Feeling Stuck on Your Health Journey? Start Here w/ Allison Evans and Kelly Love

18:59Allison Evans:And the thing about skin absorption is it's not going to the site that it's absorbed. It is literally becoming a systemic absorption. So it's not just staying on. It's like when you rub garlic on the bottom of your feet, you can taste it in your mouth within a few minutes. So I just think it's really important that people understand the long term effects of laundry. Even when I walk into a home, like apart from the towels and the things that you're actually laundering, those laundry chemicals, they contain phthalates. They have that sticking, staying power. And they are literally manufactured, designed to adhere to your sheetrock, to your fabric.

19:33Allison Evans:Yes, I mean, to your wood, to your books. If you're using dryer sheets or a strong laundry detergent, like some of these conventional brands, and you were to like bring a bunch of books out of your house, I could smell your laundry on your books. because that's how sensitive I am.

19:45Kelly Love:Have you ever traveled and stayed in a place, you know, where there was fragrant laundry detergent, and then you get home and your clothes and suitcases aren't even touching the bed, the sheets, the towels, smells like the laundry detergent.

19:58Allison Evans:That's true. Right? Again, until you remove yourself, you don't smell it. So we have a lot of people that say, okay, I finally broke away from the laundry detergent that I grew up with, and when I went back to my parents' house and I spent the night over the weekend, I could not.

20:11Kelly Love:Or even my brother-in-law, who I got to switch, He's like, now when I run the trail, I can smell other people's laundry detergent as they run by. But before that, he could never smell it. You know, before I, like, challenged him and got him to change. So, yes, you are absorbing it and you're inhaling it. So it's a double whammy.

20:26Allison Evans:So one of the biggest complaints I get from people in DMs is like, okay, I swapped to a better laundry soap, but my clothes still stink. Like, how do I get the smell out of these clothes? Or they still smell mildewy or dingy or so what do you say? They try Branch Basics laundry detergent.

20:42Kelly Love:And sometimes there is kind of this process where you're like detoxing from the previous detergents that it can sometimes take multiple washes. Like I'm talking like 10 at least washes to get all of that residue out. So sometimes it's as simple as just staying the course and getting all the residue out. Sometimes you could add a cup of vinegar in there and that'll really help. And then use the sun.

21:08Allison Evans:Having high quality essential oil. I mean, we tell people it's best to just go fragrance-free with laundry. That's not the place to get your scent. And I think there's such a muscle memory kind of involved with, oh, but I grew up with this smell. And so that connotes clean. But the more that we can actually understand and kind of create those new neural pathways of separating the smell, the suds, that kind of feedback from the clean. Because the fragrance and that kind of feedback neurologically is not the cleaning power. Right. Right.

21:36Kelly Love:But I mean, our concentrate was like, which was our hero product, the one we came out with first. It's great for laundry if you're just doing simple clothes that are, you know, not super sweaty or dingy, like you're saying. But now we do have a laundry detergent that is more optimal for the heavy stains, the heavy duty sweating, all that. So I'm actually launched in Target. I think it also depends, you know, like what, which laundry detergent you're using for which need. So that's important.

22:03Allison Evans:Well, that's exciting at Launched in Target. it. Congrats. I want that to play against all the big names out there that we know. I'm excited for it. I keep like cheering it on. I'm like, I think people are going to like it.

22:13Kelly Love:We've stayed direct to consumer for many years because we are an education first company. We love to educate through our blog, through our newsletters, through our Instagram. But we finally feel like we've reached a point where, yeah, we're ready to go into retail. And so it's really exciting. That is exciting.

22:26Allison Evans:Yeah. We're on the same path, an education company. Okay. So if you could talk to a college student right now because I have four kids that are college age. I've been to their dorms, their apartments. They all use the scented laundry. What would you tell them? A simple thing of, girls, this is why you need to stop using scented laundry. What would you tell them? I would say that back in the earlier 2000s, I would say about half of our friends struggled to get pregnant. And we are having an epidemic of hormone-related issues. And that is everything from horrible PMS, mood swings, to infertility, to ovarian, testosterone.

23:07Allison Evans:I mean, there's all these types of endocrine cancers. And when study after study show that the daily use items, because laundry is a daily use, you don't escape it, are more impactful on our hormones than genetics, than a massive kind of one-time exposure. And I think really helping them understand like you can save yourself from so much potential heartache now and in the future by switching these products that we're not telling you to go change everything in your pantry or go on an elimination diet or go on a fast. I mean, this is kind of the easy stuff. You know, no one's really truly addicted to their laundry detergent.

23:44Allison Evans:Some are. My friends have like changed their food. They've changed cleaning supplies.

23:50Kelly Love:They cannot change their laundry detergent. I would tell them that there actually are chemicals in the products, in our laundry products, that are designed to make us neurologically dependent. So basically addicted to these chemicals. So what I found shocking was that products that are unscented don't necessarily mean free of fragrance chemicals. So even the unscented or the free and clear products can include these synthetic fragrance chemicals as long as they're not in there for the purpose of adding a scent. So they are added a lot of times to mask like a chemical odor or to enhance this neurological dependency because they know that scents activate certain parts of our brain.

24:34Kelly Love:So again, I think it's all about just challenging someone to just take a period of time, whatever is manageable to them. And with laundry, it is hard because like Allison said, these chemicals linger. So we have a blog post all about like detoxing your washer and dryer. So like when you are ready to take that challenge and switch, like it's worth taking a little bit of time to clean out your washer and dryer, like spray it with range basics and maybe add some vinegar or hydrogen peroxide. But if you can just do that and maybe buy yourself like some inexpensive cotton sheets and cotton T-shirt to sleep in, then that's going to speed up that detox process.

