hear from our customers about how Good Vibes has changed the way they clean, how they feel about cleaning, and how much healthier they feel, it gives me the fuel I need to keep going.  My goal for this business is to one day join the big boys, but to do so, with integrity.

How has Good Vibes All Purpose Cleaner changed the way you clean?