Sea Green Natural Cleaning

Guest: Cathy Mails, Owner of Sea Green Natural Cleaning
2024 Topsail’s Top Choice Awards - 1st Place - Favorite Cleaning Service

Meet Cathy Mails, the woman behind Sea Green Natural Cleaning, as she shares how growing up helping her family manage rentals in Connecticut led to a natural cleaning business in North Carolina that’s making homes healthier and safer. She discusses the surprising health hazards of conventional cleaning products and shares her passion for natural, eco-friendly solutions.

Website: https://seagreennaturalcleaning.com/
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Co-Hosts: Trudy Solomon and Christa Schroeder
Edited by Jim Mendes-Pouget  |  jimpouget@gmail.com

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Transcript

0:02

Welcome to Topsail Insider, where you can hear all about the businesses and events in the beautiful coastal towns in the greater Topsail area of North Carolina. Coming up, today we have Kathy Mayles from Sea Green Natural Cleaning talking about what sets her cleaning services apart from others. Store bought cleaning products have minimal government regulations and may contain chemicals that can be dangerous to our health. Kathy will be sharing natural options for getting your house spic and span, discussing her blog, a future book, and more today on Topsail Insider. It's time to indulge and experience the finest coastal hospitality on Topsail Island with Saltwater Resort and Suites in Surf City, North Carolina. Designed to exceed your expectations, guests can enjoy elegant suites featuring premium, luxurious bedding, fully equipped kitchens with dishwashers, 75 inch flat screens, en suite washers and dryers, and gorgeous ocean views. With the grand opening of their newest location, you can now relax in their saltwater pool and modern clubhouse, perfect for unwinding, socializing, and private events. Book your next beach getaway today at saltwatertopsail. com or call 910 886 4818. Saltwater Resort and Suites, redefining luxury on Topsail Island. Hello everyone and welcome to Topsail Insider. My name is Christa and I am your co host because today I have Trudy Solomon sitting in with me and we are going to be interviewing Kathy Mayles. She is the owner of Sea Green Natural Cleaning. All right, let's get to this. Yes, I'm so happy to be here. Thanks Kathy. Thanks Trudy. I want you to start out by telling the listeners exactly what Seagreen Natural Cleaning does and why you stand out from other cleaning companies. Absolutely. I got my start when I was 11 years old. My parents had rentals in Connecticut and when I wasn't doing gymnastics, my parents taught me. All facets of the business from cleaning to managing a business at 11 years old. What business did they have? So my parents had a business called Madison Cabins. So they had six summer cottages and three year round. So when my parents got me involved in their business, I learned a lot about, operating a business and my mom coming from a nursing background. We use Pine Saw. And we also used Spick and Span and products like that. And over time they started irritating my skin and causing respiratory problems with me. So from that point on, I started educating myself about different products, what's healthy, for me. And I saw a difference with my skin. I saw a difference with my breathing. And so that's what started the movement on, me using natural products and offering to those natural products to clients. We make all of our own cleaning products. in addition to that, I feel that we are a company that educates homeowners about toxicities in their homes, like mothballs. off gassing as far as materials on carpets. so when we go into a family's home, we always educate them about staying away, from certain chemicals because it causes cancer. you've mentioned some things that I'm interested in knowing a little bit more about. So you mentioned you're from Connecticut. So I want to hear about that. And of course, how you got here because your business is here. And then, you mentioned some things you did when you were younger, gymnastics and things too. So I'm sure there's some other stories to come. So tell us more. At the young age of 11, I started doing gymnastics and I was self taught and then I started, my parents really couldn't afford lessons and then I started eventually, having lessons and I progressed and I started getting really popular for gymnastics and started doing really well. Connecticut, we lived on the shoreline it's a beautiful ocean area and that's, I was brought up through learning on how to recycle and taking care of our environment so that's also, with that kind of background, I am using that for my business today. How far did you take the gymnastics? I went to Southern Connecticut State University because the Olympic coach was there, for the men's gymnastic team. And the women's team was quite popular, so I chose to go to Southern. I got accepted