59: Clean Design Home

Narrator 00:06

How would you like to improve your health and keep your family safe? You're listening to the Healthy Home hacks podcast where we firmly believe enjoying optimal health shouldn't be a luxury Healthy Home authorities and husband and wife team Ron and Lisa will help you create a home environment that will level up your health. It's time to hear from the experts. listen in on honest conversations and gain the best tips and advice. If you're ready to dive in and improve your well-being and increase your energy, you're in the right place. All right, here are your hosts, Building Biologists, authors, media darlings, vicarious vegans and avocado aficionados, Ron and Lisa Beres.

Lisa Beres 00:54

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Ron Beres 01:49

You can have the best deadbolt locks the most secure windows and the loudest alarm and still be in mortal danger. What from? Your house, bad air, toxic household products and everyday materials that we take for granted could literally be making us and our loved ones sick. And it is.

Lisa Beres 02:18

That's right Ron, most of us carefully watch what we put into our mouths and on our bodies. But when it comes to maintaining a healthy home, this can often be overlooked. A study published in the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology found the average house, get this guys, may contain as many as 400 chemicals. Some of them toxic, many untested. So how can we protect ourselves and our children from these adverse health effects? And why is it so important today? Well, for starters, approximately 25 million Americans have asthma. This is about one in 13 Americans; we breathe 20,000 breaths and inhale 3400 gallons of air on average each day. The average home collects 40 pounds of dust a year, and we spend 1/3 of our lives sleeping and, get this. Studies reveal the average pillow. Okay, this is a complete eww factor. The average pillow contains millions of fungal spores with 4 to 16 different species per pillow tested.

Ron Beres 03:29

Oh, well that's enough to make anyone's skin crawl. Our guest today is going to help us sleep more soundly and safely. A lifelong allergy and asthma sufferer from Austin, Texas. Robin Wilson was fortunate to have a holistic pediatrician who told her parents you can raise a strong child or a child on strong medicine. So true. Her parents implemented this guidance with diet modifications, interior design alterations and exercise instead of steroid medications. Today, Robin has created a protocol for wellness with protective coverings and cotton textiles and bed and bath. She is a US lifestyle brand author, designer and real estate developer, the entrepreneurial founder of a licensed brand focused on clean design protocols named to Inc Magazine's Female Founders 100 List in 2020. She's a world class thought leader.

Lisa Beres 04:34

Robin's CLEAN HOME DESIGN line is now in a Macy's in 168 stores and online. She is a two-time number one Amazon bestselling author and has been featured on multiple news and TV segments including HGTV selling New York Robins life mission is to help the 60 million Americans who suffer from allergies or asthma. That's one in four people, guys. With her clean design protocol developed during the COVID pandemic, Robin works to educate consumers about hypoallergenic, sustainable and eco-friendly lifestyle options. She is here to help us upgrade our own personal ecosystem, our homes. Welcome to the show, Robin.

Ron Beres 05:27

Thank you for being with us, Robin, this is so exciting.

Robin Wilson 05:30

I'm really excited because so many people don't have a solution. They know the problem, but they don't have a solution. And I hope tonight we can give some people a solution-based conversation so that they can make their home a healthier space. And more importantly, they'll know where to go and what to buy when they get there.

Lisa Beres 05:51

Right. That's right. We're not just fear mongering here, guys. Even though some of those statistics were, Robin get solutions. And I love that Robin, a lot of people we talked about this a lot on the show are medicated and taking all these allergy and asthma medications and masking symptoms and you're like, hey, let's get to the bottom. And that's what we're going to do today. So, let's dive right in.

Robin Wilson 06:13

I'm so excited because this is timely. This is one of those moments where we don't want to think about the average timeframe you've slept on your pillow.

Lisa Beres 06:27

No, right.

Robin Wilson 06:30

If you ask most people, they'll say six years and you're like, that's six years of drool.

Ron Beres 06:39

And that's a good day.

Robin Wilson 06:40

That's a good day. Exactly. Yeah. And so, I think the first place to start of course, is your pillow, because that's the easy button.

Lisa Beres 06:48

Yeah, that study that I referenced on the fungal spores, the 16 different was from the University of Manchester. And I wanted to give a shout out to that because a lot of people like you said, they might take their pillow on their trips, too, right? They're traveling with it too. And that is disgusting. And it makes me think of the hotel pillows too. Ron and I travel with our own little organic baby pillow. Because just what you said Robin, yeah, they replace their pillows more often. But oh my god, these are different strangers every night drooling on that pillow. They're watching. They're only watching the pillowcase.

