Episode 097: Building A Clean Living Community with Emily Popson of Pop of Health
So you want to live a cleaner lifestyle but it’s overwhelming and you don’t know quite where to start. That’s where Emily Popson comes in.
Emily is the founder of the Pop of Health community and the creator of The Non Tox Box™, a series of stylishly curated and impactful boxes, with products to help you reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals in items that you use every day.
In this episode, you’ll hear:
How the Pop of Health Community and The Non Tox Box™ came to be
How Emily runs these businesses as side hustles to her full-time job as a woman in tech
The role exposure to toxins played in both of our early development and the emotional challenges we experienced from it
A behind-the-scenes glimpse into how Emily curates each The Non Tox Box™ and a preview into the next soon-to-be released bundle!
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Emily’s website: Pop of Health
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Read the Episode Transcript...
Naomi: Hi there and welcome back to the Live FAB Life podcast. I am your host, Naomi Nakamura, and I'm so excited to share this episode with you because joining me is my friend, Emily. Emily Popson is an award-winning tech marketing strategist. She's a woman in tech just like me. She's also an entrepreneur, a safer beauty advocate, a soon to be nutritional therapy practitioner. She's a Marine Corps spouse, and she is a dog mom of two cute pups. She is on a mission to reduce the reckless toxicity that we're exposed to daily by chipping away at the major chemical, agricultural and pharmaceutical corporations little by little, day by day, person by person, purchase by purchase. She is a woman on a mission.
It was about a year ago in 2018, Emily founded Pop of Health, which is a small but mighty and growing community on a mission to spread awareness about the products, the different brands and industries and social and environmental factors plaguing our health and offering insights into safer alternatives. It was earlier this year back in May of 2019, she created and launched the Non Tox Box to give her community a trusted source for the best items for reducing environmental toxins in their lives. When I first heard about the Non Tox Box, I was so fascinated by this that you'll hear us talk about in the interview, but I picked her brain about everything.
The Non Tox Box is a series of stylishly curated, super important, and impactful boxes with products to help you reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals and items that you use every day. These products are specifically selected to help you reduce your exposure and use of plastics, as well as give you an opportunity to vote with your dollars and in support of socially conscious brands who put people and planet before profit. Emily is on to something because in less than six months, people all over North America have joined her in eliminating hundreds of thousands of harmful products from their lives and in our collective environment. The best part is that she is just getting started.
After hearing all of that, you can probably see why I am so drawn to Emily because when you find someone who cares about the same things that you do, my goodness, you start to have conversations that really can go on and on forever, which is what you'll hear in this episode. We go off on many tangents. We not only talk about the Pop of Health community, the Non Tox Box, but we also talk about what it was like as young girls who developed earlier than our peers and the social and emotional impacts and the feelings that we went through at that particular stage in our lives. We even talk about now what it's like to be women in tech with growing side hustles and how we manage it all. I'm really excited to share this episode with you, and I really hope you enjoy it because as you'll hear, Emily is a force to be reckoned with. With that, let's get to the show.
Hello, my friend. Thank you for being on the show.
Emily: Thank you for having me. I feel so honored.
Naomi: Before we get into who you are and what you do, just so listeners can have some background, you and I didn't know each other until about two months ago.
Emily: Two months now, yeah, almost exactly.
Naomi: Yeah, because we are on the same Beautycounter team, although you're not on my team but we're on each other's extended teams, and we were both on an incentive trip that we both earned in Santa Monica and that's where we-
Emily: It was amazing.
Naomi: It was amazing. We went to the beach and we got to go to Kippy’s for ice cream and we just had a lot of fun, and that's where we first met. As soon as I met you and learned what you did, I was very fascinated. I remember asking you a lot of questions.
Emily: Lots of questions, all the questions.
Naomi: I was like, you have to come on. I'm so glad that we're finally getting together and making this happen.
Emily: Me too. You also are credited with introducing me to juice press. Is that what it's called? Juice pressery or-
Naomi: Pressed Juicery.
Emily: Pressed Juicery.
Naomi: That's right. You were with us.
Emily: Yes. Wonderful experience.
Naomi: Everybody needs to experience it once in their life.
Emily: Well worth it. It was delish.
Naomi: Well, for listeners who don't know who you are, share with us, introduce yourself and who you are and what you do.
