Norwex brings the clean, while reducing waste

BONNERS FERRY — Cleanliness is a main factor for many households, and how a person cleans affects both the environment and personal health.

With chemical cleaners, people should be mindful of which combinations are harmful, and those that are safe when used in close proximity, as well as having a well-ventilated area when using harsh chemicals. When one is done with the plastic bottle of cleaner, it gets thrown in the trash and sent to the local landfill, where plastics can take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Following the production of microfiber cloth in Sweden, a company was formed in Norway that utilized a unique mixture of microfiber cloth, infused with silver embedded into the fibers. The microfiber cloth lifts dirt and the silver ions within it disinfects and cleans both the surfaces and the cloth.

Julie Hollabaugh is an Independent Norwex Sales Consultant, located in Boundary County. She was first introduced to the product by a friend when her and her family lived in Dallas, Texas, and was intrigued.

“My friend visited and showed it to me, and I was really impressed with it, and excited to use it in my house,” said Hollabaugh. “Through my excitement of that, I started selling it too, because I was telling people about it through my excitement, and people wanted to buy it. With my friend being in Minnesota, and me being in Texas at the time, it made more sense for me to begin to sell the product in my area.”

After living in a highly populated area, the family decided to make a list of what they were looking for in a community, and visited a variety of places until they found a match.

“We began to visit various places, and when we came to Bonners Ferry, it just felt right to us,” said Hollabaugh. “We wanted a small town, we wanted our kids to be able to grow up and play outside and not have to worry about crime rates, and having to be constantly watching them. We also didn’t want to be surrounded by concrete everywhere, or deal with heavy traffic.”

As a homeschooling family, extracurricular activities were also important for the family to network and make friends. They were able to find a couple of groups that their family had been participating in when they were residing in Texas, also present in Boundary County, such as Classical Conversations and Awana.

“We were already a part of that, and I wanted them to be able to make friends quickly, so having those programs available up here helped with that,” said Hollabaugh. “I feel that we can really build good relationships here.”

After the move, Hollabaugh said about the Norwex products, “Then we moved up here, I waited a little while to see if there was a good market for it, and it just seemed that every time I mentioned it, people were impressed. Some had heard of the product but nobody sold it here.”

As the family adjusted to the new community, Hollabaugh made more observations, noting that the local people were not as busy and on the go as people in the big city.

“People, I think, are home here more than in other places, so you are breathing that air that the cleaning products are used in and it is not good for us at all,” said Hollabaugh. “This is just a great product that offers people to clean more naturally.”

Utilizing a renewable product that not only cleans itself, but is easily cleaned after a dirty job, keeps plastics and harmful chemicals from not only the household, but the landfill and in turn creating a better environment both inside and out.

“I feel like I am helping people live a healthier life,” Hollabaugh said.

For more information on Norwex, visit juliehollabaugh.norwex.biz, or email her at juliehollabaugh@yahoo.com.