to Southern for that. And in 1983 at our nationals in Denver, Colorado, I came in 10th in the United States. Whoa! Wow! Kebby! That's huge! Yeah, I'm excited. you've been pretty athletic your entire life. Thank you. Yes, I'm definitely, I enjoy the outside. I'm very passionate about the environment. It's just brings on a whole different amount of energy to me. Enjoying, I get emotional with the sun and the moon and just nature itself. I see two big themes here with you already. I see, your passion for the environment and taking care of that. And I can imagine you've got stories to share with us about chemicals more than just recycling, right? And then also how this ties in with your health. Tell us more about like your own health journey. And like you had some, skin irritations or things like that when you were young, but then you were also like an athlete. So tell us about that and how it's fed into your business. what people don't realize is when you're using store bought, cleaners for all purpose cleaners or multi purpose cleaners, that when you are spraying those products, those molecules go into the air and they collect on furniture and also on your body and an experiment that you can do is when you're spraying something, all you have to do is lick your skin and your skin is the most absorbent organ of your body. And so I noticed that when I was using like the PineSaw and Tilex and all those other cleaners is that I could feel it on my skin and I usually wear a short sleeve shirt when we're working. So that's an indication right there that, Anything that's going through the air is going to land somewhere and it's going to land on your body as well. So it causes skin irritations and if you use the product and if you're exposed to it in a non ventilated area, it could probably go to your liver as well. Wow. And start causing liver problems. Yeah. So you've actually worked with people to help them remedy some concerns that they probably didn't even understand. Absolutely. So my passion is working with people that are, cancer survivors or they're going through chemotherapy right now, lupus, MS, the common illnesses to educate them about making healthier choices for their homes for products. So let's go back to, you lived on the coast up in Connecticut and now you're here in our coast. So how'd you come here? So I've had the opportunity to have two successful businesses while I was in Connecticut. I started the cleaning business in 1984 and that was the same year that my now ex husband and I bought a boatyard marina, which was a very successful boatyard marina in Madison, Connecticut. We only had 30 slips and we were one of the top 10 marinas. In the state of Connecticut, we were, a Mako dealer, Johnson Everud, and various other boat lines. I'm very passionate about the boating industry, and that's what brought me to Wilmington because of the richness of the history, and I enjoy boating. How is boating playing into your life now? I'm on the Wrightsville Beach Outrigger Team, and we're out on the water all the time. Tell me more about that. That sounds interesting. we're a very competitive club. We've been traveling all over the United States now. I think we have 118 members. we give, give back a lot to the community. We do beach cleanups. We do fundraisers for battered women. we do beach cleaning. like last year when we did the Latilla, all the money, that we won the People's Choice Award, all the money went to Maui. So this year we're hoping to get the People's Choice Award again. All the money is going to go to Western North Carolina. Wow. Okay. How long have you been doing that? I've been, paddling for four years. Okay, and are you in a lot of competitions? Have you gotten a lot of awards? How'd you, I don't know. Tell us a little bit more about that. I haven't paddled. I'm a hardcore competitive person and anything that I do, whether it's my business or, sports. And this year I've done five races. I did, Chattajack. It's a Tennessee race, 32 miles nonstop. It took us five miles. We came in fifth. That was our first time we did that race. And then I went to Miami and did a nine mile race with a all women's team that I didn't know from Pennsylvania. So other teams across the United States is reaching out to me because, they want me on their team. That's good. You have a lot of discipline besides the passion that you keep talking about. You're passionate about the environment. You're passionate about, just a clean. Clean living, and now you're, you're also sharing how disciplined you are. That takes a lot of practice, doesn't it, to, to be on a team like that? Definitely does. I have to go to the gym so I can keep up with the younger people on the team. you mentioned your premature. And so I bet that really did contribute to breathing issues. And so you talked about that with some of the chemicals you were around and then you've made us aware of how these things get on our skin. I'm already