Robin Wilson 07:25

At least hotels change their pillows more frequently than we do. Right. So that's the thing. So, let me just talk about pillows for a minute. The average timeframe for people to keep a pillow is six years. Okay, that means it's toxic. Let's go there. And one of the things that we suggest is something called a rule of three. So that means you wash your linens on a weekly basis. We hope we have

Ron Beres 07:49

So, days we missed that Robin.

Robin Wilson 07:52

So, there's layers in a bed. So, there's a rule of three. So, if you think about your mattress, the inside of the mattress being something whether it's coils or foam, that's layer one, then you have the mattress cover, then you have the mattress protector. And then you have your sheeting material for top of bed. So that's three layers to protect the inside of the mattress from getting the dust mites or the skin cells that might penetrate into the mattress. Again, you keep your mattress for like 20 years. So right you've got to have those three layers. But now you go to your pillow. And you've got to the pillow a hypoallergenic pillow hopefully not feathers, if you have allergies because of the oils, and whatever other issues you might have from feathers, that if you have a down alternative pillow think surgical guys, right? If you're allergic to surgical gauze, you're going to probably be in a bubble. So yeah, a down alternative pillow. fluffy stuff inside is layer one. Okay, then you have the pillow cover over the pillow. And then you put a separate pillow protector over that. And then you have your pillowcase. Okay, so that's three layers, three layers, okay. We aren't doing that. Exactly. They just have the pillow and then they have a pillowcase. So yeah, I say the rule of three for cleaning. So now, every week wash your linens, but every three weeks wash that zippered pillowcase. Yeah, yeah. Then every three months if you can wash the actual pillow, make sure you put tennis balls in the dryer so you don't have a lumpy pillow. Right and then every three years if you haven't done that, replace the pillow.

Ron Beres 09:42

Okay, I like it rule of three and should I just washed it all the same time then, like did I wash this two weeks ago? What do you think Robin? He is trying not

Robin Wilson 09:50

to be strict. I'm not trying to be strict. It's giving you a solution. Right? I like that. And if you want to just say every season, they're going to wash your pillow Just like you might do your battery change every three months.

Lisa Beres 10:03

I like this season, that's easy to remember, we advise people to change their furnace filter and their HVAC system every season, which is every three months. And that's even according to the EPA. So hey, while you're doing that, yeah, you gotta get clean people.

Robin Wilson 10:20

Stop being dirty. Exactly. In the lexicon. The pandemic happened in 2020. And if you really think about the lexicon of home, it changed. All of a sudden, everyone was saying, you got to be clean. Yeah. And sanitize, sanitize. Yep, you have to have a well-designed backdrop for your zoom calls or your remote meetings.

Ron Beres 10:40

And you do Robin, very nice. We liked that. We talked about your bookcase. Very nice.

Robin Wilson 10:43

Well I'll address on that in a second. And then of course, home became a place you might be trapped. So, make sure you like furniture and nontoxic and you have a home office that you can at least vent out so that your VOC from your printer, or at least anything out there a fan or an open window, and all of a sudden, the lexicon of home changed. And that's why your show is so important, I think for people to really understand that. If you look at your home as your sanctuary. Yeah, it's simple things. Take off your shoes when you come in the front door. So, you're not tracking. Yeah, whatever you stepped on.

Lisa Beres 11:23

Well, you know, on that Robin, they did a study, University of Arizona, which is my alma mater, they did a study on what people are bringing out on the bottom of their shoes, and they found 60% of household dust is actually coming in from the bottom of our shoes. Ahh, 60. And they found led, DDT, DDT, a very toxic pesticide that's been banned for decades and fecal matter. I mean, a lot of really horrible stuff that we don't want to be bringing in our home. So, I love that tip. Take off your shoes at the front door, create maybe like a shelf, or some kind of system where everybody can get into the habit of taking off their shoes. And I have indoor flip flops. Were in California, so I can wear flip flops. But it can be slippers, whatever, have like that indoor pair of shoes that never goes outside and then just wear them. Yeah,

Ron Beres 12:14

I have another fact I do is interesting. So according to the Boston Globe, of the billions of skin cells, between 30,000 to 40,000 of them fall off every hour. And over a 24-hour period, we lose almost a million skin cells. Can you believe that?

