Prior to meeting the people behind Holistic Home, LLC, I did some research the findings of which can only be described as disturbing. I discovered that as I sit in the comfort of my home I am not alone. At any given moment I am sharing my space with a variety of mold, fungus and mites, ingesting lead and bacteria laden water, and inhaling detrimental compounds of formaldehyde, radon and benzene. According to the EPA, the air I breathe within my four walls may have toxic chemical levels up to 70% higher than what is outside—a shocking statistic considering what’s outside is Philadelphia.
Despite my best attempts to ignore the findings and this most shocking statistic, I couldn’t help but reach for the bleach and wage a full scale attack on every hard surface in the place. The next day I learned that my attempts to chemically sterilize my environment were counterproductive.
Ginger Kovac and Marek Swoboda created Holistic Home as a means of helping people live healthy lives. With backgrounds in biomedical engineering and physical well-being, the two understand that healthy living begins at home. Specifically, with the products we turn to create a healthy home.
There are no gimmicks to Holistic Home, just a sensible balanced approach to cleaning that eliminates chemicals and strives for balance. Cleaning holistically is about acknowledging that what we expose ourselves to is as important as what we ingest and consume. It is about understanding that the caustic chemicals we most often use to clean our homes—and the ones I used as my weapon on choice the night before—may be doing more harm than good.
The modern way of cleaning typically involves a few squirts from a spray bottle and a few deft wipes with a (paper) towel. Our wipes, sprays and detergents have become our chief means of providing cleanliness and balance, but they are actually inhibiting our body’s ability to stay healthy by subjecting us to elements more hazardous than those they eradicate.
Contained within the cleaning cabinet of the typical home are phosphates, petroleum distillates, and phenol that may disrupt the marine ecosystem, irritate the respiratory system, and lead to organ failure. These life-altering chemicals are being used to wash the dishes from which we eat, the beds where we sleep and the floors where our children and pets play.
Holistic Home favors natural ingredients like minerals, plants, and essential oils. Everything that’s in their (recycled) bottles can be found in the kitchen—Kovac’s kitchen—in a natural, chemical-free state. While the level of cleanliness is comparable, and the health benefits superior, cleaning with natural ingredients requires a certain amount of effort, an abandonment of commercial ideals, and a willingness to let go of nostalgic attachments.
Cleaning with Kovac’s products requires what older generations referred to as “elbow grease.” Elbow grease, for those who don’t know, refers to manual labor like scrubbing that ultimately leads to the desired state of clean. Putting a little elbow grease into something will likely put you in close proximity of dirt and grime; something the squirt and wipe cleaners may find uncomfortable. It’s much more intimate way of cleaning and one that is immensely more satisfying.
Natural ingredients are not able to achieve the same (assumed) level of clean as those that are chemically enhanced. For instance, if you’re convinced that society judges you by the whiteness of your socks, you’ll want to stick with bleach. The chemicals in bleach were engineered and marketed to achieve the whitest white. You simply cannot achieve the same results using kitchen-found ingredients.
Because the smell of a clean house is nearly as important as a clean house, Kovac and Swoboda made the conscious decision not to fight the nostalgia that comes with Pledged furniture, Lysoled toilets, and Mountain Fresh loads of laundry. If a client has a particular attachment to a product, they will not discourage them from using it. They will simply introduce them to other means of incorporating natural ingredients into their routine.
As Kovac and Swoboda look to the future, they imagine a company that introduces fitness and nutrition components to their cleaning. As they finalize these additional services and live more holistically in your own home, Kovac and Swoboda offered a small suggestion: start reading the labels on what you purchase. Open up your cleaning cabinet—your medicine cabinet and pantry for that matter—and find out exactly what you’re introducing to your environment. Remember that health starts in the home, consider how you treat it, and start cleaning up your act.