Emily: Sure. I'm Emily Popson. I'm the founder of the Pop of Health community and the creator of the Non Tox Box, but that's mostly by night. By day, I'm a marketing strategist in tech, so also a woman in tech like yourself. I'm a Marine Corps spouse, a dog mom to two little adorable fur babes just like you, a safer beauty advocate, and really just on a mission to make this world a little safer, a little healthier and help people live safer, healthier lives along the way too.
Naomi: That is so amazing. There are so many things that I want to get into with you. First of all, tell us more about the Pop of Health community and how did this all come together?
Emily: Sure. The Pop of Health community is mostly an Instagram community right now, but we have plans to expand it in the future. The main focus is to create a space to share information about the products, brands, lifestyle factors, environmental factors that are plaguing our health and offer insight into safer options or safer lifestyle alternatives. It's really meant to be a safe space for people to come together, cheer each other on, whether they're making small safer swaps, big safer swaps, whether they're just getting started or still trying to evolve in different ways even if they've been at it for a while. It's really about connecting like-minded people so that we can all help each other live safer, healthier lives.
Naomi: I love that because when I was making those transitions myself about, I don't know, four or five, six years ago, I could have used a community like that because there is just so much information out there. It's so easy to feel overwhelmed, and you just don't know, am I making wise choices? I think in the last episode I did with Katie Leadbetter, who's also a member of our Beautycounter team, we talked about how there are so many of these confusing terms where you have vegan-friendly, cruelty-free, non-toxic, organic, all these things mean different things to different people. A community like that-
Emily: Some of them are regulated and some of them aren't. Yeah, you can feel really lost and like, am I even doing this right?
Naomi: Exactly. Even today when I was in that episode, I said when I'm eating at Whole Foods and I go to throw away my dish, I stand there at the bins going, I don't know if I'm recycling correctly.
Emily: Am I recycling or am I supposed to compost this one? It's confusing.
Naomi: Exactly. That ties directly into your Non Tox Box, which I love this so much. Tell me about it.
Emily: Let me start with how it started. Is that a good idea?
Naomi: Yes. Tell me everything.
Emily: The Pop of Health community started not even a year ago, and it was spurred out of just my own passions and interests over the years, some changes in my corporate life, my corporate job. My dad was actually diagnosed with cancer, and I remember standing there, my husband was about to deploy and I was like, I feel like my world is spiraling and I need to do something. I need to be ... I took this hiatus from talking about nontoxic living to pursue my corporate career and look, now my dad is sick. Of course, those two things are not directly related. It's not my fault my father got sick, but I just felt like what if I had been talking more about these? What if I hadn't just been keeping it in my own head? What if I had been connecting with more people?
I just started sharing and talking and spreading information and helping people and giving away free products, trying to spread safer products of all kinds through the world. The more I shared and the more the community grew, I started hearing two main things. The first was, oh my, goodness. How do I even know where to begin? Like what you were just talking about. How do I actually know something is safe? You're telling me BPA free might not always be safe. It's hard to navigate, especially when you're standing there having just bought something that you thought was safe and learning that it's not.
The other thing was just frustration that they'd have to go and spend their hard earned money all over again. I just felt like that was such a good point. It's really unfair that unsafe products are even sold in stores. I wanted to do something about it, take the stress and the research out of their hands and also be able to deliver products to them at a savings. That's when the idea for the Non Tox Box was born.
The Non Tox Box, it's not a subscription right now, and we can talk a little bit more about the future of it, but right now, it's a line of limited edition stylishly curated boxes sold with all items that I've personally used, research, tested, talked to the brands, dug into and vetted myself that I'm able to pass along at a discount to the consumer.
A little behind the scenes with the business. When you're in retail, if I were to just have a store and I wanted to sell you glass water bottles and plastic free coffee cups, I'm bound to a certain price that I need to sell that as because I can't be undercutting the brand, but if I bundled products then I can pass on a savings to you. That's really where the idea for the Non Tox Box came along.
We launched our first one in May of this year. It was an eight-piece plastic-free starter kit. It came in eight different colors so that everyone ... That was the other thing for me. This wasn't really a frustration in the market, but I just found in my own experience, when I was carrying cute products that were safer, more people stopped and asked, hey, what about that? It spurred more conversations. It was really important to me that it wasn't just sterile, everything is stainless. I wanted there to be some personality because people already have to sacrifice so much and make so much change, I didn't want them to have to give up personality as well. That's how it started. We're about to launch our third box.