Robin Wilson 12:31

No, can and people want to say well, I don't want to have dust mites. Well, dust mites eat, you know, they have dust mites. And if you didn't lose your skin cells, your skin would be part and it would be hard like a tree. So that's the old saying, after six or seven years, you're a totally new person. You know, you lost all your skin cells and you're a new person. So, I think the bottom line for your home is its simple things that you can do on a day to day basis. And digressing to the bookcase right. So, one of the things I talked about years and years ago is that if you think about it, as you mentioned the chemicals in your home, if you ask yourself, would you raise a baby in a chemical factory? The answer universally is going to be no but then I say to people will clean doesn't smell like a fake pine forest. Right exactly. I was going to say that. You can't buy fresh air in a can. Clean is clean and it can't be sprayed you can't spray a couch clean. So that means you need to clean on a regular basis. Get that vacuum cleaner out the suction vac and suction the couch clean. Try to if you have a zippered pillow, cushion on your couch. Take that off get that cleaned every once in a while. You can actually replace foam in cushions most people don't know that and take that old foam out if you need to. And put fresh foam in it'll make a world of difference in the smell on your couch.

Lisa Beres 14:03

Yeah, it's interesting Robin just having this conversation and realizing like how much people wouldn't dare not have a new outfit for their event or their reunion or whatever or their date night maybe even and or an office meeting yet. We neglect these things that we like you're saying we spend the most time we spend the most time in our bed and how many people be honest you guys you listeners. When was the last time ask yourself when was the last time you washed your pillow if ever? When was the last time you vacuum into your mattress that's another good thing you can do right vacuum app when you strip the bed? When was the last time you got a new mattress? People hang on to their mattresses way too long, and their pillows and want to go back to the pillow again because there was a study from Ohio State University that revealed a typical used mattress may have 100,000 to 10 million decimates inside they also note that 10% of the weight of a two year old pillow can be composed of dead dust mites and their droppings. It sounds like one of those urban legends. And I actually thought it was too because I had heard that quote for years. And nope, the Ohio State University actually did discover that in the study. So, if your pillow gets heavier, not just from the dust mites, but from the dust mite droppings, so right, if that doesn't encourage you? Well.

Robin Wilson 15:28

It's a simple thing. There's something called pillow test. So, if you fold your pillow in half, and it stays in place, it's immediately trying to get rid of your pillow. You might say, Oh, I like a flat pillow. If you fold the pillow in half, and it doesn't bounce back, you've got a problem actually weighs now more now than when you bought it. So

Ron Beres 15:53

I'm going to try that after this.

Robin Wilson 15:58

We have a whole line at Macy's called CLEAN DESIGN HOME by Martex. And the entire line is hypoallergenic luxury, and all too often hypoallergenic and luxury weren't in the same sentence, right? So, you would say, well, I want a sheet that feels really good. As they call it the hand. I want it to really feel good. And so, we use tech to make this happen. It's woven at a point three two a point five micron. So even though it is 400 thread count, it's such a tight weave feels like a higher thread count. Okay, number two, we have the low lint towels. So that means lint creates dust or tracks dust. So, a lowland towel is a pima cotton towel. And that means the cotton was grown in Texas or California. So, we're actually supporting the American farmer. Oh, that's great. Right, and the mills overseas to be made. But it's a lowland because it's a long strand cotton, we also have the robes, quilts, etc., that are in the marketplace. And our goal initially was to bring this at an affordable price point for the consumer. But and we've done that, but what we didn't realize is how much it would resonate with the consumer. So, we learned from some statistics in the last couple of weeks that 90% of the new customers coming in to Macy's are coming for this line. Wow, isn't there isn't a brand right now. That's the hypoallergenic brand, except CLEAN DESIGN HOME, huh? So, we not only sell at Macy's, but Belk just picked it up. Okay. In the UK picked it up and Japan picked it up. Making History of first black global, licensed textile brand. Oh, wow. Goodness. Shout

Lisa Beres 18:06

out. Oh, that's incredible.

Ron Beres 18:10

I love a beautiful dance. It was nice.

Lisa Beres 18:14

Yes, we're happy dancing.

Robin Wilson 18:15

The whole other side of it as a woman of color. My grandfather was actually a sharecropper. His parents would have been slaves, and they picked cotton. And now I have a luxury cotton brand sold to consumers. Wow! What a wonderful tribute that people are open to this luxury brand. Because it is it's a Horatio Alger story, right. It's a wonderful thing for my ancestors, hopefully to be really wonderful thing.

