INTRO 00:00
Today's discussion is a whirlwind tour of natural ingredients, and let's see. We're going to talk about microplastics. We're going to talk about neem, apple cider vinegar. There's so much to learn. Stay tuned because you're going to love this.
Dr. Judy Morgan
Welcome to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Judy Morgan. Today, I am honored and really lucky to have someone that I consider a good friend in the studio today, and that is Janine Ling, co-founder of Project Sudz. We met at Global Pet Expo oh, close to 10 years ago. Yeah, it was my first time ever venturing into Global Pet. It was when we had just started Naturally Healthy Pets, and at that point, we had a few products in the garage that we were shipping out, and they were really things that I had been using in the vet clinic already, so there were things that I knew, and we said, you know, maybe we could grow this a little bit, and we need to go see what other natural products are available in the pet space. So, ta-da, a pops global pet, and I'm like, oh, that might be cool. We should go there, and so Hue and I went there. We had a personal credit card with us, and I set a goal, and I said, "Okay, we are going to find the 10 best natural pet companies that are in the the natural pet section, and we're going to spend $1,000 with each of 10 companies. So I gave myself a $10,000 limit. Good thing I did, and that's when we met you, and it was really interesting going down that natural pet aisle. And I still do the same thing every year when I go to Global. And I would just go by, and everything's sitting out on display. And I would pick up a bottle and read the ingredients and go, "Oh my God, no! And put it back down. Like, how'd that make it in the natural pet aisle? Well, there is no regulation. anybody can say natural.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:04
Which or holistic. I mean, so those words really mean nothing in the pet food industry and the pet supplement industry. We throw them around like they mean something, but they really don't. So nobody's ever said anything to you like you can't use that.
Janine Ling 02:20
No like you said, there's no regulations.
Dr. Judy Morgan 02:22
So, but we met, and I looked at your products, which you designed all of them, and I said, "Oh my gosh, these are the first like truly natural. Like this this girl knows what she's doing. And so the first two days, Hue and I just ran around like crazed maniacs. The first day, I walked seven miles. My phone told me that, and I kind of went, "Oh, no wonder my feet hurt. But that's how many booths were there. It was crazy.
Dr Judy Morgan 02:48
So we picked our top 10 that we wanted to go back and have a conversation with. I think we hung out in your booth for a couple of hours. I think it was one of those. Like I think I found a kindred spirit. Like I just. It's like I really like her. Yeah, and so you've gone through a couple of changes and iterations with your companies, and Project Studz was not your original company, but this all started because of your own dog. So tell us the story of your dog and how you got started down this path?
Janine Ling 03:22
So I've been in the pet industry my entire life since I was a kid. Worked at a pet store, and before that, I was like a little pet store groupie, just hanging out at the pet store, you know. And then about, like you said, almost 10 years ago, I rescued a little tan and white pitbull, and pitbulls are just prone to allergies. And from my experience, I always work with food allergies. Right, it's always your dog has allergies. It's always food. We always just constantly talks about food. And I corrected a diet. She was on a raw diet, no chicken, no beef, eliminated everything. And her skin got like maybe 50% better, and I just couldn't get the rest down. And as you know, you know, you take her to the vet. The vet wants to put her on steroids. This is a puppy steroids, and, right all these other medications. I was like, "This is not what I'm going to do for my dog. And I started using all the the medicated shampoos and all the the things we have for allergies. Nothing worked. Actually, made it worse. And I started like deep diving into this because this is stuff I've been selling. Like you know, like oh my god, what have I been doing? And I started realizing how bad everything was, so you know it's my dog. I have to fix her, and on top of that, I have to recommend things to people. So I started just making my own stuff to to fix her skin, and then she was perfect. You know, after that, she was just absolutely perfect between diet and the correct shampoos and everything. And that's when I started deep diving into topical solutions because, like I said, I always focused on food. I always thought food was the answer. Food would correct everything, and after that, I started, you know, making my own stuff because there was nothing available. And like I said, you know, you're at a you know independent pet stores. People rely on you to give recommendations to tell them what to do. So I just started formulating my own stuff to to help fix this this other percent of dogs That just you can't correct with just food,
Dr. Judy Morgan 05:02
right? So we get with food. We know we can we can go a long way. but there are some that we still have these issues. But part of the problem is, like you said, what we were using on them. So like almost all of the veterinary formulation shampoos have some sort of antimicrobial, antifungal. They they basically have drugs in them, and they're actually destroying the skin microbiome. They're stripping off the oils. They're taking away the body's natural defenses that that help. So we're getting these animals that we just keep shampooing in the wrong thing. Their skin is getting drier and drier and flakier, and then it's itchier, and then they're scratching more, and then that's abrading the surface. And now we've got bacteria and yeast and everything just jumps in there, and then they're allergic to the bacteria. They're allergic to the the toxins that are put out by the bacteria. They're allergic to the yeast that is now. So now we've not only are they yeasty, but then they have an allergy to their yeast.