25:10Kelly Love:And then once they get that removal and then go back, I think they'll be hooked. Hopefully.

25:17Allison Evans:Hopefully. I know. Okay, so let's talk to some college-age boys out there. Do we think that laundry soap could play a role in their sperm count? I was going to say, talk to you about the sperm count. Well, sperm antistechs. That's just a study that shows that the men that have the top 10 % of BPA in their semen have basically zero sperm count. Like, that's wild. That is crazy.

25:41Kelly Love:Everyone needs to go watch this new documentary. It just came out a few days ago called The Plastic Detox. and I think that will help wake up a lot of people. So yes, she talks all about the sperm counts and infertility rates and how these everyday products, exactly what we're talking about right now. And so hopefully it will become more aware, more kind of trendy to stop using these products and more college students will start to get on the trend.

26:07Allison Evans:Well, having three college age kids, boys, I should say, their friends are always talking about their testosterone levels. And I know that people are talking about that these guys have lower testosterone levels these days. But we've got to relate that to their laundry soap. I think this is a good direct connection for a man, a boy. I think the muscle building that has become so trendy, and I love that trend. It's amazing. So just to show the impact of these everyday chemicals, they are literally androgen blocking. So they are mimicking our hormones. They attach to our hormone receptor sites. They raise our estrogen and they block testosterone.

26:42Allison Evans:So they're lowering sperm count. They were they're lower lowering muscle mass. They are increasing fatigue. So when you just think about it from that way, I mean, even things like man boobs, I'm sorry, but these are not normal things that are happening to our men. They are feminizing men in many ways because they are raising estrogen and lowering testosterone. So I think that is something that just showing kind of more the mechanism by which things are happening when our body's introduced to these things.

27:09Kelly Love:Also, have you heard of the Hermosa study? I think that's an encouraging one to tell people, especially young kids, because in three days, these girls, after switching to less toxic personal care products, so phthalate, paraben-free, et cetera, their urine levels showed a massive decline of these chemicals. So it doesn't take long. Like a lot of these plastic chemicals, the good thing about those is that our body releases those pretty quickly. Yeah, they're ubiquitous.

27:38Allison Evans:They're everywhere, but they're transient. So as soon as we stop using them, they leave the body. They're not like PFOS that are not as a compliment, but they stay forever. So there's a lot of hope in this message. And I hope that people that are listening can understand that the reason that they're in our body is because they're never not being introduced. Right. And as soon as we stop, they just dump. So we just need to tell the boys that the tide is causing their lower testosterone. Yes. And their lower muscle mass. Yes. There you go. And it's a weird thing for someone to hear like, what? My tight is lowering my testosterone?

28:11Allison Evans:Like, that doesn't make sense. Yeah. But I know how weird it sounds because back in the day when I was dealing with depression, my doctor was like, maybe your body lotion is playing a role in your hormones. And I was like, my body lotion? Like, what in the world does that have to do with anything? And then that's when I started a health journey. So I understand that.

28:30Kelly Love:Yeah. People don't realize how much these chemicals impact our mood, our emotions, not just, you know, things like fertility and cancer.

28:39Allison Evans:Let's take a quick break to hear from our show sponsor. You use cleaning products every day on counters, floors, and even your clothes. But do you really know what's in them and how they affect your health? Many products look clean but contain chemicals linked to hormone disruption, skin irritation, and respiratory issues. In the U.S., cleaning brands don't even have to list every ingredient, so you may be spraying and washing with things you'd never knowingly bring into your home. That's where Branch Basics comes in. This female-founded brand makes safe, toxin-free cleaning simple. Their premium starter kit has one plant and mineral-based concentrate that becomes laundry detergent, glass cleaner, bathroom cleaner, and even pet wash and veggie rinse.

29:22Allison Evans:It's safe for babies, pets, and anyone wanting a healthier home. I love when one swap makes a big impact and decreases the number of products I need to purchase. Branch Basics is now available everywhere you shop at Target, Amazon, and BranchBasics.com. Tossing the toxins has never been more convenient. If you want to try the Premium Starter Kit today and get 15 % off, head to BranchBasics.com and use my code JUSTINGREDIENTS15 for 15 % off your first order. Again, that's Just Ingredients 15 for 15 % off your starter kit and free shipping at branchbasics.com. Now back to the show. So let me ask you something else about laundry soap, and then I want to talk about cleaning supplies.

30:09Allison Evans:But on laundry soap, I've noticed that if you go to some of these apps, right, that tell you how good laundry soaps are, that they will rate different scores on different apps, obviously. but that on one app a certain brand will show 10 ingredients and on another app it will show only three ingredients and i'm learning that the three ingredients are like the three that are listed if it shows 10 it's that they've gone in and researched actually some of the ingredients that are hidden on the label that actually aren't on the label so laundry soap you can hide ingredients.

30:46Kelly Love:Is that true? Yes, we do nine with cleaning products. I mean, even our concentrate, when we were formulating that with the chemists, we actually overheard a side conversation and picked up on the fact that one of the ingredients they had used, this is when we were formulating in the R &D process, one of the ingredients they had used had an ingredient that we had specified we didn't want. And so we asked about it and they said, oh, it's such a small quantity. It doesn't even have to be listed on the label. It's actually like a preservative for that other ingredient that is going to be listed on the label.