Lisa Beres 18:48

Yeah, that's so incredible. I love the lint free towel idea. I mean, that's a huge problem, right? That no one listening has the towel that hasn't battled lint.

Robin Wilson 18:58

I don't think any towel is free of lint, but no lint. Okay, you know, we talk about what's the right thing. When you look at your home as a whole. If you look at indoor air quality, it can be six to eight times worse. So that goes back to the chemical factory thing. So that means maybe you're using bathroom cleaner than you're using oven cleaner than you're used. You're washing your dishes, or maybe even using a gas cooktop and you don't open the windows or turn on the fan. And all those chemicals are just bubbling up plus your home office where you have the VOCs coming from your ink. I recommend at least once a day open your windows for at least five minutes just to let fresh air in. Yeah and or turn on your bathroom fan or your rangehood yes for five or 10 minutes. Again, in the northeast it can be 26 degrees so I'm not going to re roll your feet out because that's not efficient but if you can just it air out for five minutes to circulate.

Lisa Beres 19:57

Yeah, the house is an extension of us, it is. Ron and I always call it the umbrella to our home indoor air quality is the umbrella to our home. So, especially with the green building and the energy efficiency, we have tightened the building envelope. So much so that our homes are breathing like they used to do back in the olden days, where homes were drafty, and you did have better circulation. And then now you have more toxic chemicals coming into the home through cleaning products and furniture and your personal care products and all of this stuff, you're elevating your appliances, all of that. So, if we don't allow our homes to breathe, and circulate, where are these chemicals going to go? They're going to go into our lungs, and we're going to be breathing them in.

Robin Wilson 20:43

We have a book called clean design wellness for your lifestyle that during a pandemic started selling again, so it was just like, and that's why we actually rebranded our licensed product, InDesign home. But in that book, I think its page 68, or 69, somewhere in there. My grandmother happened to have been a housekeeper back in the 50s. Right? Yeah, we found her book. This is you couldn't go to the store and get a cleaning product. So, you had to have your recipes for lack of a better word. Right. So, I just want to give you some simple tips. Yes.

Ron Beres 21:15

Robin, we'd love that and our listeners do too. Great. Here are three things you may not know. This is the did you know moment? Did you know toothpaste can clean crayon off the wall? No.

Lisa Beres 21:32

A lot of mama's are very happy.

Robin Wilson 21:37

Did you know that Coca Cola if you pour it in your toilet overnight, that ring will get cleaned up?

Lisa Beres 21:46

Wow. That's what you use it for. Wait, that just shows how bad it is.

Robin Wilson 21:51

Not inside of you necessarily. Exactly. Pour it in the toilet. If it's really bad overnight, and let that acid really work on it. You might have to use another cleanser afterward. But it's going to loosen it up a little bit.

Lisa Beres 22:08

Oh, wow. Okay. Number three. Robin likes threes.

Robin Wilson 22:16

This is the silly one, right? If you have a limited budget, and you need furniture, you don't want furniture that's off gassing or disposable because you want to be eco conscious. This my digression. Look behind me at this wonderful 10-foot-long by nine-foot-tall bookcase. That was $300. Why? Because it used to be brown. Wow. It's amazing. So many people don't want brown furniture. So, they walk by their antique shop or their I'll call it the secondhand shop. Like oh I don't like that but they don't realize they can get chalk paint is a thin satin coat of poly urethane on top and they might have a totally new piece.

Ron Beres 23:07

Now you're speaking my wife's language. She is an ex designer she

Lisa Beres 23:11

love it. Well before the show guys listeners before the show Robin came on camera and I was like, oh my god, I love that bookcase. It reminds me of Ron and I used to watch the Oprah on the own network. She had the behind the scenes after her show ended. I don't know if you ever watched it. But it was such a good show. And she always had the meetings in her office. She just had this gorgeous white bookcase behind her desk and I always was like, oh, that's the best bookcase ever. Yours looks like that. I mean, it looks so high end. It looks new. And you would never know when you showed that picture. But being brown, not that long

Robin Wilson 23:44

I painted it. So, you did it yourself? I did it myself because it was during COVID and I went to a secondhand place and it's a wonderful place in the Northeast cold Renovation Angel. And they actually help people because they give you an upgrade. They take your old piece out your old kitchen out or and then they resell it to people. And part of it's not for profit because I guess there's some charity that they work with. But instead of that kitchen going into a landfill anywhere in the country. Really?

