How Smells Clean came to be ........
So we thought we would give a little bit of the story behind Smells Clean. It’s been quite a journey to get to where we are today.
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Once upon a time, there were three people all with a similar passion but they’d just not yet come together.......
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This is the story of how Smells Clean was dreamt up after three of the QuarterFounders came to a meeting of minds.
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Founder One: One of the Founders sold her house and she had to take on a rented house for a few months whilst house hunting. A pretty common tale there. But when she moved into the rented house, she spent the first month cleaning it! Now, it wasn’t because it was dirty. It was just because it wasn’t hers. It had been a family house before, really well lived in, well looked after, but the nooks and crannies were a little dusty and some of the areas a little too care worn.
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Founder One is definitely the ecowarrier and carer of the group and likes nothing better than to help people, make people feel better, rescue hedgehogs and generally is a compassionate soul!
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It was some week into the cleaning extravaganza that she found the smells and the chemicals in the cleaning products she was using, just overwhelming. The chemical-based cleaners were harsh, smelt synthetic and brought on the odd headache. But the so called ‘eco cleaners’ just didn’t cut the mustard (or cut through the dirt, to be more precise). And, to be honest, they smelt pretty hideous. So once the cleaning was over, she found herself lighting candles to cover over the smell of the chemical cleaners. This is when she had a bit of a light-bulb moment and just thought, why do cleaning products need to smell so rubbish and the ones that do smell ok, don’t really work. Why can’t we just have less chemicals and formulas that smell beautiful? That way, we can light a candle or a wax melt because we want to scent our houses, not cover over the raggedy smell of the bathroom cleaner.
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Then the research came. Months’ worth, in fact. It turns out that a very small group of companies own the majority of the cleaning products in the UK. And what was a little alarming was that some of what looks like, small eco cleaning products are actually owned by the large corporates, who were masquerading as small companies that cared.
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Then came the ingredients research. Well, it turns out that the majority of forms do not tell us what is in the bottles. OK, so they give us the basics, like ‘ionic surfactant’ or ‘fragrance’ but what the heck are they?
It doesn’t take an ecowarrior to work out that they could be hiding ingredients that they’re not too proud to display.
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Founder Two: So off she went to speak to one of her friends who just happened to be an organic chemist, looking for advice. Many cups of coffee later and confusing chemist talk, a plan started to hatch. It turns out that chemist wanted to become Founder number two. Why? Because he had been developing formulas 20 years ago as a student that would solve the problems of less toxins, better cleaning and more pure home products. But no one really listened to him as, at that time, companies wanted cheap chemical products, not the more robust formulas that he wanted to blend. So he had shelved the concept and moved on. It was time to get the formula down from the shelf and dust it off. This really excited Founder Two as he’s the analytic one, loves the detail and the why/how things work!
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Founder Three: And that is where Founder number three came in. Just as perfect storms work, founder three found herself in a bit of a pickle. Quite the sensitive type (no not her, she’s quite feisty, but her reaction to things) she found more and more that she wasn’t able to use certain household products. There was an ingredient in cleaners and some cosmetic products that was triggering a huge allergic reaction in her. And it didn’t need to be actually in contact with her skin, she just needed to be in the same atmosphere, so something must be irritating her. But when she went hunting for the ingredients lists, the information wasn’t there. Some companies asked her why she wanted the ingredients before they would release them to her, others had their data sheets so buried on the internet that it would have taken the head of Google to hunt them out. That made her really uncomfortable that these firms were not forthcoming about the products that she was inviting into her home. That didn’t feel right. But what she really was keen on was honest and pure products, good ethics and good business. And of course being quite feisty she wasn’t happy and wanted to change things.
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So on one typically rainy day, two of the Founders were talking, the third joined then for coffee and hey presto, the perfect storm of minds happened.
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The agreement was to find a way to bring tough but natural cleaning products to the market that smell as good as the candles you want around your home. To build a small business that is also rugged enough to take on some of the bigger brands and be able to hold its own.
And then we started blending, to find just the right products that we know you love today……………………………..
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Now, you’re probably thinking hang on..... “QuarterFounders” so where is number four?
Quarter Four is our families, they’re right behind us and are our rocks! Without their patience, help and belief in us, Smells Clean just wouldn’t have happened. But more than that, our families include our ace bookkeeper, our legal eagle, another scientist and last but not least the most amazing builder of stock room, fulfilment area and lab! Everyone chips in! We’re on our journey together.
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We are Passionate, We are Resilient
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We are Eco Friendly
We are Smells Clean!
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