31:17Kelly Love:And we're like, no, no, no, we don't even want that, you know? And so even in cleaning products, it's not just laundry. That can absolutely happen.

31:26Allison Evans:Yeah, that is crazy to me. I think it should be against the law. Like if it's in the product, we should know it's in the product.

31:31Kelly Love:At the end of the day, you just have to, you have to find a company that you trust to be fully transparent. Because otherwise, like Allison said, it's all self-regulated and you're at the whim of whatever, you know.

31:42Allison Evans:Well, we used to think the dose made the poison, right? But the new toxicology model really flips that entire argument on its head because now we understand the power of epigenetics and how, like Kelly was saying, that drop in the Olympic size pool. But it's not a message of overwhelm. It's really actually sometimes nicknamed the science of hope because it does show just how much we actually can control and override genetic expression. You know, so we used to think we were just at the mercy of our genes, but really it's the genes load the gun. We decide if the trigger is pulled by the choices that we make.

32:16Allison Evans:And so people say, oh, well, it's just a little bit, just a small amount, but it's those little bits and small amounts on a daily basis that are actually contributing to chronic illness. And so by cutting things out and not worrying about the things we can't control, I don't worry when I go to a restaurant and they're spraying, you know, a toxic cleaner on the table next to me or if I'm at a gym working out and because I'm coming home to a house that is free of those things and my body is resilient and it's going to start dumping those things.

32:42Kelly Love:And the beautiful thing is once you do that once, you don't have to do it again. You don't have to keep thinking about it. You know, with food, you got to think about it every day, multiple times. But the power of removing harmful chemicals in our homes, that's like, oh, you can do it all. Just put it in a box and put it outside. You don't even have to throw it away. And it's done,

32:59Allison Evans:you know okay so let's talk about cleaners like all-purpose cleaners because we love yours that's what we use but so many people again i have friends right i've got friends on all different parts of their health journey i have friends have changed up their food and are exercising and focusing on sleep and things like that but they don't want to change their cleaners they're like no the toilet bowl cleaner works really well like the shower one works really well i don't want to get rid of it. It's just fast, easy, quick. And what do you say to that? I think it is like, sorry to call your friends old dogs, but it's old dogs and tricks, you know?

33:34Allison Evans:And it really is. It's like we grow up with these things. We associate the smell, the suds, that feedback, that sensory feedback. We associate that with clean. We walk into our house if we have a housekeeper once a week. And if we don't smell that smell, we're like, did she come? Did she not do her job? Whatever, you know, whatever that kind of like connection that we have made. But we have to form new neural pathways. We have to learn new things. We have to understand that just because we haven't tried something doesn't mean that it doesn't work. And just because it's natural doesn't mean that it doesn't work.

34:03Allison Evans:It's not the chemicals in a product that are creating the efficacy. It's really the chemistry. Lye, soap, you know, that we've been using for thousands of years. The CDC still says that that is the number one way of tackling germs is by using soap and water or a gentle surfactant. That was the consensus even during COVID. Don't go use a sanitizer because here's what's happening is it's making these claims, disinfectant sanitizers. They contain EPA-registered pesticides, which is shocking. So you are buying the organic food. You're not spraying your yard, but then you're literally spraying small doses of pesticides around your home in order to keep it clean.

34:42Allison Evans:Oh, my gosh. A lot of people don't realize that. Which is crazy. Yeah. And so a disinfectant or a sanitizer is killing 99 % of germs. Well, what's the 1 % left behind? It's the strongest germs. And those are the ones that are going to duplicate, replicate, permutate, create the antibiotic resistance and decimate our microbiome. When you remove germs by using a soap or a surfactant and mechanically spray a surface and wipe or spray a toilet bowl and rinse with the cleaner or water, you are actually removing 100 % of the germs. There's not anything left behind, and it's not killing the good bacteria in your gut.

35:19Allison Evans:So there's really no need for these harsh disinfectants around the home. So interesting, because especially during COVID, everybody used a disinfectant for everything. So you're just saying soap and water is a much better choice. Exactly.

35:33Kelly Love:If you do need a disinfectant, even just for peace of mind, then we recommend using vinegar and hydrogen peroxide. Never mixed in the same bottle, but you can spray them separately on the surface, one after another, and that has been shown to be as equivalent to bleach. Oh, interesting.

35:50Allison Evans:Okay, so let's talk about these disinfectant wipes then. So they're not removing anything. They're just spreading stuff around and maybe killing some of it. And here's the deal. If you read the fine print, they're not actually designed to remove the dirt and the grime. They're not for cleaning. It's actually recommended to clean first. Clean the surface first and then disinfect. Who does that? No one's doing that. You're using the wipes for kind of that all-in-one. And again, it's like throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's burning down the barn to kill the rats. You are getting rid of all of that good bacteria that your body needs to fight.

36:21Allison Evans:Yeah, these chemicals do not discriminate. They don't only go after the bad bacteria. Right. And more and more studies are showing homes that rely on heavy disinfectants actually have children with the highest rates of asthma and allergies. So, I mean, Kelly and I, Kelly's even married to a doctor who was on the COVID team, and they never used a disinfectant in their home during COVID. And, you know, it's just not necessary. They were never meant for the home. They were meant for chemical warfare. And if we need to have them in some hospitals, of course, so be it. But they're not, absolutely not meant for daily use in the home.