Lisa Beres 24:17

They reseller it. Somewhere in the Northeast. There you go. So, I love

Robin Wilson 24:21

it. $300dollars for brown furniture. That means it's already off gassing people. Yeah, that means its real wood. Real wood. Yeah. Yep. This is not big box cheap disposal formaldehyde.

Lisa Beres 24:33

High Legion particle board. Yeah. What's the name? Yeah, let's give a little I'm going to put this in the show notes. What's the name of the company?

Robin Wilson 24:40

Renovation Angel.

Lisa Beres 24:42

What a great name. You know, it reminds me of here in California. We have a place called Furnishing Home. They actually do something similar, where they furnish homes for Vets for vet to our what is it called? wounded vets. And they get donations from people and It started where they would refinish the furniture themselves and then provide it so people could donate and they were finished it then they kind of got into getting a lot of donations from some big box brands that donate. And they're nonprofit and they have big showroom here in Orange County. And so, if you're on the East Coast, you can check out renovation Angel and if you're on the West Coast, you can check that Furnishing Home I love that I love that we're repurposing these things. They're being used again they have stories they have history they have personality, right and then we're helping people in the process I think it's amazing.

Ron Beres 25:32

Speaking of stories and backer I love Robin story so far and everything's you know all your tips, right? But can you tell us where your passion came from? Like when you decided to focus on hypo allergenic, sustainable, eco-friendly home goods and wellness? How did that all start? Where did that come from Robin?

Robin Wilson 25:47

Well, we all have an origin story. And mine is Austin, Texas. I would call myself pan allergic. So, I was allergic to animal dander, pollen, smoke, dust, certain foods. So, bubble child, right. And are you a Canary Robin? I'm in the Canary. I'm a kid of the 70s. And so that's when people were drinking Tang instead of orange juice. And they were drinking Hawaiian Punch instead of grape juice. And so, my parents went to a hippie doctor which today we might call a holistic doctor. And this doctor, think about Malcolm Gladwell with the 10,000 hours to become an expert in something. This doctor was like, you have to change the shag carpet. Go back to tile or hardwood floors. Your pet has to go outside. You're not going to eat a lot of red meat. I'm in Texas, okay. So, everybody's got my mother was insane. The students had to come off at the front door. People just smoke outside like this was just like, yeah,

Lisa Beres 26:50

that's what people were smoking in restaurants, right? I mean, it was like no big deal was sitting next to the smoker. The airplanes air. This smoke on airplanes. Yeah. What? Yeah, yeah.

Robin Wilson 26:59

So, if you think about it, they thought she was crazy. But if you look at my friends who may be their doctors, were telling them take the steroid medication, be a couch potato, don�t exert yourself, right? If you look at them today, and you look at me today, my doctor was like, do all these environmental things, change your diet? And you're going to run, walk, bike, play tennis and swim? Because your lungs have to get strong? Yeah, no, I might be wheezing at the end, using at the end. But at the end of the day, you're seeing what's happening to COVID patients who don't have strong lungs.

Lisa Beres 27:36

Right? Right. Right, right. You don't want to wait until exactly you're hit.

Robin Wilson 27:41

And it doesn't mean you're foolproof. It what it does mean though, is that every one of us have to remember what we're inhaling affects our total body biome. What we eat affects our gut, bacteria biome, and what we touch and feel those chemicals that we place everywhere. And we do have chemicals. Remember, people say, I don't want to have any chemicals. You have to or you're going to have ants in your house. You're going to have you're going to have crabgrass on your lawn. But don't track it in your house. Right? If you're going to use a pesticide, you could put things like what is it? You can use? You can use coffee grinds, you can salt, vinegar, cayenne pepper specifically, yes, you can use cinnamon. There are things you can put in different places and confuse ant. You can use older bourbon. Yeah, and they will stay away.

Lisa Beres 28:39

Yeah. diatomaceous earth is really good when you get the food grade diatomaceous earth and that's good for the insects with an exoskeleton, which would be your cockroach family. And it's nontoxic for you. We're all about that Robin and you're making me think about a study that was done by George Washington University that found 45 toxins in household dust. And this study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology and the toxins that they found in these average samples included flame retardants, plasticizers, solvents, and preservatives. And according to the study, any household dust sample that they took, contained 10 or more harmful substances, including health risks associated with cancer and reproductive damage, respiratory, behavioral and neuro developmental problems. So, what you're saying is so true. This isn't just about oh, I'm OCD and I need my house clean all the time. This is like a health issue. This cleanliness is a health issue.