Janine Ling 06:13
It becomes so much worse. And the problem is the the first couple of times you use it, the dog seems great because it it destroys everything. Right, killed all the fungus. Yeah, killed everything. You know, the dog's like great for first couple of days, and then over long term, it's worse. But that I think that the fact that it's better for like that first week, especially somebody who's like been struggling with it, you're like, oh my god, this is a miracle. And then long term is absolutely worse. But that first like one or two times you use it, that the dog gets better. People think it's like a miracle shampoo, and like I said, long term is absolutely worse. Just destroys the whole microbiome, everything that keeps the dog safe from from everything else is just completely destroyed.
Dr. Judy Morgan 06:46
Yeah. So, what did you turn to when you you said, okay, there's got to be a better way to do this? What kind of ingredients did you turn to? What were you looking at that was going to to help strengthen that microbiome, strengthen the skin, make it better. What kind of ingredients did you start with?
Janine Ling 07:05
Yeah, so obviously natural shampoos, right? Something that's not going to strip the the the microbiome on the dogs, keep the the natural micro natural oils, the things that they need to protect them. But we need something to remove the allergens, right? You need to remove the the the yeast, the the the allergens, the grass, the pollen, all that. So something you can wash your dog more often without drying them out. So we started with saponified oils of olive, coconut, and castor oil. So each oil saponification is the process you take oils and make it into soap. So each oil has its own properties. So olive oil is very moisturizing. Coconut oil, when it's saponified, is actually very drying, but very cleansing. And castor oil, it's moisturizing, but more so gives it like a good lather. So each has its own benefits. And when you make it by you make it from scratch, you could skew the the the levels of what you want. So we wanted everything to be super moisturizing, but cleansing at the same time. So it's mostly olive oil, then coconut oil, then castor oil. So in the that ingredient levels, like I said, to cleanse it, but without drying, so you can wash them more often. The other thing is essential oils. So we use certain essential oils that kill yeast and kill bad bacteria. So the dog has most dogs have yeasty problems. So we use nayula oil, and the other thing is apple cider vinegar. Huge fan of apple cider vinegar, so it does so many things topically and internally. But just for topical reasons, apple cider vinegar kills fungus, bad bacteria, kills everything you don't want, but keeps the good bacteria. So it's super important that that microbiome is is what we're focused on, not destroying. And like I said, we want to moisturize the dog's skin because most dogs are dry, itchy when they have skin issues. So between the the levels of the oils we use to make sure they're not dried out, the apple cider vinegar kill the bacteria, kill the fungus, keep the natural microbiome. Apple cider vinegar also helps soften water. So depending where you are, hard water has always been the enemy of natural shampoos, right? So Dr. Branos puts out this whole article about using apple cider vinegar after you use the shampoo in your hair because natural shampoo cannot break down hard water minerals. It's just the chemistry of it. So apple cider vinegar actually breaks down hard water minerals, and when you have hard water minerals, and if you wash your hair with like a castor oil, it feels a little hay. Sometimes it could feel like like it still has oils in it because the the the minerals are still stuck to your hair. Apple cider vinegar will actually break that down. So that was a big thing because, like I said, that was always like the big problem with natural shampoos is how do we break down the hot water? So we did the apple cider vinegar for the hard water. The other thing apple cider vinegar does is it kills odors. So there's the old theory. I remember this forever. It was like if your dog get skunked, use tomato juice. And I was wondering. I was like, that doesn't make sense to me. Is the right because it's like not something that connects. I couldn't understand what is in a tomato that will help. It's actually the vinegar. So vinegar is that good of a. Cleanser and kills odors that it'll kill skunk odor. So it has those benefits in particular topically. That's why we're using it for the shampoo. It is like like I said, those main three reasons that we're using it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:12
Well, sure, because all those yeasty dogs, man, do they smell?
