Green clean: The non-toxic way to a spick-and-span home
Forget toxic cleaning products. Plant-based, sustainable cleaners mean you can enjoy a greener home that’s healthier for you and the planet.
We recycle like champions, take public transport, and turn off the lights when we’re not in a room.
But when it comes to cleaning our homes, our environmental halo tends to slip.
We reach for toxic products to blast away the grease and grime – often because they’re the easiest products to find and we also think they work best.
But now a revolutionary new range of sustainable cleaners is on the market, promising a cleaner, greener home.
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How sustainable cleaners work
Pleasant State is a female-owned Australian start-up founded by Ami Bateman and Sian Murray that produces a range of non-toxic, vegan and cruelty-free sustainable cleaners.
The centrepiece of the range is cleaning bars that you drop into durable glass and silicone bottles.
Once you add hot water to dissolve the bars (which takes one to two hours), this creates the cleaning solution.
Then you pop the spray trigger on to the bottle and you’re good to go – get wiping those surfaces.
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Sustainable cleaners are a greener alternative
Ami and Sian promise there are “no nasties” for the environment in their cleaning range.
“We’ve used plant-based surfactants, which means our cleaning products are non-toxic, vegan, greywater safe and much more. Most importantly, they work – very well,” they say on their website.
Being vegan and cruelty-free, the products contain no animal products and haven’t been tested on animals.
The bars have a 12-month shelf life and are packaged in a home-compostable wrapper.
The bottles can be washed and reused.
The duo is committed to avoiding single-use plastic.
The only plastics used are the spray-bottle triggers, intended to be used over and over.
“The majority of us are buying up bottles that we’re throwing away at the end of the day, which is not only wasteful but also contributing to greenhouse gas emissions,” Ami notes.
Why Ami started making sustainable cleaners
The idea for the range was born after Ami began experiencing gut health issues in late 2019.
Wanting to reduce potential irritants and triggers, she started introducing non-toxic products into her everyday life.
But she hit a wall when it came to finding local cleaning products that were non-toxic.
“I learnt of ‘just add water’ cleaning solutions and found out it was possible to purchase active cleaning ingredients and add them to your own bottle, thereby making your cleaning products at home and helping reduce waste,” Ami says.
“When I started looking for something to use in my own home, however, I couldn’t find anything that was plastic-free, didn’t contain toxins and was also aesthetically pleasing, which is why I set about creating the product I was looking for.”
Identifying a gap in the market
Previously working in corporate tech, Ami used her business skills to conceptualise a product strategy and joined forces with Sian Murray, a digital marketer, to co-found Pleasant State.
After a successful crowd-funding campaign, the pair launched their business in August 2020.
“We knew from market research that Pleasant State products would appeal to at least 25 per cent of the Australian population,” Ami says.
“We wanted to build a brand that would help consumers live up to the aspirational versions of themselves and we knew there was a real gap in the cleaning space for that.”
Sian says the company’s messaging has partly been about “refraining from judgement, and supporting people that are doing the best they can”.
“Whether buying Pleasant State is the first step on your sustainable journey or (living sustainably) is something you’ve been doing passionately for years, all are welcome,” Sian says.
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Taking it global
The duo plan to scale globally and have trademarked Pleasant State in nine other global jurisdictions.
They are also planning to expand their range with ‘just add water’ personal-care products.
“At the moment, we’re developing a ‘just add water’ foaming hand wash that we’ve been testing over the past couple of months,” Ami says. “And we’ve had really good feedback from that, which is exciting.”
Written by Charlotte Brundrett.