36:53Kelly Love:Yeah. And they're only like 50 to 100 years old. You know, like we're the guinea pigs. This has not been around for hundreds of years. And so I think. Because hundreds of years ago, they used soap and water. Exactly. So it really all came with the age of chemistry, you know, after World War II. And so there are just a lot of unintended consequences. And so now we are learning more. We're waking up and it's up to us to kind of undo some of these marketing beliefs that we've, you know, we formed since we were children.

37:25Allison Evans:Well, again, it's not hippie or fringe. This is the CDC actually saying this is the best way to attack germs.

37:32Kelly Love:And I just want to share something real quick that I think is really encouraging and hopeful. So we took four people and in 10 days, they were in a fragrance-free environment, ate only real foods. We basically did like a mini version of our summer with Marilee. We call it the 10 days day. 10 days day. And after one night of sleeping in a fragrance-free environment, someone that had lifelong asthma has not used an inhaler since. Her asthma was gone. Wow.

37:57Allison Evans:She was using it since she was about four years old. Like four. Yeah. Like six times a day. And she has not used it since in two years. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. Okay. So back to these cleaners. You're cleaner than Branch Basics. Is it just soap then? It's actually a surfactant. So what a surfactant does is it makes water wetter. If you think about like a magnet with two sides, it grabs the dirt and it grabs the water. And it is able to kind of bridge the gap between those two and allow, basically allow it to be wiped away.

38:27Kelly Love:So we have decoglucoside and cocoglucoside. And those are both European Union gentle surfactants derived from natural ingredients. And so those are kind of the biggest like cleaning power or like soap, like Allison was talking about. And then an organic chamomile extract, sodium citrate, sodium bicarbonate, which is like baking soda. And so we really have a short ingredient list in our concentrate. And our concentrate is what you use for everything. So you don't have to go research an oven cleaner and a glass cleaner and an all-purpose or toilet cleaner. Sometimes that takes people to kind of a little bit to wrap their mind around.

39:01Kelly Love:Like, can I use the same thing on my hand tops as my toilet, as my baby? I literally wash my babies with it. Remove your eye makeup with it? Because it's not soap. It's not going to stain your eyes. So my baby has absolutely a bit of a stain on your stains. So it's actually very convenient and very minimal, which is nice. Helps you declutter. So those are just some added benefits. But really, that one hero product, our concentrate, has very minimal ingredients and can be used for a wide variety of uses. And so it allows you to get rid of the 30 different cleaning products you might have under your sink or scattered around your home.

39:35Allison Evans:People do have a hard time with that because when I show it, they're like, well, yeah, it's great for counters, but I need something for my shower or something for my oven.

39:42Kelly Love:We've been trained to think we have to have specific products. Different things. Yes. That's really just a marketing thing.

39:47Allison Evans:The cleaning aisle is basically the water aisle, but with a few toxic chemicals added to it. And I think that sometimes helps people understand. It's like, oh, okay, you know, and because the cleaning products are mainly water, that is what requires such strong preservation. Because once you introduce water, you can easily get the bacteria, the mold, you know, things like that that will start growing. So there's a ton of strong preservatives added in most cleaning products, which is why we really strive to make sure that our ingredients are free of those harsh additives.

40:19Kelly Love:Yeah, back to your earlier question about cleaning products and like what, you know, Merrilee could use or what back in the day, what were we using, what was on the market? there really wasn't anything that Marilee could even use with her son who was chemically sensitive. And just I want to circle back to her story really briefly. She in her 20s realized the power of food. She was able to save her kidneys and completely change her symptoms around just from the power of food. And then when her son was 10 years old, he was exposed to high levels of pesticides at school, like after a spraying, after the field had been sprayed and completely wrecked his brain and immune system, detoxification system.

40:55Kelly Love:He was a brilliant, athletic, coordinated little boy. All of a sudden, can't spell a three-letter word, add two plus two, or you walk a straight line. Hardly pick his head up off the pillow. And so doctors said he would likely never recover. The damage was too significant. And she refused to believe that and became a mom on a mission and did everything she could. And the doctors told her, you basically need to create a safe home. And so she literally just had an organic mattress and like wooden table and chairs. He still could not be in the home without feeling agitated. His lymph nodes would swell up like BBs.

41:28Kelly Love:And she was using the cleaning products from Whole Foods. Like it was back then it was like the little Whole Foods on, you know, in Austin, Texas, that was all the crunchy, you know, granola people. And even those products were making him react. And so she was using like beets for blush. She went, you know, all in on like completely natural

41:49Allison Evans:Save his life. Yeah.

41:50Kelly Love:And they were sleeping outside. They couldn't even sleep under a tent because he would react to that. That's how sensitive he was. He was the canary in the coal mine. Right. Wow. And so she's laying outside in the open cot and kind of has this epiphany about this box of products she has in her closet that she's been holding on to for when he gets better. It's her favorite perfumes, nail polishes, you know, maybe a few cleaning products. And she thinks, oh, my gosh, what I need to remove that box. And I'm not going to tell my husband or my son and just do this experiment. Well, that very next day, it was the first time her son said, Mom, what changed?

42:26Kelly Love:I don't feel like I need to go outside. Like, I don't feel like I need a break from being inside. And she's like, oh, really? Okay, let's just awesome. Like, let's see how long you can be in here. And that was the turning point for his recovery. After that point, she really understood how much these chemicals on a parts per billion, parts per trillion even level are impacting us. And the next day she was at the grocery and realized what you were saying earlier. She walked down the cleaning products aisle and realized, oh my goodness, these products are sealed and closed and I can still smell them.