concerned about several things now, but and you've got these lovely, clients that you're helping with their health issues and things. And then I even think about how, Even people without the health concerns, something's real specific like cancer or lupus, like you mentioned. but then we, how we got a little bit more aware of our environment when COVID came along too. So tell me more about your business today and how you're doing. Giving people peace of mind and how you know so much about what you know, so I'm a research fanatic If there's a topic when customers come to me and they have questions about certain products if I don't have the answer I will find the answer and I do a lot of fact checking. I'm very passionate about that My ultimate goal is to educate everyone about how we can make better choices in our home. How are we infecting the environment? things as simple as I'm a contact wear. And, so now some local eye doctors actually are starting to recycle those, but people have no idea on how just disposing of your contacts is polluting our oceans tremendously causing microplastics. Thanks. And so now I doctors are starting to get wise with this with the bubble packs and also the contacts on how to recycle those and saving the environment. Also too, I enjoy working with the North Carolina Coastal Federation. they're educating me a lot on the environment as well, as far as like recycling oyster shells. so people don't, they want to throw them away, but they can actually spawn. And, so that's really, that's helping the environment as well. And simple things too is like recycling hair. There's a company in California after the big oil, I think it was Deep Water Horizon oil spill. There's a company in California that will recycle human hair and also pet hair and they make oil booms from those. So you can just send, so local hair salons can send when they sweep up all that hair so that hair can be recycled and used for oil booms. Yeah, you're teaching us a lot about things that we can, that we all use and that how we can certainly dispose of them differently. to not cause any more harm than we've already caused, but you're also teaching us about things that we shouldn't use because they're causing harm to us directly. So I appreciate that. So if there's a person out there who's listening and they're interested in talking to you about your services, talk to me about what those are. Who do you get out there and help? What kind of services do you offer? So we are residential cleaners. We do not do commercial cleaning at this time. We do, we do a lot of Airbnbs from Wrightsville Beach all the way to Topsail. We do move out cleans, move in cleans, deep cleans. Just basic residential cleaning. Do you do new construction? We do new construction cleaning. We do a lot of work for a builder in Wilmington that does a lot of houses on Figure 8 Island. Okay. So you do some things that are just a one, one and done, but you do, you help some people regularly and go back and help them. Yes. Yeah, so tell us about some of those experiences and what you've helped people accomplish or just even I think about the rentals, and people who are coming in, there's all kinds of, there's a different person coming in every week with a different probably set of health concerns and things like that. So with so many different people coming through those rental units and you're not using borax. What are you using to take care of the disinfecting? So we use vinegar diluted with water. I blog about this because if you're not careful, the acidity of vinegar will destroy materials such as granite and marble and corian tops. And also it will destroy floors. So my theory is less is more. You don't need a lot. Vinegar is a good disinfectant as well. sometimes if I have a leftover lemon or orange, you can use that for disinfecting. Anything that's acidic. So if you're wanting to have that nice, fresh smell, we do not use, any scents at all because a lot of people are very sensitive to that. So everything that we use is unscented. And because we don't use a lot of vinegar, you don't have that offensive smell. And vinegar is very much like alcohol, rubbing alcohol. It does dissipate over time, but if you use a lot of vinegar, yes, it's going to be, it's not going to be, enjoyable to smell. Do you use alcohol as well? You can use rubbing alcohol. You can use witch hazel. You can use hydrogen peroxide. We had a lot of mold issues in our Airbnbs this summer and last summer. I'm not a mold restoration company. If it's just a little bit of mold, we use hydrogen peroxide. You do not want to use bleach because bleach is only a whitener. And you can use vinegar, too, in your laundry. and you said you got, you mix these chemicals up or you mix these products up and you bring them into the home for you so that you've got it figured out of what ratio and things like that, too. And I know a lot of people who, They're used to walking in their