Welcome to the Truly Clean Co. community!
The origin story and what we are looking to accomplish...
I’m so happy you are here and look forward to spending more time together learning, growing and supporting one another along our journey of discovering the best ways to care for our families, ourselves and our homes. As we build, I know there are some of you out there wondering … what does Truly Clean really mean? There is such a simple, yet vast meaning behind this and why I chose it for our company name.
From the beginning...
The story of how my little family – my husband, myself, and our son – came back to CA in 2021 is a long one. In the interest of time, I’m going to skip the details for now.
Transforming our Environment
When we arrived at my parents’ home, the home where I grew up from the ages of 7 to 18, it was clear that the house needed some TLC. I had been gone for nearly 20 years and my mother passed away in 2010. It is not uncommon for a widowed spouse to lose their desire to keep up with a home that was created by the one who passed, and this was the situation we walked into.
With a 5-month old in tow, moving our family across the world from Romania back to California, we had to get to work on the space where we would be living right away. A decade of neglect creates challenges in the overall cleanliness, sure, but the air quality, old carpet and popcorn ceilings to deal with etc. Our main motivation was to get the space as healthy and clean as possible – all without chemicals of course.
I had already been on the “clean living” journey for some years – more seriously since about 2018. Over time, there are always things you find to improve upon, and cleaning supplies is absolutely one of the big ones. Not having lived in the US for the previous couple of years I found myself looking at the products on the shelves at Target and thinking… these are not going to cut it. They’re full of toxic synthetic chemicals and fragrance for one, and the ingredients that are considered “plant based” are anything but natural, and are not anything we wanted to bring into our environment with a young child.
So the search for cleaning products began and thankfully a friend of mine sent me an ad on Insta. I’d seen it before but didn’t investigate it – it was Branch Basics. In my experience, if something seems too good to be true - it is. I thought ok, let’s try it and see how it works. To say I was floored is an understatement. The ease of use, the shine it leaves, the lack of fragrance… it was exactly what I’d been searching for that I didn’t think existed. To this day, almost 3 years later, I am still finding new uses for this product and can’t get over how all encompassing it is.
Me? Cleaning other people's homes?
As we made our way through the decade’s worth of dust and clutter, got the carpets cleaned, dealt with the HVAC system and an old neglected bathroom that we didn’t think we could ever use without lighting on fire, I am pleased to say that we now have a sufficiently clean living space for our family. I am proud of what we’ve been able to do with so few resources.
Fast forward a few months, my husband had been applying to jobs since we arrived with no movement. He must have applied to over 100 jobs – and as an intelligent, college educated, hard-working, driven and disciplined person beyond my comprehension. He interviewed a few times, and nothing ever came of those meetings. I figured it must be for a reason but we started to get anxious about our finances. A friend of mine told me about how she had some success filling extra time with TaskRabbit. I researched it, and thought why not? We need some money coming in, no matter how little, so I put up my profile and selected nearly every category EXCEPT cleaning – although it was categorized as high in demand at the time. I thought, I don’t want to clean other people’s houses… how weird would that be? After a couple of weeks of zero bites in the other skills like organizing, shopping, event planning etc. I felt compelled to add cleaning to the list. At least it was something I was skilled at and actually knew something about – even if I didn’t want to do it.
Well, I immediately received multiple requests for cleaning – and it kept going from there. With my Branch Basics lineup and a few other items I began routinely cleaning for a handful of families and that’s where my idea for this cleaning company came about. There was no such thing as - and even still there is little evidence of - a TRULY clean cleaning company that was using real non-toxic, chemical-free products. Sure there are plenty of large cleaning companies that say they use “eco-friendly” products, but after looking deeper into what they were actually using, it turns out they are just clean-washing and using items I would never use in my home.
The Evolution
I will be honest and say that the bulk of my routine clients did not choose me initially because of my product line up. I think TaskRabbit is a place where people are looking for background checked workers for a decent price. My profile did explain that my specialty was in using non-toxic products, but it was clear that this wasn’t always the most important aspect of the work I was doing. Many people kept me around because of my attention to detail, being reliable and my willingness to go the extra mile to do things the right way.
As time went on, I was receiving referrals because of my work ethic AND finally because of my use of healthy products – especially when it came to families with small children and pets. There is a fast-growing community of us who value the importance of a clean environment and are aware that conventional cleaning products are simply not the way to go about getting it and I am here to help those people.