42:56Kelly Love:So of course, everything we bring into our homes is outgassing, even on a small and, you know, low-level and creating this low-level chemical. So that box was his cleaning aisle. He completely recovered, by the way. And, you know, it took seven years, but she always says, if I knew then, would I know now? There was no internet. She was learning all the time, going to the library, a lot of actually like German books she found, like in Germany, they were talking about a lot of this stuff way before we were. They even told her neuroplasticity was not a thing. And so that his brain couldn't recover.

43:27Kelly Love:But thankfully, yeah, he fully recovered, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy, flew like private missions and is married with three children and living a full, healthy life. Wow.

43:37Allison Evans:That is an incredible story. I'm so glad you shared that. Well, so I want to say to moms then, like, if you have kids in your house that are dealing with asthma, ADHD, mood issues, behavioral issues, have you looked at what things are off-gassing in your house? So this is what Merrily ended up going on to do. So she became very well-known within kind of the chemically sensitive world after her son's recovery. And that was the home that we were entering that summer of 2008, you know, 15 years after her son had graduated and left. So she ended up consulting all day and all night. And I'm talking call after call after call.

44:19Allison Evans:And people would just find her because they're so desperate. And the doctors had said, there's nothing else we can do. Or, you know, I'll never forget this one story where this woman calls and she says, the school basically is going to kick out my son. He is, you know, on all this medication. He doesn't behave. He throws things. He's disrespectful. And he's not making good grades. Not making good grades. Overweight. I mean, just you name it. This child was just going through it. And it turns out the mom was just addicted to cleaning. And had all these fragrances. Interesting. So she really really started describing.

44:49Allison Evans:And she's so good at this. She's so good at helping, meeting people where they are. So empathetic. So compassionate and very gentle. But she basically said, look, you know, you are drop by drop kind of creating this environment in which your son's detoxification system is so burdened that whatever else he's dealing with, he doesn't even have time to do that because he's kind of it's like this onslaught of toxic chemicals. And we need to find a way to basically lower that toxic burden in him. So this mom was like, I'm all in and removed all of these things. Within a few weeks, he is literally getting off medications.

45:22Allison Evans:The teachers are calling and saying, whatever medication he's now on, keep doing it. It's amazing. The mom's like, it's not medication. The dad calls Marilee one day, bawling, crying. And he was like, I was so not understanding why my wife had even called you. I didn't know who you were, what credentials you had. He is crying. He said, I love my son, but I did not like him until recently. Oh, interesting. I mean, she was even telling stories about how the son was like passing the dinner rolls to his sister, like just little things that had never happened before. There's so much more peace. There's so much more peace.

45:54Allison Evans:Wow. And so we just don't realize how much these chemicals are affecting us until they're removed.

45:59Kelly Love:I always tell people, think about the movie Erin Brockovich, because they were all exposed to the same toxic water, but not everyone had the same symptoms or at the same time. And so just because only one person in the home may be more affected than others doesn't mean, you know, that the chemicals are fine and that we don't need to worry, you know. And so I always also tell people, think about if you step on a tack, you don't keep the tack in and go to the doctor, right? Like you remove the source of the problem. And so the first step should always just be removing the source of all these chemicals that are undermining our health and then see what you need.

46:35Kelly Love:And then also your supplement program and your workouts, everything's going to be more effective.

46:41Allison Evans:Yeah. Okay. So laundry soap, the issue, it's touching our skin, all these harmful chemicals. So they're absorbing into the skin and you're smelling it. But then cleaning supplies, it's mainly that you're inhaling the toxoporos. Well, if you think about your dish, I mean, that's pure ingest. I mean, really, there's a gut disruptor. Yeah. But what if you're rinsing it all off with water? It just doesn't rinse off. I mean, it is designed like those phthalates to cling, especially if you're using like silicone or any sort of, you know, rubber or anything like that.

47:11Kelly Love:I mean, you ever gone to a restaurant and like tasted or smelled the dishwasher soap when you drink your glass of water? so you know I can go now to an Airbnb and I can taste it in my food if it was cooked if our food is cooked on like a you know cookie sheet I can taste it on the plates especially plastic and silicone things like that hold on to it baby bottles I think that is the thing that sticks

47:34Allison Evans:to the most and we think about our babies that are on bottles all day and they are literally ingesting that I wish we could scream that from the rooftops because I was just having a conversation with someone the other day who's like, I have changed my food. I'm exercising. I get outside and get the sunlight. And she was like, but I never want to change my dish soap. I love my dish soap. And it's, I don't even, I can't remember what it was, blue dye or something, you know? And she's like, and I don't think it matters because I'm not ingesting it. Oh, so I look on TikTok.

48:06Kelly Love:There's so many TikTok videos of people talking about gut disruption and hormone disruption from their, and they change that one thing and all of a sudden their gut is better.

48:14Allison Evans:Yeah, it's wild. That is wild. Yeah, it is a big source, a big exposure. Again, a daily exposure. When you think about it, you're putting these chemicals into a metal box and you're heating it up with all of your dishes. I mean, it's like day after day after day. I mean, of course, even just from a small microplastic amount, I mean, you are getting that, you know, over and over. It's like I said, it's the daily exposures. Well, I know it overwhelms a lot of people because Because a lot of people are like, oh my gosh, I've got to change all my food. I've got to not stress so much in life. I've got to exercise.