Robin Wilson 29:44

Well also think about I tell ladies this, guys too, but you go to vacation, and you come back and visit. Oh, you look so great. You look so rested; the circles are gone. So even though hotels have multiple people with hotels on the pillow. They still have the liners and they still change the pillows more frequently than we do at home. Let's say they change it every three months. We change it every six years. Right?

Ron Beres 30:10

Okay is that the rule of thumb is that three months for hotels typically?

Robin Wilson 30:13

Tt depends on the door; some do three months. Some wash them at three months. It just depends on what the rules are. But think about this. We know they change them at least once a year. We know that so you go away on vacation, you come back you're so rested. Your circles are gone. Three days later you slept in your old pillow. Yeah, the circles are back. Yeah, it might be your pillow.

Ron Beres 30:37

That's when you stop and you sold your pillow.

Robin Wilson 30:44

Oh my gosh, it weighs more than when I bought it.

Lisa Beres 30:48

Robin, I love what you said at the beginning about the down pillows being a real problem for people with allergies. I had that and a lot of people don't know it. So unless you've actually had an environmental allergy test and by a doctor the PARCC test, you would know it and so I was sleeping on a feather pillow for years and years waking up constantly with sinus issues and congested till I finally realized wait a minute my pillow now I sleep on an organic pillow but that makes made a huge difference. So, I would suggest look at that pillow and now you're lying doesn't include pillows just the protectors correct?

Robin Wilson 31:24

We have pillow. Pillow protectors. We have comforters� sheets, towel, robes, and more to be announced very soon. This is in about two weeks, three weeks we're going to announce our new mattress line.

Lisa Beres 31:47

Because we have so many people today with allergies and asthma as we said at the top of the show. It's crazy. It never was like this. I mean you had it and you had an incredible mother and doctor who were so like ahead of the game but we're seeing these allergies getting worse and worse and worse as time goes on. So, something we get asked a lot Robin is does the type of pillow matter based on what kind of sleeper you are whether your back summit aside, can you shed some light on that?

Ron Beres 32:14

What if you are side and stomach sleeper?

Robin Wilson 32:18

Yes, it does. So, I would say that the flatter your pillow. So, there's typically a soft, a medium and firm. That's the way to look at pillows. A soft pillow is better for a back-sleeper sort of keeps thinking about allowing your back your head isn't too angled, which is very bad for straining your back. Think about a sort of middle or medium sized pillow or medium firmness pillow for a side or stomach sleeper. And if you were just a side sleeper, you might want to go with a firm pillow. Most people will select the medium pillow. All of our pillows are medium. And the reason for that is most people start off one way at night. But during the night, it is natural. You see babies do this. Yeah, they curl up when they're in their deepest sleep and they're typically on their side. Yeah.

Ron Beres 33:16

Are you calling me a baby, Robin?

Robin Wilson 33:17

You sleep like a baby. Nice.

Lisa Beres 33:26

You're right. That's nothing worse than having a pillow that's too high. And you wake up and you're like, Oh, hi. You know you got this crick in your neck. Yeah.

Robin Wilson 33:35

One other thing we should talk about as endocrine disruptors. You brought that up very briefly, but your shower curtain. We actually also have an Amazon store. It's we want a women entrepreneur incubator with Amazon. So, it's amazon.com forward slash CLEAN DESIGN HOME. We have shower curtains that are made out of polyester or nylon. We have various things, but the elites are in vinyl shower curtains. That is a known endocrine disruptor. And a lot of people wonder sometimes why they can't get pregnant. Just saying. I have a baby girl I call her baby but she's almost 10. But there was a minute there where it was a little challenging to have her. And I learned about elites and endocrine disruptors and got rid of my vinyl shower curtain put a nylon shower curtain in. Which by the way, that's what hospitals use because they are less attractive to mildew. It's like pantyhose, right? You can wash them. And very quickly. There you go. That's the story. But I want people to look at their shower curtain or their liner and try to go polyester or nylon.

Lisa Beres 34:48

Yeah, that's such a great point. Robin. Those salads are and for listeners who don't know what they are. They're an endocrine disruptor meaning they mess with our hormonal system and they soften plastic and They're also used in fragrances to linger the fragrance. But they soften plastic. So, when you think of like vinyl polyvinyl chloride, how do they get it so soft? That's Dalits that's doing that. But they off gas. They're volatile, they get airborne. These ballots actually end up in our household dust too. So, yeah, so you're not just getting at that moment that you're in the bathroom. And robbing. Speaking of that, even the vinyl floors have been shown in studies to release validates a very high level into the air. The actual vinyl floor some floors look like vinyl, but they're not final. Like what's it called? What separates that uses linseed, some of the vinyl floors, the soft.