home and smelling the Clorox and feel like, yay, my house is clean. That's true. Guilty. but I'm not sure I want to walk in and smell a lot of vinegar either, so you've thought about that. But yeah, I think about how people are sensitive to lots of scents and Clorox, even though it smells clean, it's probably doing some damage somewhere. So and, but then I really want to pre, I appreciate this too. You've all these hats that you've worn all these years at your parents place and at the marina and all that. Sounds like you've learned a lot about the surfaces too, but we've spent a ton of money on the finishes in our home and we don't realize the damage that we're doing to some of them over time with some of those chemicals too. So you mentioned that you've blogged about this. I got to find your blog. Tell me. So you can find all of our blogs on our website, Sea Green Natural Cleaning. All of my blogs are written from the heart, but also fact checked, and it's all experiences that we come across in people's homes. the commercial industry's done a fantastic job programming all of this, that the scents that we smell is, such as like eucalyptus or pine or lavender is all those scents that they use. People have no idea it's called greenwashing and whitewashing. That's masking the chemical smell. So All my clients, I recommend for them, it's a tool, it's a government run website, it's called ewg. org. Oh, I've heard of that. And any product that you want to purchase, whether it's a baby product, a product for your dog, a product for your skin, or a product that you want to use for cleaning, such as Meyers or 7th Generation, there's chemicals in those, that they do a rating on every single one of those products. And it'll tell you if it causes respiratory problems, if it causes, skin, allergies. I'll be going there. and it'll give you a report card. And again, but it's a government run, so you have to do your own homework and I worried about that. Is it, I think it's Environmental Working Group is the EWG part. And I've used it to look up sunscreens and such, but I, but there's a lot you really should reference there. And I guess what you're saying, it's one reference. Correct. But it's one place to start and get some information. Just go there and search a product. I have an app too. Oh, really? Yeah. you can scan bwg. com. But they have an app and you can scan barcodes when you're in store. Is it dot com or dot org? dot org. Dot org. And then you can get the app too. and look. and that is good. I love what you do for clients Who have a compromise of some type with their health, but we all need to be conscious of what we're doing to our bodies. And we have, but you've had to learn a lot about the, these industries. So tell me a little bit about, and you've put some of that information on your, in your blog? So is when I come across websites like that, I always share it on our blog about it, but also to, take it one step further. We have to really educate ourselves. If there are words on the bottle that you can't even pronounce. I research every ingredient and see exactly what it's derived of, if it's plant based or if it's just some random chemical like formaldehyde, like Mr. Clean sponges. We don't even use Mr. Clean sponges in the industry because there's formaldehyde in Mr. Clean sponges. I use those all the time. And technically, if you do use a Mr. Clean sponge, you are supposed to be Rubber gloves to protect your skin. Okay, so I was about to ask you, was there any products that just shocked you when you learned about how bad they were for us? So that way, is there any others that we should really be careful with? Immediately. Yes. I pretty much literally almost die when I walk into people's homes that have the plug ins. Yes. Oh, really? I was gonna, I was thinking about that. The air fresheners, the candles and things, those are things that are putting chemicals in our air, in our home, right? I love. Perfume smells. Yeah. I love Yankee Candle. I love, bath. Bath and Body Works. But what about the little melty things? The little, the little lamps that you plug in Sensei? Yeah. What a, are you gonna tell me? I can't, you have to be really careful. That's why I blog about this. You have to be really careful about that. Even essential oils, that's why I figured we were going there too. So essential oils, there's some, it's on my blog. Some essential oils are, will kill a dog and some essential oils will kill a cat. So that's why I have, in my blog about that. Here's an example. I had a golden retriever and at nighttime he would sleep in my bedroom and on my nightstand I had a diffuser and I had, I can't remember the essential oil I had in there. He started becoming lethargic and he was only seven or eight years old at the time and I said, oh no, what's going on with him? So I plugged in the symptoms on how he was behaving and sure enough, it was the particular. Essential oil that I put in my