48:46Allison Evans:And then they're like, but I've got to change all my cleaners and my laundry soap and my hand soap and my dish soap. But in reality, they can just use your product for all of it. And it's an opportunity. It's not, we never want to have this message where we leave people feeling overwhelmed. So I definitely want anyone listening to hear what I'm about to say. This is a message of empowerment and hope. This is to say, I am not a victim of my genetics. This is to say I do not have to live with this symptom or be, you know, subject to this diagnosis or never have this medication be out of my life.

49:18Allison Evans:Like we have to flip the script and know that as long as we are breathing, our body is capable of healing. And most of the symptoms and the things that we are dealing with today are because of the unintended consequences of the things that we are choosing to bring inside of our home and put in on and around our bodies. And so that is empowering. Yeah. It's harder to be sick. It's harder to have that fatigue when all your kids want to do is play with you and you just have to have another cup of coffee or you can't sleep at night and you need to be full rested. And so you have to reach for that sleeping pill.

49:46Allison Evans:Like that is harder than making these small changes and really just walking into like that, that potential that God has created our bodies to have.

49:57Kelly Love:Yeah, that's so well said. And I think, too, the perspective, the mindset that we have, if we can just change from, oh, I have to do that, too, I have to change that, too, to, wow, I get to change it. I can change this. Like, I get to change all these things and help my family. Like, how easy is it to just swap this product for that one, and I get to help improve my family's well-being?

50:19Allison Evans:Yeah. I will say this really quick. I have never really dealt with a child with health issues, but I have a child now who's lived in a foreign country for two years. So came back with a bunch of health issues. And right now it's hard with this illness and like trying to get rid of his mold and parasites and things. And I'm like, health is so much easier. So everybody that thinks it's overwhelming, I promise you swapping out your cleaners and your laundry soap and all of that is so much easier than dealing with the illness. If you want to know overwhelming, deal with an illness.

50:52Kelly Love:I think it's just almost so simple and basic that it's hard to think that it could have such an impact. Right. Your laundry detergent, your feeding products, like what? That's not a big deal. Like it's so simple and basic. And so we're all about just getting back to basics. And it's really just common sense. Like get the chemicals that haven't been tested for safety out and see how you feel.

51:16Allison Evans:It frees up. But the body only has so much energy to expend. And so when it's daily having to detoxify and conjugate all of these things, you go to bed and your body is naturally supposed to be dealing with all the barrage of things that you had to face during the day. But if instead you're dealing with the toxic chemicals from your pillow, your laundry detergent, your pajamas, your hairsprays, your lotions, whatever it may be, it's not freed up to deal with the deeper things, the chronic illness, the mold, because it's so bogged down with what's

51:45Kelly Love:right in front of it. It's like, we just got to get out of its way. If you cut yourself, it will heal if you stay out of its way. If you keep going to irritate that cut every day, it's not going to heal. So we just got to get out of our own way sometimes.

51:57Allison Evans:Well, and like you just said, go for the things that have been tested. There's like 80 ,000 chemicals out there on the market, and these cleaning supplies have never been tested. 100 % have been tested. Never been tested. Like, hello, that's common sense. Let's use the safe stuff. And it's kind of the fox guarding the hen house. I mean, let's face it. In America, we say, oh, well, just sue us. We rely on tort law. You know, it's like, well, that's kind of a David and Goliath story. It doesn't really have to get sick before something happens. Yeah. So I want to circle back to your story because you were telling us about how you're living there for the summer at your aunt's house, living this amazing life that we wish we could all live.

52:34Allison Evans:Our dream is like a place where people can go experience what we did. But I'm curious how living there then turned into making cleaners because I'm thinking, well, you could have gone so many routes. You could have gone a food route. You could have gone a supplement route. You could have done anything. So how do we go into cleaners? What was that pivot? Yeah.

52:53Kelly Love:I mean, like I said earlier, people were like, I'm so overwhelmed. Where do we start? And we kept finding ourselves recommending starting with cleaning products. And at that time, we were selling a product that Marilee had used with her son and her chemically sensitive clients. and it was a concentrate model. And so it just allowed people to immediately improve their air quality and reduce their toxic load without a huge investment. You know, we're not talking like a whole house water filter or an infrared sauna. So, yeah, cleaning just made sense. There was not anything else better on the market.

53:27Allison Evans:Well, because it's so diverse in terms of use, it allows you to then – we're all about removing all these toxic products. Well, then what do you replace it with? And so the fact that it's kind of a one-for-all type product, I mean, like I said, eye makeup, baby bottoms, you know, stains, laundry. It allows you to do a cutting sweep and get rid of a lot of products at once.

53:47Kelly Love:Replace it with just one thing. But yeah, thankfully, at the time, it was awful. But looking back now, it was such a blessing that relationship with that supplier did not pan out. We realized we were not getting the full transparency into the ingredients. and we're sitting here telling people, know what you're buying. And yet we're not even able to provide that. So we stopped that. We knew it was safe. Like we had all the toxicology testing to prove that, but we just didn't feel right about not owning it and having control over it and being able to be fully transparent with our customers. And so we worked with chemists to create our own.

54:22Kelly Love:And I don't think we would have the confidence to just go out and start that from day one. Like we started this because we just wanted to help people wake up to all this and educate them so they're not saying, like, why didn't somebody tell me that my laundry product could be causing my infertility or that my, you know, cleaning products could be causing my asthma? And so we wanted to just create a platform and have a product that could be like our vehicle, like to open the door to get into people's homes and mines. Oh, I love that. So, yeah, that's how it all started.