Naomi: There's so much you said there that I wrote all these things down. First of all, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said stylishly curated because I like pretty things. If they can be safer and pretty, you better believe I'm going to get it over something that's not.
Emily: 100%. This had to be authentic to me. I am not the girl carrying the completely stainless water bottle. Me and my husband does, but I carry a glass water bottle in a pastel pink silicone wrap. That's what I like. It was important for me to show people that it doesn't have to be sterile. You don't have to feel hippy dippy or you don't have to sacrifice any of your style or even trendiness. You can still have all of that and live a safer life for yourself and for our planet.
Naomi: This episode is not about Beautycounter, but that's what my attraction was for it too, because I tried the whole coconut oil, apple cider vinegar. It doesn't work that great, especially when you're used to using Mac and Shiseido and all of these things. When I can find something that like you said is stylish, is trendy, is cute, oh, and it's safer and it performs well, why not?
Emily: Exactly. I couldn't agree more. We get it with Beautycounter. I even get it sometimes at the Non Tox Box. Well, why would I pay this much for this or that when I could just use coconut oil? For that person, use coconut oil. No one is saying coconut oil and I'm not saying sterile, stainless bottles aren't great. For a lot of people, for us to affect the masses and get safer products into the masses, we need to make sure that people aren't having to sacrifice the things that are important to them, which might be style.
Naomi: We all have our own personal style and our own personal preferences. If this meets the demand for an audience, why not?
Emily: Exactly.
Naomi: Going a little bit further back, you talked about how you stopped talking about these things until your dad got sick. What first made you even start caring about this stuff?
Emily: I've been interested in health for as long as I can remember. To be completely honest, a lot of it started with a little bit of an obsession with weight loss at a really young age. I developed really young. I always looked different than my peers. I'm very short. I carry weight, and I always felt like ... On the one hand, I was always exposed to the whole wheat bread. I was never the girl with the Wonder Bread. I wasn't cool. My mom made me crunchy natural peanut butter sandwiches on whole wheat crusty bread. I was always exposed to healthier products but rebelled against it because it was my mom forcing it on me. As I got a little older, I started just paying attention to health type topics from a weight loss curiosity.
Over time as I began having more health issues, probably brought on by a lot of my weight loss trials and errors, I started to really sit back and think, what is going on here? I'm supposedly doing everything "right." I'm working out all the time. I'm eating what I'm told is healthy. I didn't have any clue about cleaning supplies or makeup or any of that stuff, so I started digging in. Just like anything, it happened organically and little by little, documentary by documentary, book by book, and started really putting together the impact of our environment, the products we use, what we put on our skin, what we breathe into air, how that's affecting everything that is contributing to weight. Weight is a symptom of other things.
That's really where this interest started. I enrolled in the nutritional therapy practitioner course six years ago, unexpectedly got moved across the country with the military, couldn't finish it. Fast forward years later, there was a change in my career. Like I said, my dad got sick, and I just felt like I needed to participate again. It was at a time where over years and years and years, I had collected and amassed a lot of information, and it was time to start sharing that and not just keeping it bottled up in my head.
Naomi: Our stories are so similar. Just sharing all of that, you can see me nodding my head.
Emily: Yes.
Naomi: I come from the same background where I developed early, much earlier than my peers. I struggled with weight a lot in my life. Even after I went through this period of losing a lot of weight, which in hindsight, not necessarily through the healthiest means. When you have that feeling like, gosh, I'm eating healthy or what I perceive to be healthy, and I'm doing all of this exercise, again, which I perceive to be a healthy amount, which in hindsight it wasn't. What's going on? What else is still happening? I'm so glad that now it feels like it's becoming more mainstream. I realize that it probably isn't as mainstream as we would like it to be, but it's definitely the conversation is growing.
Emily: Yes, I agree. It's important because I always felt like, oh, I was the only person on the world who developed early who must have been exposed to something or her hormones got like ... I'm some weirdo going through. I felt like I had no one to relate to. As more people start talking and sharing, it's like, no, a lot of young girls are being affected by the hormonal disruptors that are in our products and in our environment, and we need to be bringing awareness to this because it does ...
