Green Cleaning: Maid Service Finds Niche

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June 4, 2008 by Rich Whittle | 4 Comments

Polk County Business Journal:

For some, being “green” means recycling the occasional newspaper or turning a light off when they leave a room.

Then there’s Jennifer Hicks.

Hicks, who puts most of her trash into a compost pile and makes her own laundry detergent, is passionate about two things: cleaning and protecting the environment.

In her Lakeland-based business, A Green Maid, Hicks has found a way to fuse the two. Now the aim is to turn others on to truly green living.

When Hicks first started cleaning houses, she used her clients’ products – be it harsh abrasives, potent tile cleaners or buckets of water and bleach mixtures.

The use of those products took their toll on Hicks, specifically in dry and cracked hands and skin that reeked of bleach for days.

Then Hicks got to thinking. What if she used only environmentally safe cleaning products? What if she did her job without suffering burning lungs?

Hicks made her move, slowly weaning her customers off the cleaning products they were accustomed to and introducing them to brands such as Ecover, Howard Naturals and Deirdre Imus, as well as other plant-based products.

Hicks, who finally decided on the name A Green Maid in 2007, quickly figured out that by adding essential oils to her cleaning products, she could be environmentally friendly but still leave behind the “clean” smells her customers expect.

Photo by AGreenMaid.