54:51Allison Evans:Okay, so I'm curious, just because I manufacture, and you have just said that about manufacturing, not quite knowing what's in there. Has that been your hardest problem with Branch Basics, or what's a hard struggle of making clean cleaning supplies? Oh, yeah. I mean, it took over 100 iterations to come out with our current formula in over 18 months. We actually showed company down in 2016. We did not know if we were going to come back. We refused to sell a product that we could not 100 % stand behind. And if I'm being really honest, I did not believe that we could create something. We have no background in formulation, chemistry.

55:25Allison Evans:We're not scientists. We don't even know how to start a company. We like, what are we actually doing guys? And so Marilee and Kelly were like, no, no, no. I mean, they had people be like, y 'all want a unicorn. This doesn't exist. I mean, the amount of people that said, well, let's just add a little bit of this, but like our no list that we would present to formulators was like this long. And our yes list was like this.

55:46Kelly Love:We're not going to a manufacturer and just saying, Hey, give me a green cleaner. Give me a protein powder. You know, that that's healthy or quote unquote, like we are innovating and raising the bar. And so, yeah, it takes time to formulate. It takes a lot of effort and education on our parts to educate the manufacturers because we're asking them a lot of times to do things in a different way or to use new ingredients. So that's the hardest part. It's just all of the homework and stuff that we have to do instead of just relying on the manufacturer.

56:18Allison Evans:Hence us taking forever to come out with new products. We're like, oh, we'll do a gel hand soap. This will be two years later. we'll do a bar step this will be easy still haven't done it you know because we're just so picky yeah exactly we're talking about your strawberries last night you know like i can't imagine having to create edible products that those kinds of it's hard it is hard but i love hearing that you have to teach the manufacturer how to do it and stick to your standards for other companies we want other companies to copy us and do what we're doing you know we are we have no fear of our brand being snatched from us.

56:51Allison Evans:But we would love to set the bar higher in terms of ingredient standards. Okay. So let me ask you then about setting the bar higher. What is it with all of this greenwashing out there with detergents and cleaners? Like you hear that all the time, like, oh, they're greenwashing. Is it just that they need to raise the standard higher because they're using chemicals that are on the gray rather than a black and white?

57:12Kelly Love:Honestly, I think we are so fortunate to have Marilee's long history and education and her attention to detail because I can totally see and understand how a lot of these people, they want to start a healthier product than what's on the market. So you go to a manufacturer and you say, hey, I want the generally recognized as safe grass list. And, oh, that's in all the other green cleaners? Okay, that's fine. We'll do that too. Sodium, benzoyl, potassium, corpate. It's like with you with natural flavors. It's like there's so many organic products that use natural flavors. And so people just think, oh, that's fine.

57:46Kelly Love:And so really, I think a lot of times it's not coming from a place of trying to like, yeah, trying to deceive people. It's just ignorance. I mean, and I don't say that in a degrading way, but we are just really fortunate to have Marilee and her history and all of our customers are benefiting from that.

58:06Allison Evans:Well, it's just hearing the manufacturer say, oh, this is a safe ingredient. Let's use it without them really doing the research behind what's considered truly safe. And then leaning on that original toxicology model of dose makes a poison. And so then they cite this idea, well, it's just a little bit. But again, the epigenetics really shows that those little bits, that's what we always say when you're vetting ingredients. Start with the very last ones on the list. And don't go to the EWG Skin Deep database, which is what we tell people to use, and put in the name of the product. Put in the ingredient.

58:35Allison Evans:Because you can have some Fs. You can have some 8s and 9s and 10s. But if you have a lot of 1s and then they take the average, the product seems great. But you are still introducing your system, your body to those little bit last ingredients every single day.

58:48Kelly Love:And step one is look for an ingredient list. If there's no ingredient list, then that's a red flag right there. And then, like Allison said, look for the bottom ones. But we choose to list our ingredients in the way that personal care products are required to, where the highest concentrations at the top, the lowest at the bottom. But that's not required by any means. You know, there's no requirement at all to even list your ingredients, much less in order of concentration.

59:12Allison Evans:Well, I have to tell you guys something crazy. We were trying to come out with a disinfectant and we wanted an EPA certified. So we sent it to the EPA and spent thousands of dollars getting it certified. Right. And they wanted the active ingredient, which we put. And then we listed out all the other ingredients. And they would not pass us because they wanted it under other. So like 99 % active ingredient, 1 % other. and because I wouldn't put other because I wanted to say what was in my product they wouldn't pass it and that was when it really opened my eye up to cleaning supplies and disinfectants and so glad because we probably wouldn't be here today because you might have not used Brentasius

59:56Kelly Love:no but I mean that goes to show that yeah there are so much there's so much more to it than what we know as consumers what we see yeah I was so confused

1:00:06Allison Evans:it's very confusing exactly Well, thank you so much for being here, you guys. Thank you for the opportunity. It has been amazing learning about your company, and I love your standards and aren't willing to waver because of what some manufacturer says or something like that. Well, between your food standards and our home standards, we've got this covered. We make a good pair. Exactly. So I always end my podcast with asking five questions. So I'll ask both of you. You can both answer them, okay? All right. First, what emerging health topic are you most excited about right now? You know, I love that people are starting to really look at root cause health and we're starting to combine kind of that ancient wisdom of real food and real healthy fats.

1:00:47Allison Evans:We're not villainizing, you know, egg yolks or coconut oil anymore. But we're combining that with, you know, getting the kind of scans and the stools and like the types of labs that are really helping us dig deep and understand the microbiome. And so combining kind of like the age old wisdom with like the modern technologies of wellness.