Janine Ling 10:16
Yeah, yeah. Yeast has a stink odor. Yeah, and you're like, yeah, this dog has a problem.
Dr. Judy Morgan 10:20
So funny! I had a client who adopted a dog from the Caribbean, and it was a pit bull, and it came or pit bull mix, and it came with horrible allergies. So they did the testing, and they found that the dog could eat duck, and so we designed this beautiful, you know, balanced duck diet for this dog, and the dog got so much better on the diet, but it just kept breaking out. It kept getting hives, and it kept, you know, the hives would break open, and then it would get secondary infections, and it was still really itchy. And this dog had an odor, and I knew this woman had multiple large dogs in her house, and finally I said to her one day, "Do you have carpet in your house? And she said, "Yes. And I said, "Okay, this dog has a smell from all these skin issues and ear infections and whatever. And I know you have a lot of dogs. Does your carpet smell like this dog smells? And she said, "No, I use carpet deodorizing powder that's all perfumed on my carpets. And this little light bulb went on over my head, and it was just like, "Oh my gosh! No wonder this dog keeps breaking out. We've got it on the perfect diet. We have eliminated the allergens, except the dog is sleeping on allergens that you're applying to the rug every single day, and so I had her go. You know, rent a carpet cleaner, and I said, "Don't use any chemicals; just steam clean it. You know, let's use hot water, get all this out of your carpet, and the dog cleared up instantly.
Dr. Judy Morgan 11:55
it's like, oh yeah, all that stuff. and so when we're using, you know these perfumed shampoos that have you know artificial scents in them, and then you know we're drying out the skin even more. We're just contributing to making that problem worse and worse and worse. So it's the apple cider vinegar is a really interesting part, and I know that you are really enamored with apple cider vinegar, and it's in almost like all of your products. But it's really interesting because when you came out with your soaps, and this this is a testament to everything that's in our warehouse. Because if it's in our warehouse, I'm going to try it on me. I'm going to try it on my own pets. And so when I take a shower or wash my hair, Janine's soaps are what we use, and I. So the first time I used it, I washed my hair, and my hair came out really shiny, and it's squeaky. Yeah, like if you rub the hair, it squeaks, and I'm like, oh, that's that old saying. It's squeaky clean, and I had never had that happen before, and so I'm assuming it's the apple cider vinegar is what stripped away all those minerals, left us shine, and left it squeaky clean.
Janine Ling 13:08
Yeah, I use all our products, like everything. I use it on myself. Everything we make is human grade. We could actually market it to people, but my passion is always pet, so we market as a pet. But we actually do donate to our local homeless shelters for people our bar soaps. So every time we make a batch, you know, some things come out like dented or something, and we rebatch it and then actually ship it to the homeless shelters. And as one of the top asked for items is actually soap. So everything's human grade. I personally use it. Yeah,
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:38
that's interesting. I never really thought about that, but you know, when we donate to the food pantries and that sort of thing, I never really thought about donating soaps or cleaning products.
Janine Ling 13:48
yeah, bars. Yeah, we donate our bar soaps because it's a very high asked for item.
Dr. Judy Morgan 13:52
That is very cool. That now at one point you were talking about like packaging these for humans and selling them for like Airbnbs and the RBOs. Are you doing that?
Janine Ling 14:04
No, we can. But like I said, like my passion's always pets. So he's like never like any time I think about something, I'm always back into the pet industry. To to branch off into the the human sector is just like I don't know. My my passion's not there. Like you could do it, but it's just like I still just always go back to pets.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:20
Then you you need another whole branch branch of people in your warehouse and all that stuff. So do you are you are you making all these products in house?
Janine Ling 14:32
Yeah, we manufacture everything ourselves in in our own facility.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:37
In your new facility on nine acres, and so yeah. Now now we're like we're gonna have a community garden. We're gonna get you rolling. So, but you did put animals on your property. What did you put on there?