diffuser that was making him sick. Wow, that's incredible. Did you blog about that? Yes, how long have you done this blog? So I've been blogging. I think I started blogging around 2007 maybe it was 2009 so I have a lot of information all the information out there from bugs I've had I had a client or I still have a client on figure eight island. She's got these gorgeous long drapes and she has a, an, an exterminator that comes monthly, but she has those little hoppy, spiders. So what I've done is in my blogs, for factuals, I will actually go to, I went to a pest elimination company in Wilmington. They're the experts and I interviewed them about why she has these spiders and I learned a lot about spiders. what does that have to do with cleaning? It's an experience that I have in a house and I just felt that other people would like to be educated about that. I just want to say where you can go find the blog. you go to your website site which is cgreennaturalcleaning. com it's S E A, green natural cleaning and then you go under the insights and tips. Tab or page in your blog there. What do you think that most? What do you think that is the most? Hit on articles. So I came across purple shampoo in a shower and blondes use purple shampoo from their salon but it does stain the showers. So I did a blog on how to remove that and that was one of my most popular blogs. I had thousands and thousands of people going to that. Another blog that was a popular blog was the spray tan. Spray tan all over the toilet seats. You spray it and then it goes everywhere else. So that was another popular blog and also the essential oils for the pets. So you're not just taking care of these homes and the pets, you're taking care of the people. Yeah. that's just a huge, you're, it's a wide array of care that you're providing. Love that. If somebody wants to, they hire you to come in, you're cleaning with natural products, you teach them, you're teaching them while you're there about the natural products that you're using. Does the blog indicate that? ratios that we could start using in our home right away. So I'm working on a book right now that's going to have recipes in it as well as educating people about the environment on how we can give back to our communities. Tell us about your book. Let's hear it. So I'm super excited. People ask me that question all the time. I just did a talk at one of our networking groups and I had a magnet, a little teaser, a little magnet to do the ratios. for making the vinegar solution. Make it easy for us. Thank you. Yes. And, I'm not sure, over the winter time, I'm definitely going to be working on a book more. I have 170 pages already. Wow. That's amazing, Kathy. I'm impressed. With your discipline, I'm sure you'll knock it out. I can't wait for it to come out. I know. I want it to be fun. Yeah. I want it to, I want people to, be looking forward to the next, oh, what can I do? Yeah. I want it to be a fun book. with everything being so natural and healthy or not. we've made it, we've made it unnatural. that's what we've done. We've created all these products and things. But you keep getting the kids involved in this too. the kids love, my kids love mixing and doing like little chemistry things. Science experiments. Yes, totally. if we have this book and they're like, I need you guys to mix, make our ratios this week, I think they would be all over that. As long as they don't, blow on the wrong thing. They probably do that on purpose. I know, that's true. Yeah. Yeah, that's wonderful information. So tell us about, do you have a team of people? How is that working for you? we have a few people that are working for us. We're always looking to hire the right people for the right fit because a lot of people, again, they're programmed to using chemicals, so when they are introduced to the natural stuff, They are questionable whether they actually work and I get asked this all the time by new clients, but do they work? And of course they do work or I wouldn't be in business. So I educate all our cleaners what I expect from them. I have high standards. We have a five star rating and I don't want to compromise that, but just teaching them I use all I have natural Swiffers that can be washed. When we go into that, houses, we have no waste whatsoever. We try to reduce our carbon footprint too, so meaning we're very efficient. Our caddies are set up identical. We come in with cotton rags. We come in with microfiber rags, with laundry bags, so there's no cross contamination after we use a rag. It goes right into the laundry bag. So we're working on building our teams right now because we're covering a big area of the state now and more and more people are requesting our services. Are you hiring by any chance? Yes. How can someone reach out to you if they're interested? They can reach out to, on our website or they can, my phone number is on the website, they can text me. How long has Sea Green Natural