Robin Wilson 35:36

Oh, you're talking? Yeah, you're talking about the old fashion. linseed oil is what most people would Goodness gracious. As soon as you said that. It's made of linseed oil.

Lisa Beres 35:48

It's a historical company, Marmoleum. Marmoleum? Yeah.

Robin Wilson 35:53

Originally, yeah, it's made the original was made of linseed oil. And if it's from the 1930s, you can still put more linseed oil in it looks great. There was a takeoff of that, that is made of vital plastic. And that is not good for you.

Lisa Beres 36:08

Yeah, linoleum literally,

Robin Wilson 36:10

Linoleum, linoleum Marmoleum are the same.

Ron Beres 36:14

These are my links.

Robin Wilson 36:17

If they are, if they're made of vinyl, which is they've tried to hide it, they call it LVT, luxury vinyl tile, that's vinyl, and it's going to off gas. I also like to tell people, if you can get a rug and area rug for your entire room of 14, let's say buy 10. rug, and it costs $9.99. It's probably a petroleum-based rug. Careful about that. Remember, your baby's crawling on that. And then they're licking their hands. I'd rather you all day get a jute rug, or a wool. Faisal type rug. Because those are not treated other than maybe a very light coating. It's a protector. It's not oil based. Because if it were would break down.

Lisa Beres 37:08

Natural. Yeah, yeah, look, yeah, that's a great tip. So, speaking of what chemicals and toxins, do your products not contain? Since we're talking? Oh.

Robin Wilson 37:19

So, this is the important question for everyone. Can you tell the difference between organic cotton and non-organic cotton? Now, when you look at it? That's correct. There are people who are spending extra money on organic cotton products. And guess what, there's not enough organic cotton in the world to make all those products. What I tell people, our products do we use cotton period. And we do hyper washing of that cotton. Hyper washing means that it's to surgical levels, like the gauze that you have, when you have a wound at the hospital. That is not organic cotton, it's cotton. And so just buy our product for two reasons. It's hyper washed, number one, number two, it's certified by the Better Cotton Initiative, meaning they actually test it. It's Oka tech certified, which means any of the dyes are approved, and tested and approved. And most importantly, our packaging. We're not using vinyl packaging, right, I read that you have you know the best product in the whole wide world. It comes in a bundle package. And guess what, during that three months, it was sitting in a warehouse, baking and cooling, when I know there's going to be some level of daylights that's now in that product.

Lisa Beres 38:41

And yeah, they actually on a side note, they found very high levels of valleys and chickens, because the chicken feed was being stored in these big plastic bags. Right. So, you think it's not getting into you through these ways. But I love that and I liked how you mentioned OekoTex certified certification that you have we actually had, then Mead, he's the bee's the head of the North America for OekoTex. And we had him on the podcast. I'll put a link to that in the show notes for anybody who wants to learn more about that because it's really stringent certification that is really incredible for the environment, making sure that those chemicals aren't being used in the production and getting back into our waterways and all of that.

Robin Wilson 39:19

There was a study, I think it was in the New York Times this past week. And it said This is gross. That based upon the plastic drink bottles. Even if you're in a restaurant and you say Oh, I don't want to tap water. They'll pour it from my plastic bottle, right? Yeah, not a glass bottle. Like on the airplane. Yep, exactly. Airplane too. They said that on average every I think it's every week or every month. We're eating a credit cards worth of plastic. Oh, isn't that crazy? So, there's nothing we can do about that unless we're being, I'm very grant efficient, I'll just leave it like that. But one of the things I have talked to doctors about because at a certain point that is getting in you. So, I had some joint issues recently. I was like, do I have arthritis? Like, no, you have a credit card in your finger, right? I have a credit card on my finger. And so, it's like, oh, okay, so I said, what can I do? And they said, gallons of water, basically. And the way is either filtration water, or it's better to if you have a water bubbler in your house with the gigantic bottles versus the little throwaway bottles. And I said why? And they said, because it's just one surface with five gallons versus, you know, a lot of little bottles, right? So, I bought from I won't endorse the company, but I bought a what I call a lower level, bubbler, I pushed the bottle in and it comes instead of me having to put it on top. Right on was too heavy for me. So heavy. So, the other thing is they told me to start doing something called co q 10. And it's a natural, herbal thing. And so, I started, I think it's an enzyme, right? coenzyme Yeah. And I guess it breaks down certain things that don't belong in your body and helps improve.