Janine Ling 14:48
Yeah, we put honeybees there. I was super excited. We just put them this year, so next year we'll be able to have honey. So you guys are gonna get cases of honey next year.
Dr. Judy Morgan 14:55
That's awesome. But so my next question is: Is honey going to start being incorporated into some of your products?
Janine Ling 15:01
Yeah, so we do. So we do do Melanuka honey right now in a couple of medicated products, but honey in soap is actually really good. So honey or sugar you could use, but it actually gives a really good lather. It increases the lather. So when again, when we make our soaps, when during the saponification process, if you add sugar, it heats it up, heats it up really hot. It gets it hotter and it gives it a better lather. So we will be putting our honey in into like pretty much all the bars now because, like I said, it just gives it that lather and that sugar cooks out. So it's not the end product doesn't have any sugar in it, so you don't have to worry about like a yeasty issue. It's all cooked out and it just heats it up more and gives extra bubbles.
Dr. Judy Morgan 15:40
So cool! How did you learn all this stuff?
Janine Ling 15:43
So how did I learn this stuff? So I think it was just like you started really deep diving into it when my dog had issues, and then after that, I started doing contract manufacturing, manufacturing human cosmetics actually for other people, and I really enjoyed it. I really like making things, so we're working with formulators for years and just making lotions and shampoos and stuff for the human sector. And it's just I love like the process. Like you get all these ingredients, like you know, 50 ingredients to make like this one lotion, and then you start breaking down each ingredient and what it does and how it you know how it formulates into this. I just thought it was so interesting. I really like, really started doing it for our own products. So I like, for me, minimal. Like I don't like a long list of ingredients. I want everything simple and have a purpose. So for my own product line, I like very minimal ingredient list. But like I said, when we're doing cosmetics, especially for the human sector, ingredient list is huge, right? It's just like crazy, like you know, drops of disturbing extract and this and that. But like I said, I find it interesting.
Dr. Judy Morgan 16:49
Man, oh man, I know you're a workaholic because we've had this discussion before, where I'm like, "Come on, let's go take a week long vacation, and you're like, you get twitchy. You just you just can't do it.
Janine Ling 17:02
No, I know. I think about all the things I have to do, but I really enjoy it. Like I said, I love making things. So it's like it's. I get excited in the morning to go to work. Like you know, I think about what do we got to do today, and like you know, it's a it's an enjoyable process for me.
Dr. Judy Morgan 17:17
you're a little bit nuts. It's okay. It's a good nuts. Okay, we need to take a break to hear from our sponsors. When we come back, we're going to dive a little deeper into Janine's brain. I just want a little submarine, and I want to go in there and float around and see what's going on in there because I think there's a lot. Stay tuned.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #1 17:37
We use the products from Project Sudz on our own pets. They craft their grooming products and supplements from scratch on a nine-acre honeybee farm in New Jersey. We especially love their flea and tick products and shampoo bars. They're so simple to use and better for the environment. We love that Project Sudz creates high-quality, eco-friendly options made with organic ingredients while keeping them affordable for everyday pet parents. Save 10% on all Project Sudz products found on naturallyhealthypets.com with code PODCAST89. From scratch with care. Project Sudz.
