BRAND HIGHLIGHT: BETTER LIFE
Name: Ali Rogers
Role: Account Manager
Company name: Better Life
The Simple Question Every Founder Must Answer: What's My Story? How did the idea for the business come up?
One afternoon in 2008, lifelong friends Tim Barklage and Kevin Tibbs were watching their kiddos crawl across the floor. As their toddlers’ tiny hands picked up dust, dirt, and cleaning residue, the concerned dads had a classic lightbulb moment. What if cleaning products could cut through grease, grime, and dirt without compromising on safety?
Tim, always the optimist, challenged Kevin, an innovative formulation chemist, to create a new line of plant-based, environmentally friendly cleaners that would defy expectations for safety and performance. Kevin hopped right into the lab, and BETTER LIFE was born.
Today, BETTER LIFE® products continue to challenge the way people think about natural cleaning – with plant-based power and formulas that are a natural fit for mess makers.
What makes your company different?
BETTER LIFE products are full of natural, plant-powered cleaning agents - like soap bark, corn, and coconut - so you can clean without compromise.
Our biodegradable, plant-based ingredients deliver a powerful clean, naturally! They're tough on stains, but safe around kids and pets*. We believe cleaners don't need sulfates, dyes, or artificial scents, and that's why we use just the good stuff.
What does sustainability in the market mean to your brand?
We seek suppliers who share our commitment to environmental excellence. All required environmental permits, approvals and registrations are to be obtained, maintained and kept current and their operational and reporting requirements are to be followed.
Suppliers should reduce excess packaging and use recycled and non-toxic materials whenever possible. They should conserve energy and water and eliminate waste in their manufacturing processes, have a strategy in place and provide progress reports as requested.
Suppliers are to adhere to all applicable laws, regulations and customer requirements regarding prohibition or restriction of specific substances, including labeling for recycling and disposal. They also must abide by the environmental laws of the country in which they operate.
Chemicals and other materials posing a hazard if released to the environment are to be identified and managed to ensure their safe handling, movement, storage, use, recycling or reuse and disposal.
Wastewater and solid waste generated from operations, industrial processes and sanitation facilities are to be characterized, monitored, controlled and treated as required prior to discharge or disposal.
Air emissions of volatile organic chemicals, aerosols, corrosives, particulates, ozone depleting chemicals and combustion by-products generated from operations are to be characterized, monitored, controlled and treated as required prior to discharge.
Our teams vet out quality ingredients. These good quality ingredients are important to making BETTER LIFE cleaning solutions work successfully. Natural fragrances are sourced from essential oils and botanical extracts, and our suppliers provide letters of natural certification.
Current: Leaping Bunny Certification
In Process: EPA Safer Choice Certification
In Exploration: USDA Biobased Certification
The packaging of current BETTER LIFE products is recyclable, but not compostable at this time.The full bottle, label, and trigger is replaceable. Essentially this is the full packaging minus the cleaning solution. The cleaning solution is biodegradable.
To what do you attribute your success?
Our cleaning products are not only safe for people, pets & the environment, but they work just as well as the conventional equivalents!
What is unique about your business?
We found natural ingredients and began creating products we were comfortable having in our homes and around our families. But, we also wanted to make sure they could get the job done! Each of our products was born from a real-life need, and so we make sure they’re tested on real-life messes.
Over the years, our BETTER LIFE family has grown, and we've conquered messes in homes across America. We continue to test new ingredients and develop new products that meet your needs. Finding solutions to your cleaning problems keeps us inspired!
We do NOT use dyes, synthetic fragrances, sulfates, ethoxylates, or solvents. All of these ingredients can be found in many other natural cleaning companies you may already know. We find these ingredients are not safe to be used around people, pets & the environment.