Lisa Beres 41:22

Sounds like we all need that. Exactly. Wow. Oh, that's great. Robin. Yeah, Ron had suffered from gout for many years, and so kind of battled with the joint issue.

Ron Beres 41:34

More hereditary. I know, it's typically associated with drinking heavy amounts of alcohol, but not for me and basically rich foods. Yeah, so.

Lisa Beres 41:45

But we're vegan now. And we've been vegan for six years. And since we went vegan, Ron's, I'm sorry, listeners, you've probably heard the story I'm

Ron Beres 41:55

sorry. I didn't mention it.

Lisa Beres 42:01

We are vegan. But honestly, his diet cleaned that out too. Because, you know, we were doing heavy amounts of protein, the pollution from a lot of the seafood. And sadly, a lot of the food we eat is so polluted, too. So, listen, we're all struggling, wherever we are even vegan, you have to be careful, it's just being cognizant of what you're ingesting what you're putting on your body. It's not about living in the bubble. But kind of reducing that body burden in that body load. We hear at our home; we have a water filtration system. And we use glass containers, kind of like what you're doing, reducing that amount of like plastic exposure. And every little bit, I'm all about baby steps, people just you know, don't beat yourself up. We're all doing the best we can.

Robin Wilson 42:44

Exactly. And as we close out tonight, I just want to thank you so much for having me on your show. And just to say, just like Bombas Socks has a social justice mission. We have one for CLEAN DESIGN HOME. And we just launched it a couple of weeks ago with Joe Torre, that famous Yankees manager has foundational Safe at Home Foundation. And they actually have a network of safe houses for domestic violence survivors. And many people leave their DV situations, which is the clothing on their back, or maybe a couple of suitcases and their children's things. And so, I said, why don't we make sure they have a safe bed. And so, as you buy CLEAN DESIGN HOME products, we actually give lilac sheets, it's called Project lilac on our website, CLEAN DESIGN HOME.com. We give lilac sheets away to this organization; they distribute it to their network of safe houses. So, when someone arrives, they have their own set of sheets for their children and themselves that they can take with them that they own.

Lisa Beres 43:49

Oh, wow. That is incredible. Thank you so much for sharing that and for doing that one great work you're doing in the world. That is amazing.

Robin Wilson 43:58

We just shipped our first 24 sets of sheets. And the bottom line is it gives a step of dignity. It's like you have some pretty sheets, they feel really good. They're yours whenever you buy or move to your next home. And we will never sell lilac sheets. We're just going to give them away. Wow, very nice.

Lisa Beres 44:18

Fantastic that's a really important. We had a human sex trafficking survivor actually on the show talking about should they're in Dallas, Texas and talking about she was a survivor. It's a really riveting story. And now she created a nonprofit of helping to so yeah, I know every little bit helps these people run on donations. So, every little bit helps. So, I'll put a link to that organization as well.

Robin Wilson 44:41

Oh yeah, you go to www.cleandesignhome.com And there's a tab that's called Project lilac. Just click there. You'll even see a picture and video of Joe Torre and I that was on CBS.

Lisa Beres 44:53

Oh wow, that's a great way to end the show you guys. I hope you enjoyed this one. Robin, thank you so much for being with us today. This was so fantastic.

Robin Wilson 45:04

Thank you and keep doing the great work you're doing. The simple tips and tricks for your home can change your life. It's so important.

Lisa Beres 45:15

Bravo to that while said you have so much passion and knowledge to share with the world and we thank you for making our homes a safer place for all of us to enjoy and to not just survive in but to thrive in.

Ron Beres 45:26

Friends if you'd like to learn about Robins home line now available at Macy's head there or learn more about Robin and her line at CLEAN DESIGN HOME.com. They've got you and your family covered.

Lisa Beres 45:42

And you can find the links that we discussed in the show notes at Ronandlisa.com forward slash podcast and friends stay tuned next week. Get ready to up level your health. We'll see you everyone. Bye.

Narrator 45:59

This episode of the Healthy Home hacks podcast has ended. But be sure to subscribe for more healthy living strategies and tactics to help you create the healthy home you always dreamed of. And don't forget to rate and review so we can continue to bring you the best content. See you on the next episode.