Dr. Judy Morgan 18:13
Welcome back to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. I'm here with my good friend Janine Ling from Project Sudz, and we are learning all kinds of things about shampoos and taking care of our pets, but I want to talk about another line of your products, which are your flea products, because we live in North Carolina, and starting about June, going up till November every year, it's hot, it's humid, the poor barn cats get fleas because they chase bunnies and mice and everything else, and there's just no choice. They're out there. But every year, my dogs pick up a few fleas, and it's we don't get infested because we don't have carpet. And I'm like a clean freak, so there's a lot of vacuuming that goes on, and you know, my gosh, everybody's scratching. Okay, we're washing all the sheets again because they all sleep in our bed. But it's just kind of this chronic, like one flea here, one flea there, and the dogs with the flea allergies just make me want to rip my hair out because they're ripping their hair out, and it's like nuts. So your flea and tick bar, and it's really interesting because when you came out with bar soap, I was like, "Who the heck is ever going to use bar soap? And the funny thing is, other people along the way had given me bar soaps that they had made for dogs, and I was like, "Why would anybody use a bar soap? Like this is crazy. Then you came out with bar soaps, and I'm like, "All right, well, Janine did it, so there must be there must be something good about these things. And like I said, I started using them in the shower for us and for washing my own hair, and they lather up really nicely. And I was like, "Well, these are kind of cool. So I started using your flea and tick bar soap. For washing my dogs, first of all, their white comes out really white, which is kind of cool. It's a nice little side effect. It lathers up really well, but their coat doesn't feel stripped. They don't feel like like they're not getting dried out, and it's really funny because as soon as I I do most of ours in the sink because they're small, so they're in the kitchen sink. I get them wet and then I start rubbing the bar on. And if there's a flea in there, like literally, they come to the surface, like let me out of here. They they can't stand it. So what do you use? And so you have a spray. Yeah. You have a spray concentrate. You have this, and you have a sham a liquid shampoo, which I'm telling you, folks, if you haven't tried the bars, they're less expensive, they last forever, they work so well. Like I'm so in love with these bars. I don't think I've even tried the liquid shampoo because I'm like, well, the bar is so cool.
Dr. Judy Morgan 20:55
So, what are you putting your flea products? Why? Why are the fleas like jumping ship immediately? Like they can't stand it.
Janine Ling 21:00
So the the main thing is neem oil. I'm a huge fan of neem oil. Neem oil has been around forever. It's organic oil is made out of plant. Organic farmers have been using neem oil for the cows in the past, though, because they have problems with fleas and ticks, right? And they can't use pesticides. They can't use chemicals. They're organic farmers, so it was really important to have that in the main ingredient in our flea and tick products, the only problem when we use neem oil is FIFRA is the regulator of labeling requirements for fleas and ticks. So FIFRA has this list. You could Google it. You could look it up. List of oils you could use and still say kills or repels or make claims. The problem with those oils is a lot of them are not effective. You can't really use it in high concentrations. A lot of them are considered hot oils. So if you ever look at everybody else's flea and tick products that are saying kills or repels, they use the same exact oils. Everybody, because that's what they're picking off the FIFRA list. The other problem is, like I said, the amounts you could use. You can use them in very low doses. So it's not really effective. the The other thing is, if you look at it, it's going to say like 98% water, 2% active ingredient. So people are just selling you water, plastic bottles with 2% Yeah, yeah. So when we use the neem oil, we put itch relief because, like I said, we're not allowed to use make claims, but it was super important to use it. So that is the main oil in all our flea and tick products. The other ingredient we use is apple cider vinegar. So apple cider vinegar again has all these benefits, but fleas and ticks hate it. They hate the smell of it. The problem with neem and apple cider vinegar is the actual smell, right? Neem oil. I don't know if you've ever smelt actual neem oil. It does not smell good. It is. It is not a good oil. So we actually saponify it. So we put it in the mix with all our oils. So we kind of it cooks when we make our soap. It heats up to like over over 100 something degrees, and it cooks out that smell. So you don't have that neemy smell to it. But to round out everything, we did add like cedar oil, lavender oil, like other oils, just to like round out the smell, but the main ingredient to kill and repel is the neem and the apple cider vinegar. But like I said, neem oil works great. It's just you don't commonly see it in a flea and tick product because the FIFRA regulations. But like I said, that was like it was really important to use it. So we just you know scooted around label requirements and put relief on there.
Dr. Judy Morgan 23:22
Interesting. Well, I can I can attest to the fact that this stuff works great. And when we're kind of in peak flea season in North Carolina, my dogs are getting bathed about every five days. And in the meantime, in between, it's combing and spraying, and so recently we went away for a week, and the combing and spraying wasn't happening. And I came home, and our you know one flea here and there turned into oh my gosh, I just found a dozen on this dog, so now I'm getting a little bit twitchy myself. But literally threw everybody in the sink. Everybody got a bath, flea combed, sprayed, and we're back to I can comb and get nothing, or I comb and get one. Which it's you know, unfortunately, it doesn't really matter what flea and tick product you're using. It is something you have to stay on top of.