Real Health and Wellness Concerns
One of my favorite client experiences dealt with a couple of young women, and their two small dogs, who were forced to leave their rental home because of toxic mold that the landlord refused to remedy. They had to ditch nearly everything they owned and start over from scratch in a new place. They were so happy to find a company like Truly Clean Co. who used healthy products and that could give them tips on how to look out for these kinds of issues in the future. I still clean for them periodically and am so happy to help people like this who truly NEED a healthy way to maintain their home and their health, including their pets.
It’s clients like these that really inspire me to keep going and build this business to reach as many people as possible to support them in their health and happiness at home, because it is in our health that we spread our light to the world for the betterment of the collective.
Lessons Learned
The most important lesson I’ve learned thus far is that everyone is on their own journey and has their own way of living and moving in the world. We all make changes with our own timing when we are truly ready. I initially thought that I wouldn’t be able to work for people who used glade plug-ins for example, or toxic candles. I used to think that it would be a bit of an oxymoron to use a healthy cleaning company in a toxic environment, but you know what? I realized that I still don’t do everything perfectly. I didn’t begin here, and I am not going to stop here either. With every change and advancement I make, I make it possible for everyone else to grow too.
We can only change what we are ready for, and maybe, by providing more knowledge to our clients about what we use and why we choose to, we can spread the idea of being clean without chemicals and help move people forward in their journey, one step at a time. I’ve found that many clients end up asking how we do this or that, how can they accomplish x, y, or z in a healthy way and I am beyond grateful that we get to help people in this way – and that Truly Clean Co. can inspire others by our modeling what is important to us.
The Future?
What the future holds no one can know for certain. I often find myself driving down the freeway and envision Truly Clean Co. sprinter vans driving by, off to help more and more people. I feel in my heart that I want this company to reach more people, to better their health, their environment, the earth as a whole… and just overall quality of life. We’re taking small manageable steps and I am happy to let the universe take the wheel on where we’ll end up. Will we have Truly Clean Co. products? Maybe become a digital destination for all things Truly Clean? I have too many ideas so I will only entertain them as they come and go because I know I will be surprised by the directions we will take.
Gratitude
I have to thank my mentor Ralph for giving his time and encouraging me to move forward with this company. We share the vision of a better world for the future and are both on that same path with our respective interests. Although I’m just in the baby stages while he is already making waves in the apparel world, I am so grateful to know and have such an exemplary person in my life during this time.
And most importantly, I need to thank my husband Radu – the unwavering support you have shown me through the good and bad times has changed me. Even if you’re the only person on earth I can trust the way I do, it gives me such hope for the world knowing there is someone like you in it. You are everything I could hope for in a partner, and I so look forward to sharing this growth with you and the amazing little boy we are raising.
I will work to share more along this journey of building a company from nothing into what will hopefully be something someday. I laugh at myself looking back to my first year and thinking I would have employees and multiple counties off and running by now – but hey, one can dream right? I have come very close to giving up and have had major dips in motivation but recently decided that I have to give it 125% before I do that, so here goes…
What does Truly Clean really mean?
By definition it would say something like: really; genuinely; honestly, to the fullest extent or degree free from pollution; unadulterated and pure.
Today’s idea of “clean” has to do with “killing germs” or “killing viruses” or stripping the environment of any and all… and we are here to change that.
You do not have to kill anything to have a clean environment. You do not have to sanitize your home to have it be Truly Clean… you can use simple, easily found and yes, affordable, sources that are native to the earth and still live clean and healthily.
Truly Clean Co. comes down to the fact that the products we use are clean, the environments we create are clean, therefore creating a clean bill of health, and in contrast to the old ways of cleaning - leaving the earth a cleaner place by doing it all our way – without adding any harmful elements to achieve a Truly Clean place to live.
A part of Truly Clean Company’s vision is to maintain a Truly Clean footprint – in all aspects. I haven’t paid attention to our social media, and that has been purposeful as well as a product of my availability and time as a soloprenuer. It’s not to say that I never will as I am currently exploring options there – but for now, I plan to stay in touch with blog posts and newsletters … old school style. I want to provide this community with value and offer a place to discuss and ask questions without worrying about the judgement of the people who have it all figured out – HAHA gotcha - no one does!
Let's Talk About It
If you feel restricted, lost or stuck with no idea how to get started… I have been there, friend and revisit these places often. Life is not linear, our failures all mount to our successes and I’m happy to share the ups and downs with you. Please share your stories, ideas and questions in the comments because I would love to keep this conversation going. What are you interested in learning about? What would you like to make a change in but need help with? Let’s support each other – here’s to our growth.
With love, Gia.
How come you don't have a bibliography?