Cleaning been around and what do you see for the future of it? I officially started under the Sea Green name, I think it was in 2007 or 2005. And my ultimate goal is I have a lot of Plans and ideas. I'm not sure if I'm in a franchise. I just want to continue this movement on making our environment healthier. I appreciate you're doing that here in our town. Because you're impacting the environment. Yeah, you're impacting the environment too, not just each home. person that you're helping with their experience and this how they live and breathe in their own homes. So thank you for that. So wrapping up, what are your final thoughts on what you want people to know? there's people listening, there's someone listening right now. What do you want them to hear? There's a difference between hire an experienced person versus someone that's just getting into the industry. For me, there's more than just cleaning when we come to the home. We document everything. We bring awareness to the homeowner, whether it's a ding in a wall or if there's, mold is a big thing. So it's not just about cleaning. It's about educating that people that want to hire us. you're really caring for these homes, a lot like it's your own home, and you're, you're there, you're breathing it too, and you don't want to do any damage to yourself, but you're also looking out for that homeowner in, in lots of different ways. I appreciate that. What do you want us to know about how we can go out and care for the environment today? that's a big question. That's a big question. I know. I know. I don't wear contact lenses. Tell me something else I can do. I think that if we, start small, even like going through our closets and getting clothing that we don't use on a regular basis, give it to the Goodwills, always feng shui ing our house. and bring more of an awareness because we can't control what happens outside of our environment, but we can control what's in our environment and to take control of ourselves and to make mindful decisions when it comes to chemicals and always question, is this good for the environment? Is this good for me? Is this good for my family? You know what I notice is I just feel like you're focused on longevity. I think you're focused on longevity of life and longevity of our planet and I just love that. I think that's a beautiful message and I love the way that you've tied them together but you are living it. You are living it and you're helping us get it more educated and that's right out there on your website. That's wonderful and such a help to anybody who just takes a moment to go read. The thank you for all you shared on that. Let's go over the contact information. I want to make sure everybody does find exactly what they need to know, whether they're looking at your blog or they're trying to contact you for, to get you to come over and clean and help them with their own health, their healthy environment. So the website, Let's go over that. Our website is SeaGreenNaturalCleaning. com Okay, it's like sea is in the ocean, S E A. Yes. Yes. Okay. And so we can contact you on the website? There's a place to reach out to you on that page? Yes, we have a contact sheet. And as usual, you can always go to the show notes and we will have all the information there for you. Are you also on Facebook and Instagram? We are on Facebook. We are on Instagram. We'll be providing your website, your Facebook, and your Instagram links there. They'll be hot. They'll be clickable for easy access for the listeners. So always go to the show notes. I just want to say thank you to the listeners. I want to say thank you to Trudy for coming in and co hosting with me. I learned a lot. I did too. It's crazy. And thank you Kathy. Yes, thank you Kathy. For coming here and sitting and teaching us about that, about all this that I had no idea about and I've got to make some changes in my home. And, I'll be reaching out for that. I want that book. So get that book today. I can imagine, you'll have to, trade off a little bit of paddle time for some book writing, but, we encourage you to do that. For sure. For sure. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Hey, if you enjoyed today's episode of Tops Soul Insider, please show your support by clicking the follow or subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. Please also go to tops soul insider.com and join our mailing list by clicking on the Make Me a Top Soul Insider button. While you're there, you can click the Send me a voicemail button and let me know exactly what you're thinking. Your message just might be on an episode of Topsoil Insider. You can email me at christa at topsoilinsider. com or call or text me at 910 800 0111. Thank you for listening and supporting Topsoil Insider and our local businesses and nonprofits. These are our neighbors and our friends and together we build a mighty and a beautiful community I'm super proud to be a part of. I'll see you around Topsoil.