Janine Ling 24:16
And I think that that's like a big point is like staying on top, right? There's not like one solution, like you know, done, no fleas, and then you have to break the flea cycle, like you said, once a week, right? So everything you have is only going to kill adults. So once the eggs hatch, you got to kill those again. You got to break that cycle. You got to, like you said, you got to flea comb. There's a lot of other things that go into it. It's just not, especially if you live in an area where you're just, you know, there's a lot of fleas and ticks.
Dr. Judy Morgan 24:39
For those of us in the southeast, yeah, O M G, and you know people from Texas, people from Florida, they're like, okay, well, it never gets cold here. You know, yeah, like the the fleas are just there all year round. We've got the humidity that's there all the time, and breaking that cycle is so important. So we've had great luck. With a lot of our clients, if they use, you've got to take care of the environmental part of it too. So we don't get horribly infested because we don't have any carpet. But if you have carpets, that's a huge problem. You're going to have to do something. So whether that's diatomaceous earth or using natural oil sprays, you're going to have to do something in that environment. And so for us, yes, we could put nematodes out on our lawn. That would really help break the cycle as well. I don't think that's where ours are coming from. I think ours are coming from our barn cats who like to come hang out on our back patio, and then the dogs like to go out and hang out with cats. Like, why don't you guys stay in the barn? It would be so much better if you stay in the barn. And sadly, I cannot wash my barn cats. That is not going to happen. They don't like to be sprayed, but I can spray my hand and then rub it on them. So we kind of keep them at you know kind of a low level infestation. But it's impossible with outdoor cats to keep them 100% flea free. I can't put collars on them, so I can't use the tags. So it makes it a little bit trickier. But you know, for me, like I get twitchy when I find that first flea of the year. I'm like, here we go, here we go. But it really is just a matter of staying on top of it. I mean the flea comb is like my best friend in the entire world. If you're not using a flea comb, use a flea comb. What I keep finding is, you know, Cavaliers being Cavaliers, they get knots in their hair, and then I break teeth in my flea comb when I'm going through knots. So, but flea comb absolutely, and I can't say enough about this bar. Like the shampoo bars are, like I said, I even for washing my own hair, I'm like it's supposed to be shampoo in a liquid from a bottle. Like, but the bars are amazing.
Janine Ling 26:50
Yeah. So I mean, I'm a huge fan of the bar. I think it's easier to use. And the other thing, big difference between the bar and the the liquid shampoo. So anytime you make liquid shampoo, so again, we're saponifying the oils. It's the process of taking the oils and turning it into a soap. It turns into a paste if you want to make a liquid shampoo. That paste is unusable. It's like almost like a peanut butter consistency. That paste has to be then diluted with water to be used. Right, diluted water, and anytime you add water, I personally, like I said, working with a lot of formulators. Anytime you add water, even if you're using purified water, RO water, it doesn't matter. Water, I feel personally that you need to use a preservative because even if it's a sterile, you're adding everything into a bottle and it's sterile. Once it's open, it's exposed to other things. Personally, and like I said, I work with a lot of formulas. Feel the same way. You need a preservative, even though we use like the safest preservatives, Eco Organic in Europe. It's still a preservative. So the bar soap has absolutely no water. So back to liquid one. We're adding water. We have to add a preservative. So now it's diluted. Then that diluted version of it has to be thickened into a usable form. So the liquid soap is almost a diluted version of the bar soap. So that's why the bar soap you're like it lasts forever, even though it's only four ounces. It's equal to like 16 ounces of liquid shampoo because it's undiluted version. So there's like multiple reasons I'm like a huge fan of the bar soap. But there is a lot of people that like you said. You're like it's supposed to be liquid. It's supposed to be you know in in a bottle. So we do have both options. But we feel like we're really converting a lot of people when they try it. The bar soap they're seeing it's easier to use. You're not using two hands. One hand pouring water. You know you could literally just lather them up with a bar. And it's funny because bar soap is the original soap. You know, we always had bar soap. Liquid soap is the newer version of it. We always had bar soap. We wash our hair with a with a bar soap. We use it, you know, for our bodies. And it's it's funny going back to what we used to use.
