Household Care
Household Care
How did skincare end up here?
How did skincare end up here?
I didn't set out to make household cleaning products.
Then again, I didn't set out to make a whole range of skincare, personal care and lip products either.
Most of them came about because I wanted something for myself and couldn't quite find what I was looking for. One product led to another and, somewhere along the way, I kept having the same thought:
If I need this, perhaps somebody else does too.
Household Care happened in much the same way.
Nurturing Skin began with thinking about what we put on our skin. But eventually I began looking at some of the other products I use every day — what I wash my hands with, what I wash my dishes with, what I spray onto my kitchen bench and what I use around the home.
There was also a much more personal reason.
I am sensitive to many strong cleaning products. They can make me feel unwell, and I had become tired of reacting to products I was using for the most ordinary cleaning jobs.
I had tried the more eco-friendly products from the supermarket too, hoping they would be different, but they weren't right for me either.
Eventually I started asking myself a very simple question:
Why was I using something so strong?
Why was I exposing myself to heavy-duty cleaning ingredients simply to wipe down a kitchen bench, clean up a spill or remove ordinary everyday dirt?
And I realised that whether something was described as natural or synthetic wasn't really the point. Natural doesn't automatically mean gentle, just as synthetic doesn't automatically mean harmful.
What mattered to me was much simpler:
Does this particular cleaning job actually require something this strong?
And, more broadly:
How much intervention does ordinary life actually require?
Why use heavy-duty cleaning for everyday dirt?
We have become accustomed to cleaning products that promise to cut through grease, attack grime and pack as much cleaning power as possible into a bottle.
Sometimes that power is useful.
If I have a genuinely difficult cleaning job, I may still reach for something stronger. I'm not suggesting that every cleaning job can be tackled with water and a gentle cleaner.
But most of the cleaning I do every day isn't heavy-duty cleaning.
Sometimes water and a cloth are enough. I have cleaned that way for years.
Sometimes ordinary grease, food residue, fingerprints and grime need a little more help.
And that is where I began to question why I should routinely expose myself to something much stronger than the job actually required — particularly when strong cleaning products can make me feel unwell.
Why make myself sick for cleaning power I don't even need?
For me, a more sensible approach is:
Water when water is enough.
A gentle but effective cleaner for ordinary everyday cleaning.
Something stronger when the job genuinely requires it.
I think of it as proportionate cleaning.
Gentle still has to work
There is another side to this that matters just as much to me.
I don't want to make a gentle product that doesn't clean properly.
If I wash a greasy frying pan and it is still greasy, I don't care how lovely the ingredient list looks. The dishwashing liquid hasn't done its job.
If I wipe down my kitchen bench and it is still dirty, the cleaner isn't good enough.
I want both.
Effectiveness alongside gentleness.
Not the weakest product I can make. Not the strongest product I can make.
Just enough to do what it is supposed to do, properly.
Recently, after rendering my weekly fat trimmings, I had fat on my kitchen benchtop. I gave it two soft sprays with my cleaner and wiped it with a damp paper towel.
It cleaned beautifully.
Nothing more was needed.
And that little everyday moment probably sums up my thinking better than anything else could.
The bench was clean.
Why did I need the cleaner to be stronger?
Then came a test I hadn't planned
A pair of professional cleaners came to our home as fill-ins for our usual cleaner.
I handed them the three Household Care products, told them I had made them, and left them to get on with their work.
I hadn't asked them to test the products. In fact, I hadn't even remembered to ask for feedback.
Later, when I walked into the kitchen, they were the ones who started the conversation.
They had used many different cleaning products through their work and were genuinely excited by mine. One particularly loved the Universal Botanical Cleaner, while the other was impressed by the Glass & Mirror Botanical Cleaner.
For me, that mattered.
These weren't products being politely tried by friends or family. They were simply handed to people who clean professionally and used as part of an ordinary day's work.
Gentle was never enough. They had to work.
And they did.
And then I got a little angry
And then I got a little angry
As pleased as I was, part of me was angry too.
Why had I spent so long believing that getting the house properly clean meant putting up with cleaning products and fumes that my body simply didn't tolerate well?
Even the more eco-friendly supermarket products I had tried hadn't solved that problem for me.
I had come to believe that this was simply the choice I had: the house gets cleaned, and I deal with how the products make me feel afterwards.
And yet here I was, watching much simpler formulations remove grease and grime, clean benches and leave mirrors beautifully clear — and I could use them without experiencing the same reaction.
They worked.
That was exactly what I had wanted.
Products that did their job. No unnecessary complication. No overpowering fragrance. Just practical cleaners I was comfortable using in my own home.
Hooray!
Perhaps you've felt something similar. Maybe you've stood in the cleaning aisle reading labels, tried the products that sounded gentler or more environmentally conscious, and still thought:
“Well, I suppose this is just what I have to put up with if I want the house clean.”
For me, it turned out I didn't have to choose between a cleaning product I could tolerate and one that actually worked.
The same philosophy, just beyond skincare
The same philosophy, just beyond skincare
Once I began looking at household products this way, Household Care didn't seem such a strange addition to Nurturing Skin after all.
The philosophy hadn't really changed.
This isn't about believing that everything natural is safe. It isn't.
Nor is it about believing that every synthetic ingredient is something to fear. It isn't.
Sometimes an ingredient has an important job to do. Sometimes a stronger cleaning product is exactly what a particular job requires.
For me, it is about something much simpler:
Do I need it?
Does it have a useful job to do?
Am I going to react to it? Will it be gentle on my system?
Can I get the result I need without adding or using more than necessary?
Those are the questions behind Nurturing Skin.
I simply started asking them in the rest of my home.
The Household Care Collection
The same thinking extends to some of the most ordinary things we do around the home.
Universal Botanical Cleaner
For everyday cleaning — benchtops, spills, fingerprints, food residue and general household grime.
Enough cleaning power for the everyday job, without treating every job as though it needs a heavy-duty solution.
Botanical Dishwashing Liquid
For dishes, cookware, food residue and grease.
It needs to clean properly, while also recognising that washing dishes is one of those ordinary household jobs that brings a cleaning product into repeated contact with our hands.
Glass & Mirror Botanical Cleaner
For glass, mirrors and reflective surfaces — removing fingerprints, splashes and everyday marks for a beautifully clear finish.
Household Care Products Trio
All three Nurturing Skin cleaning products: Universal Botanical Cleaner, Glass & Mirror Botanical Cleaner and Botanical Dishwashing Liquid in their 200ml everyday application bottles.
Save $4.90 compared with purchasing the three 200 ml bottles separately.
I never planned a range this size
Nurturing Skin has grown to around fifteen products.
That was never the plan.
I didn't sit down and decide that I needed a large range. I certainly didn't want products simply so that I could fill a website with them.
They accumulated because I kept wanting things for myself.
Something for my skin. Something for my lips. A proper lipstick. A deodorant. A hand wash. And now, products for some of the everyday cleaning in my home.
None of them needs to be the next great thing.
A lip oil can simply be a lovely lip oil. A hand wash should wash your hands. A household cleaner should clean.
They just need to do their job properly and make sense within the philosophy behind Nurturing Skin.
That's really how this range has grown.
I needed these things.
I wanted another way of doing them.
And I kept coming back to the same thought:
If I need them, perhaps somebody else does too.