1:01:06Kelly Love:I do love that, too. I love that, too. In the same vein, I just love the free medicine trend. I love that people are talking about how sunlight and fresh air and just things that don't cost money are medicine. Love that. It's true medicine. It is true.

1:01:23Allison Evans:All right. Number two, what's a piece of advice you'd give your younger self? I would say question more things. Don't just assume because someone older than you or someone in a white coat or something that's on the shelf that's allowed just because those are the sources that it is true and right and noble and good and best for us. Not to villainize things, but just to say we should question and use our brains and not just have too much blind trust. Yeah. I wish I had done that more as a younger person.

1:01:53Kelly Love:Be confident in whatever you feel like you're doing. I feel like I was kind of shy or tried to hide some of the things and would be like, oh, I know I'm crazy, but like, I don't know, I'm just going to do this, whatever, you know, and it's like, be confident and be a leader and own it and others will follow. I mean, we started making these changes and talking about all this when we were in college. Our friends thought we were nuts. And to me, it was just like, of course, it makes sense that what we put in our bodies, just like what we put in our cars matters. Like our cars are going to break down.

1:02:24Kelly Love:if we put the wrong fuel in it. But I still was so insecure or self-conscious about it. And I think it's just fun now to see our friends be like, wait, okay, I know I wasn't into it back then, but now like, tell me everything.

1:02:38Allison Evans:I love that. Okay, number three, what's the one health practice you'll never compromise on no matter how busy life gets? I would say eating real food because that was what really shifted me that summer of 2008. And, you know, the environment, the home part is already there for me. I have already created a clean environment of my home. I don't even have to think about it anymore. I have my cleaning products. I have my body care products, my mascara. But what you put in your mouth is a decision you have to make every single day, multiple times a day. And sure, I'll go a meal while I'll grab a bar.

1:03:08Allison Evans:I'll skip a meal if I'm busy. But in general, going back to real food, it's like food is either working for you or against you. It's not neutral. And so by choosing real food and fueling my body with what my creator designed me to be fueled with is something that I can't unknow or unfeel. I love that.

1:03:24Kelly Love:I am not one to like do all the biohacking and stuff. I just in this season in my life, I just don't have time for it. You're a busy mom and poor little kids. And actually, we did just get an infrared sauna, which I'm really excited about, and the red light. So I may start, you know, using that more. But I think something that's so easy that I have just naturally gravitated towards is just reducing my EMF exposure. So I really am on my phone only when I need to be. And I turn off our Wi-Fi every night. And I think that's just another kind of thing that people need to be aware of that impacts our health that you can do easy measures.

1:04:00Allison Evans:Yeah, I love that.

1:04:01Kelly Love:Okay, next question. What's your favorite Just Ingredients product and why? I have been loving the creatine. You sold me. So I've been adding that even though I'm not really working out that much. So I'm like hoping maybe somehow it'll like get on a workout routine. Well, the creatine, I was going to say, you don't need to.

1:04:20Allison Evans:It's great for your brain. It's great for mood and sleep and energy.

1:04:24Kelly Love:My postpartum brain is really bad right now. So I was like, I'm going to try this creatine.

1:04:29Allison Evans:It is really good for postpartum and especially those that aren't getting a full night's sleep with the new baby. Oh, so good for them. I love that. Okay, I was going to say the bar, but then I was introduced to this before the bar passed. I'm really liking this energy drink. It's just so refreshing to turn a label around and not see natural flavors. And that is something that we have been hounded about by Merrily since the summer of 2008. No one was talking about it back then. But just the excitatory effect of natural flavors and how that little bit is enough to really turn on that negative impact on the brain, the gut connection.

1:05:06Allison Evans:I just, I love your bars. I can throw one in my purse. There's no natural flavors in there. My kids love bars. They're just great for on the go. And then this energy drink. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Last question. What is the best ingredient you've found to life? Oh, my faith. Because if I am swimming in a bucket of Clorox, I can have peace. I mean, really, there's not an amount of toxins that can trump what my faith has done for me. And you really can just be going through a storm in life. And it's the only thing that offers me true peace. Oh, I love that so much.

1:05:43Kelly Love:I can't say it any better than that. 100 % agree.

1:05:46Allison Evans:I'm going to use that Clorox analogy because that is amazing. Mary always says, I mean, it's like they're dumping me in a bucket of Clorox. Like the worst thing that could happen to us. Oh, that is so funny. I love that. Well, tell everybody where they can find Branch Basics. Yeah. Branchbasics.com, Target.com, Target stores. We're now chain-wide in Target. and then Amazon as well. So really easy to get. And you guys, if you're overwhelmed, they have provided the solution with very high standards. You can use it like you've heard for almost everything.

1:06:16Kelly Love:And so check out. And our customer service is amazing. So if you ever try it and you don't like it or you have questions, we will refund you. We will send you a new product to try. Like we really want to take care of people.

1:06:29Allison Evans:I love that. Well, everybody go follow Branch Basics. They teach great advice on there and help little tips and things like that. So go follow them and go buy their products. Support, like I always say, vote with your dollars. Support brands that are trying to provide better choice products. And I always say, support the moms that are out there trying to provide better for us as well. They are two amazing moms trying to provide better for all of us. So go support them. Thank you for being here and being part of this community. Don't forget to subscribe to the Just Ingredients podcast. We've got so much more to share with you.

1:07:06Allison Evans:And if you're not already, come join us daily on all social media platforms at Just Dot Ingredients. Until next time, keep choosing what nourishes you.