Dr. Judy Morgan 28:53
Yeah, it's funny because my mom lives with us, and she always wants bar soap for her shower. I don't. I haven't given her your soap. I don't know why. I use it, but she always wants bar soap because that's what she's used to. That's what she grew up with. Yeah, and like the liquid soap is like
Janine Ling 29:13
it's a newer. It's a newer version of it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 29:15
Like that's not what what we're supposed to use. That yeah. So yeah, we all need to get back to to the bar soaps. They honestly they last longer. They do.
Dr. Judy Morgan 29:24
Yeah. So I'm a huge fan. So since we're talking about the the the difference between bar soaps and I and a lot of your things, like you you sell them in a concentrate. So tell me why you went to concentrates instead of selling this already diluted
Janine Ling 29:44
So we wanted to be as sustainable as possible, right? Thinking about the environment, we're a pet, we're a pet focused brand. So we we wanted not to sell water. We don't make water, right? We're not in the business of selling water, so. We don't want to ship water; it reduces our waste. Like our bottles now, our concentrates are on four ounces instead of 16 ounces. So our packaging is reduced. Our shipping is reduced. It's really like better for the environment, and we don't want to sell water again. We we don't want to just sell you like I said, 98% water and 2% essential oils, we wanted to show you what you're buying, and like I said, reduce all these extra factors that you don't need to. It's really a sustainability issue that that we made everything into concentrates,
Dr Judy Morgan 30:31
which I love. Like you know, I would love to get my laundry detergent as a concentrate instead of yeah, it's like shipping water shipping all this
Dr. Judy Morgan 30:41
It's heavy. It you know it doesn't ship well. Yeah, and it just it it takes so much more out of the environment to do that. We're using bigger boxes for shipping. It's heavier weight, and so that's more gas usage in the truck that's delivering. I mean, there's just so much so many reasons that it's so wasteful. So I really like the concentrates, and then you also, with your packaging, you've gone to materials that are reusable or recyclable.
Janine Ling 31:10
yeah. That was it. Was super important to us to do that, and it was one of the hardest things, honestly. It's it's. I mean, the main reason people don't use aren't using glass or metals. It's more expensive, right? It's more expensive, but that was not going to be the reason I didn't use it. It was an important factor that we're like, we're gonna have to figure this out. We're gonna make it work. So everything is in glass, metal, or cardboard, and then you don't even realize is like the cardboard we're using. When you get cardboard, most cardboard is plastic lined, right? Like you don't even start thinking about like things that look like they're plastic free are plastic lined. So we actually had to pay more money to get it have waxed lined instead of plastic, so it could be completely compostable. It's another reason why I really like the bar shampoos. The boxes are completely compostable. You throw in your compost. You have absolutely no waste when you're done. And then we did the glass for the concentrates. Glass could be recycled indefinitely. Same with the the metal. So these are all like sustainable products. Plastic, even though like oh, everybody's like, oh, you can recycle plastic. It's like 90% of plastic is not recycled. Yeah, they call it like greenwashing because it's or wish cycling because you you're recycling it, you're putting in your bin, you're hoping, you're thinking, you're doing the right thing that it's not going to go into the landfill. But 94% of it is not being able to recycle. There's a couple of reasons. So plastic is very expensive to recycle. It's actually more expensive to recycle plastic than is to produce new ones. The other thing is the gradings on the plastic. Each one has like a number on it, and they can't be mixed together to sort it. And a lot of them, it just like I said, it's just impossible to sort and to to make it feasible for somebody to recycle it. It's not worth it. It's absolutely not worth it. Plastic's cheap. It it lasts forever, right? And yeah, which is
Dr Judy Morgan 33:03
That is the problem. It
Janine Ling 33:04
is it lasts forever. It lasts forever. It it it it doesn't break. It's waterproof. So it's like on one one stance, it's like this great cheap product we could put everything in. The other problem is we could never get rid of it. It's in everything now. it's become a huge problem.