I know this isn't the point of the podcast, but I'm sure you can relate. There's a lot of pain and judgment that came along with our bodies looking different than other girls' bodies at a young age, and it's hard not to carry that for your life. I guess the blessing in it is that we at a young age, we're acutely aware of our bodies when they were changing and when they weren't and became interested in how we can make them ... what we can do to help them. Even if it didn't start out from a healthy place, I think both of our interests probably stemmed from that experience in some way.
Naomi: Absolutely. How do you curate the Non Tox Box?
Emily: Sure. The first two boxes were both focused on reducing people's exposure and abuse of plastic. I feel really strongly about plastic. It's something I probably spend at least 50% of my time talking about in the Pop of Health community just because the impacts are so wide-reaching from our environment to our own health and the water quality and the fish that we consume and on and on and on. When I sat down to make the first box, it was really easy. I looked at the things that I was using every single day regularly to reduce my use and exposure to plastic. Do you want me to go through what was in the first box? Would that be helpful?
Naomi: Yeah.
Emily: Huge problem is water bottles and coffee cups, the sheer number of water bottles and coffee cups ending up in landfills and that are leaching plastics into our beverages and then into our bodies. It's epidemic, and it's not good, and we need to do something about it.
Naomi: Just to point things out. It's solving two separate issues. This is all being a health issue and an environmental issue, two closely related but different problems.
Emily: Yes. It's such an important point. Every box tries to do that. You'll get a coffee cup that has absolutely no plastic. It's a glass coffee cup wrapped in silicone for protection with a silicone lid. It doesn't spill. It doesn't leak. It comes in the most beautiful colors ever. I'm using one right now. Even though our listeners can't see, I'm using the matte black one. It comes in a bajillion colors. My personal favorite, I tested many, many, many coffee cups over the years, and this one just blew me away. They're designed in Australia by a really amazing eco-conscious team that cares deeply about our environment and has spent a lot of time developing these cups, to the point that there are knock-offs all over the place that they're always trying to fight because these cops are just incredible.
Coffee cups, water bottles, glass water bottles, a nice silicone wrapper on it. We put some Stasher bags in the first box to help reduce our use of Ziploc baggies. It's just bonkers when you think about how many Ziploc baggies are used. The average person uses over 260 every single year. It's wild. That's on the low end. We're being conservative there. Grocery bags, you've got a really beautiful Pop of Health by Apolis grocery bag, so the grocery bag itself is valued at almost $50. In addition to keeping plastic bags out of landfills, away from aquatic life, away from our waterways, it also helps break poverty cycles in the communities where the bags are handmade.
I'm always trying to ... In picking the products that we put in the Non Tox Box, I'm not just interested in brands that are maybe jumping on the plastic free bandwagon. I'm interested in brands that have a commitment to humanity, to people, to our planet and not just making money off of a trend that's happening in the market.
Naomi: Social conscious brands.
Emily: 1,000%. We really try to put B-corps whenever we can into the boxes and there's more and more options popping up all the time that are B-corps. You also get a three-piece organic bamboo utensil set, which is one of my favorite things because people don't think about you end up at the grocery store, even at Whole Foods. You grab a utensil because how else are you going to eat it? You could carry just regular utensils. People don't think about that. You could just carry utensils in your purse. It wouldn't be that weird. This allows you to have a little case to keep it in so once they're dirty, stick it back in the case, wash it when you get home.
Of course, the straw. We've all heard the stats. We've all seen the horrible videos of the straws stuck up the turtle's noses. I just can't live with myself. I would never touch a plastic straw ever again in my life, maybe not even a paper one. I really try to use reusable straws, silicone, glass, bamboo or stainless because they're just piling up in our oceans, and it's scary what it's doing to our environment and to our health.
That's where you get in the first box, again, all really safe, eco-conscious, environmentally conscious and socially conscious brands. Every box, we calculate your impact so you receive a little card. They can't see it, but I'll show you. It shows every item that's in the box and it calculates the environmental impact, the health impact and the social impact of each item so that you can really feel like a part of something because you are. With every single straw, fork, bottle, cup, lid that we eliminate, like you said, we're not only keeping that out of our landfills and out of our oceans and our waterways. We're also eliminating those touch points, those exposure points to harmful chemicals throughout our day, our week, our lives, and that stuff adds up.
