With April coming to a close and the snow officially melted (hopefully), many of us are looking forward to the household refresh that comes with spring cleaning. Not only does spring cleaning boost physical health by preventing, or clearing dust, dander, and mold, but feeling more comfortable in our homes has been shown to improve mental health (need some tips for making your home comfy and cozy after you finish cleaning? Check out our article from last December, Finding Wellness at Home). Milwaukee-made Viren Apothecary aspires to make cleaning more enjoyable by making delightfully fragranced, environmentally-friendly cleaning products that work.
Viren Apothecary was born after founder Morgan Finley started searching for more eco-friendly cleaning alternatives to what lines the shelves in most stores. As anyone who has tried to make the same swap will know, Pinterest is rife with DIY solutions made of vinegar, Castille soap, and plain old water. After trying her hand at the Pinterest recipes, Morgan felt like everything in her house still looked and felt dingy, plus now her living space smelled strongly of vinegar. “I missed the aromatherapy” she lamented when we sat down earlier this month. She began searching for something with both the efficacy and the pleasant scent experience of the products she knew before but was still committed to using fewer potentially harmful chemicals, avoiding deforestation-inducing palm-based surfactants, and reducing her carbon footprint. She started researching cleansing agents, experimenting with new ingredients, and eventually, making her own vinegar-free products, and launching Viren Apothecary.
Scent and efficacy were two things Morgan was unwilling to compromise when she began making household cleaners. The oldest members of Viren’s lineup, All-Purpose Surface Tonic, Crystal Clear Glass & Mirror Polish, and Fresh Reset for Linen & Upholstery, come in distinctive scent options like balsam & tonka bean, blue agave & aloe, violet & verbena, and more. Unhappy with both the overly-artificial fragrances and the common natural fragrance option of essential oils, which are water and labor-intensive to extract, Morgan sought out an alternative and found her current fragrance partner, who is able to copy the chemical makeup of the natural fragrances she requests, which allows Morgan to create her own blends, unique to Viren products. Morgan explains how closely related scent and mood are, courtesy of the limbic system. That’s why spring cleaning with products that smell great can be an even bigger mood booster than cleaning with heavily-fragranced conventional cleaners or DIY solutions like vinegar.
All of the products at Viren Apothecary are thoughtfully packaged, either in reusable glass packaging, aluminum refill bottles, or pressed into solid cubes. One of Viren’s best sellers, Toilet Bowl Bombs, take the latter form, and Morgan shared that a particularly busy season during the summer of 2021 saved an estimated 84,000 empty bottles of toilet bowl cleaner from the landfill – where they’re destined to end up, because the tops are inseparable from the bottles, making it impossible to properly rinse them she explains. Viren Apothecary also takes back empty bottles for reuse – just connect with Morgan to arrange a time for local drop-off.
The name Viren Apothecary comes from the Latin word for green: virens. Most often used to identify evergreen varieties of plants, Morgan liked the idea of keeping her business green – both in terms of the environment, and by continuing to adapt, learn, and grow. Morgan’s proudest achievement is not her first product, but her patent-pending Geoderant® natural spray deodorant. “One of my biggest pain points… in the eco-friendly niche was deodorant,” she says, explaining her inspiration for the recipe. Frustrated with the natural deodorants she had tried, and driven by her mission to only create products that she feels she can markedly improve upon or present through a different lens, Morgan set out to create a deodorant that didn’t require oil or wax to adhere to the skin and didn’t use baking soda, which can be a skin irritant for many. Her solution was food-grade alum, also known as pickling salt, which lowers the pH of the underarm, instead of raising it, like many other deodorants do. Changing the pH of the underarm is crucial for keeping odor-causing bacteria from thriving, and the pickling salt does just that, while staying adhered to the skin when paired with silver citrate. Morgan also explained that food-grade pickling salt is only available in granules, so after developing her own process of growing alum granules into crystals, she was ready to launch a new type of natural deodorant into the world. After two years of selling the product and even longer testing it out, she says she’ll never go back to deodorant sticks.
Geoderant® was the most recent addition to the Viren lineup, that is, until earlier this month when they announced the release of their new laundry detergent powder, created to reduce plastic packaging associated with both liquid detergent and pods. To stay up to date with Morgan and the latest Viren Apothecary products, follow them on Instagram, and to restock your cleaning supplies for spring, visit their new website. Happy cleaning!