Naomi: I know. I get a lot of people asking me, they're like, oh, so you really think by changing this that I'm going to lose weight. I say, well, it's a factor of many different things, and there are many toxins out there that we can really control our exposure to, but why not control the ones that we can? Emily: Yes, exactly. If there's one thing I wish more pediatricians would talk about, it's the fact that BPA is a classified obesogen. It's messing with kids and adults' hormones in a way that makes it very difficult to lose or manage your weight. It's troubling.
Naomi: I have some past episodes if people are curious about obesogens that I can reference, but you're absolutely right. One of the things that first really clued me into this is have you seen the documentary, Stink?
Emily: Oh yeah. Everyone should watch it.
Naomi: Everyone should watch it. I'll even link to it in the show notes as well. When we were that age, it's just not things that were ever even thought of.
Emily: No. We were putting the roll, glitter rolly ... Did you do roller glitter on your eyeballs? That was a big thing. I just think about all the heavy metals I was exposing myself to and asbestos and God only knows what.
Naomi: I was big into the glitter. My friend, this is a lot of work. I know how much work I put into my business, both my coaching practice and my Beautycounter. You not only have Beautycounter. You are not only an NTP, but now that you have this physical product type of business that you're doing and you also have a full-time job. A large portion of my audience are working women, women with full-time jobs. How do you do it all?
Emily: Yeah, it's a good question. Some days I'm not sure, and some days, truthfully, some things don't get A-plus work, and that's just the truth. Some days, the Non Tox Box is my priority. Some days, Beautycounter and my Beautycounter team is my priority some days. Something happened about a year ago in my career that created a lot of space in my life. I have been climbing the corporate ladder pretty quickly and having a lot of success and as I had said, it did cause me to put a lot of my passions and interests on the back burner because when you're doing that, it consumes you. It becomes your identity. I had a team under me. I was worried about their careers and developing them and growing us as a team upward through a large global corporation.
One day, as it happens sometimes, especially in tech, things are always changing, adapting to the environment and the economy, and our company decided that they didn't want leadership living outside of where our headquarters is located. I'm a military spouse. I don't get to choose where I live, and so I had to make a shift. I had to accept some changes in my day to day at my corporate job. I still work full-time and have a lot of responsibility, but I don't manage the type of team that I used to. While I was devastated for a long time over that and had trouble visualizing what my future was going to look like, when my dad became ill and I realized that a fire was re-lit in me, I looked around and realized, wait, I have a lot more space in my life. It doesn't look like it day to day, but up in my brain, I do have a lot more space because I'm not worried about these people below me and around me and trying to advance up the corporate ladder. I'm doing my job. I'm doing well at it, but there's more I could be doing. There's more I can give.
Within months, I joined the Beautycounter team and I started Pop of Health and then created the Non Tox Box. Like I said, I think part of the way that you make it work is you have to accept that some days, some things will not get that A-plus work and that's okay. As someone who contend to be more of a perfectionist, I have to have that conversation with myself regularly. What is actually important today? Give that A-plus. Will the world be ruined if you give something else B-minus work? If not, that's okay. Be okay with that and know that you're doing your best. You can give yourself grace.
Listening to your last episode, I think, time management is really important. I'm constantly learning and relearning the importance of time blocking. That's been huge for me and accepting that some days, I need to say I'm not working on the Non Tox Box today. Today, it's all about my Beautycounter team, making sure they're taken care of, my clients, my members, they're taken care of. Some days, I don't think about Beautycounter at all and that's just how it's got to be while we try to grow this.
Naomi: Same. There are some days where I literally have to force myself to be like I have to schedule it. When I look at the week, I'm like, I need to schedule social time in here because that is one thing that is so easy for me to sacrifice because ... It sounds like you're just like me. We're type A. If I can work all day because I love the work that I do, I'll do it, but then I recognize I need some social time in here. I literally have to force myself or go make plans to do something social with someone at least once a week.
Emily: Yes, that's smart. I think I should start doing that. I really looked up the other day and realized, oh, there are some people that live up the street I haven't seen in two months. They probably think I'm a hermit now. Yeah, that's a good tip. I'm going to take that one because I'm not doing that one very well right now.
Naomi: I relate a lot to what you said about your full-time job situation. I was not in the same way where I didn't manage a team because very early on in my career, I worked for a company that has 80,000 employees, and this is my personal opinion, unless you are the CEO, you are middle management. Being in this environment for now almost 12 years or even in past jobs, I have no desire to be in middle management. I just don't see the personal fulfillment there.
Emily: Probably even more so now that you're the CEO of your coaching business and your Beautycounter business. You're like, this is what gets me up in the morning [crosstalk 00:26:27] excited.
Naomi: I will say having a Beautycounter business and having my own side hustle of trying to grow my own company, my own business, it's given me a lot more empathy for the people in my company who are middle management, for the leaders, for people who are trying to do things because I'm trying to do the same things in my own business, so I appreciate those efforts. I understand now how a lot of decisions are made and how a lot of things are communicated, the trade-offs and sacrifices that need to be made. Also, whether somebody is stressed out about something, I might seem mean one day. I get those things. It's also made me appreciate the work that I do even more. Also, I have selfishly started to take more advantage of the resources available to me in terms of training and development because I realized that, oh, all those training classes that HR has been trying to get me to take, gosh, I could take them for free because guess what? Those skills can be transferred and things I can learn that I can implement in my own business.
Emily: No, you're so right. It's so true. Even financially, I can remember getting so frustrated. Why can't we spend X, Y or Z on this? We have all this money. It's like, no, there are some tough decisions you have to make, and you don't always know the full financial picture of a business and why it has to be no right now. When it's your business on the line, you do, you develop a lot more empathy.
Naomi: That's true. Of course, I'm sure we all have dreams one day of doing our side hustles becoming our full-time jobs. Until that happens, I just feel like I've had this renewed appreciation for my work where I don't feel the Sunday night dread anymore. Emily: Yeah. I totally get that. Yeah. Naomi: Because even though, yes, I do have this job that I go to and I do, I find personal fulfillment in my other work that makes the work that I am doing and my full-time job more enjoyable, I guess.
Emily: Yeah, because you're getting to fill more than one bucket in your life. You're not just spending your whole life and your whole life isn't defined by just this one job. You're able to be a little successful in tech and as a woman in tech, which is really important. We need successful women in tech. We just do, but you also get to experience how gratifying it is to build your own thing and help people in a different way.
Naomi: The work that we do, regardless of what it is, we spend so much time in our life doing it. I spend more time with my coworkers than I do with my family and friends. Virtually or otherwise that if I can make that more enjoyable, then that's going to transfer to the other parts of my life and just to my overall wellbeing.
Emily: It's so true. It's almost like if more people would just do that, stop telling yourself that you can't, a side hustle doesn't have to look the same for everyone. It could just be a few hours a week. Just by doing that, you might feel your whole life open and calm down and be able to take a deep breath because you can have a little bit of both. If you can make the time for it, you can.
Naomi: Absolutely. We've just gone down a rabbit hole here but [crosstalk 00:29:29].
Emily: I'm okay with that.
Naomi: Getting back to what we are here to talk about, you're getting ready to launch your third Non Tox Box. Tell us when that's going to be available, how people can find it. Are you able to give us a preview of it?
Emily: A little bit. Sure, yes. Our first box, like I said, was this plastic free starter kit for ladies. Our second box was a back to school plastic free kit for kids. Our third box, switching gears and not focus on plastic, is for safely scenting and deodorizing your home.
Naomi: Oh, I love that.
Emily: It's our number one most requested box. It was not supposed to be our third box but the audience spoke and this is what they wanted so this is what we're doing. It's been a long time in the works. I've tested a lot of different products, met and asked a lot of questions of different brands to make sure that we're putting the best of the best and the safest of the safest. It will be launching the second week in October.
Starting next week, anyone who has purchased a Non Tox Box in the past knows that a few weeks before launch, I always open up an early access list. It's not a pre-order. You don't have to put down any money, but it's a way to raise your hand and say, I really want one. Can you alert me before everyone else? Because our first box sold out three times. We had to restock it. I want to make sure anyone who knows they want one right now that we have one available to them so you can get on that list starting next week. Make sure you're following over at Pop of Health for all the information. Sign up for our newsletter, and you'll be alerted to when you can sign up.
This box, I'm not going to tell you all the details, but there's going to be a really beautiful safely made gorgeous candle for fall. It's stunning. I have tested ... The number of candles that have come through our home in the past six months, my husband is ready to kill me but-
Naomi: I love that because candle is not something that people necessarily think of as something that might be toxic but it totally is.
Emily: They're so beautiful. I just did a long post on it if anyone is interested. It's probably in my second nine grid over on my Instagram account, but it dove into what to look for in a candle, signs that it's not safe from the type of wax to the type of wick to how it's scented and even some terms to look for that might be signals they're not using the highest quality products. The problem I had with candles, I'll tell you, is finding one that's cute. There's a lot of really safe candles, but I know my clientele and I know they want something beautiful to replace whatever, their hallmark candle, or I don't even know candle stores anymore. I'm so bad. Whatever [crosstalk 00:32:15].
Naomi: The Yankee candle.
Emily: Yankees, yeah, they're sold in hallmark stores, Yankee candles or whatever, fancy ... People pay a lot of money for candles and they're full of crap. I'm sure you've talked about fragrance and we talk about a lot about fragrance at Beautycounter as well and 95% of it is derived from petroleum, and most of it is causing a lot of harm not only to your airways but to your organs and your immune system. It's really important to make sure we're scenting our homes with really safe ingredients so that we're not breathing harmful things into our airways and that goes for kids and babies and pets. We need to be thinking about all of that. There will be a really beautiful candle in the box.
There's going to be a safer Febreze alternative in the box so it's made with all organic essential oils. It's by a really bad ass woman named [Jana 00:33:02] who is actually located here in North Carolina. I met her locally, discovered this incredible cleaning brand, and she has the only product I've found that actually works like Febreze but has nothing synthetic, no chemicals, just pure essential oils, a little bit of vegetable glycerin so that it lingers in the air. I'm really excited to share that with everyone. She has a really fun fall version that's coming out that's going to be released through the Non Tox Box. I'm excited to share that with everyone.
Some bamboo charcoal air purifier bags for all different spaces in your home. There'll be five of them in the box so you can use them in different sized spaces, in your shoes, etc. to help capture impurities in your air, and some custom only available in the Non Tox Box organic lavender pouches that you can use in your car or in your drawers, with your clothing. You can toss them into the dryer with your clothes to stay dry if you want. Again, just safer ways to scent and deodorize your home because that industry is causing a lot of health issues all over the place from sprays to plugins to candles to you name it, and we want to help change that.
Naomi: I think you should pitch the candle, the lavender thing to Uber and Lyft.
Emily: Oh my, gosh, yes. I should just start taking Ubers everywhere and give them. I will do it for free because people are suffering over Lyft. We're suffering.
Naomi: Every single one I get into, I'm like, can I roll down the window, please? You're killing me here.
Emily: I know. I just want to throw them out the window. Usually, I can't reach them though. If I could, I would.
Naomi: For those listening, this episode is going to air on Tuesday, September 17th so that's next week. If you're listening to this in real time, make sure ... Where can people go to find-
Emily: Make sure you follow Pop of Health.
Naomi: On Instagram?
Emily: Yes, on Instagram. Once it's available to sign up for early access and once we launch it, it'll be all over at Pop of Health, and sign up for our newsletter. That's a great way to get the information even before everyone on the Instagram community. We try and spread information most quickly to those who have signed up and said, please alert me when there's something new. Definitely jump on our newsletter. We don't email that much, but it's a great way to stay in the know with the Non Tox Box and other things going on.
Naomi: Where do they go to get on your newsletter?
Emily: At popofhealth.com.
Naomi: Awesome. I will link to those things in the show notes. I'm so excited. As soon as we get off, then I'd go and sign up myself.
Emily: Yay.
Naomi: Thank you so much for coming. I've so enjoyed our chat here.
Emily: Thank you. Me too. This was awesome. It's great to talk to like-minded people, and hopefully we've inspired a few others to join us in our mission. Naomi: I know. I could go on with you forever because my business mind, I should tell you about everything, I'm like I need to ask her about this. I need to ask her about this.
Emily: We'll talk offline.
Naomi: We'll talk offline. Thanks for coming.
Emily: Thank you.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps passionate, ambitious high-achievers who are being dragged down by fatigue, burnout, sugar cravings, poor sleep, unexplained weight issues, and hormonal challenges optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy so they can do big things in this world.
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
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