Dr. Judy Morgan 33:17
And now we have you know microplastic toxicity. You know, get your blood tested, and you find out that oh my god, look at all these microtucks. Like Gwen went down a rabbit hole one day with tea bags.
tea bags are loaded with microplastics. So she came to our house and she was like, "Well, what do you have that's non-alcoholic to drink? I'm like, "Water, and So I said, "Well, I have a ton of tea bags. You can make tea. And she's like, "No, because tea bags are filled with microplastics. And I'm like, "When did you go down that rabbit hole? And you know, now my whole life is all about like all the toxins in the world. So I did happen to have loose tea and a nice little metal tea ball. And she said, "Okay, great, I can make tea. But we don't think about
Janine Ling 34:03
It's bad. And you like you said, you go down the rabbit hole, and then especially tea bags because hot water and and plastic is probably the worst, right? Hot water is like leaching everything into it. It's absolutely worse, and in general, plastic leaches into things. But when you start thinking about the hot water to it, the K cups, right? Hot water is going into that leaching plastic into your drinks, and yeah, I grew up in the '80s. So in the '80s, we didn't think about this stuff, right? Everything was microwaved. We had the the plastic tea kettles that you put hot water, and it was all plastic. That whole thing heated up. That's probably the worst thing.
Dr. Judy Morgan 34:34
Yeah, I think I've I I probably have so much microplastics in my body at this point. Is it's not even worth it, you know and speaking of the microwave, this is something that I think about all the time. So when we bought our house in New Jersey that our parents moved in with us, the house had been set up to be handicapped accessible, which meant that the microwave was down low, so that somebody in a wheelchair could still use the microwave, and we had a counter that was that height, and everything was set up for that. And so, when we built the house that we're in now, our microwave is in the center island, and it's down low because you know we're thinking ahead for what? What if you know? So all of our doorways are wide, and you know, blah blah. But if and when I use the microwave, which isn't that often, but when I put stuff in there and I'm standing in front of it, I'm like kind of cooking my ovaries in front of the microwave. So now I like all of a sudden one day that hit me. I'm like, I don't think I'll you know the microwave is not supposed to leak, but I'll stand over there. It can cook its thing or whatever it's doing. I'm gonna go stand over there instead and not stand directly in front of it, and you know these are the kind of things that you you don't think about until you do, and then it's like yeah,
Janine Ling 35:46
I know you go into the rabbit hole. It's bad.
Dr. Judy Morgan 35:50
Yeah, now I've got all this tea in my pantry that I may or may not ever be able to use. I guess I could take the the tea out of the the tea bags, and I don't know, I don't know. It's it's it's a slippery slope when you start going down that. We're going to take a break to hear from our sponsor. When we come back, we'll see what else is inside Janine's mind. Stay tuned.
PRODUCT SPOTLIGHT #2 36:11
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Dr. Judy Morgan 37:00
Welcome back to the Naturally Healthy Pets podcast. Janine Ling of Project Sudz and I are having great conversations about I don't know microwaves, tea bags, and sustainability. So we want to talk some more about some other products that Janine has come up with. One of which is her dish soap. So she says she's really interested in pet health, but she does do some things for people, and we use all of her products for us anyway. But let's talk about the dish soap and why that is different. And you know, I feel guilty because I've got some other liquid dish soap sitting on my sink. I actually have this too. I use this for washing my pet platters, but not our stuff. Yeah, which is probably really dumb.
Janine Ling 37:44
So it's funny. The reason why we have the dish soap is because of you and the Pet Platter. So we were talking, and we were talking about the Pet Platter and how people, like all of us, we go down the rabbit hole, right, of everything your dog touches, right, and people with the Pet Platters, like I love the Pet Platter, but I need something non-toxic to wash the dog because the dog's eating off of it. And you're like, "Why don't you make something? I was like, "Done. Let's make something tomorrow.
Dr. Judy Morgan 38:10
it's my fault.
Dr. Judy Morgan 38:14
I'll take responsibility. I don't know why it doesn't say Dr. Judy Morgan's dish soap
Janine Ling 38:17
I will change it. But yeah, so we made it, and the again because we're making everything from scratch. Like I said, each oil does have its own benefits, and coconut oil, like I said, when it's supotified or turns into soap, it's one of the most cleansing and drying soaps. So we did is like 99% coconut oil because we wanted to be as cleansing as possible, and then we use like the 1% castle oil to give it extra lather, and then we added citrus essential oil. Citrus will break down soap scum. So those are actually the three ingredients in our dish soap. Super simple, super super sustainable, like completely safe to wash your pet's dishes in. Again, no water added. You just rub it on. I use a little dish brush and I just rub it on, and then I rub all my dog's dishes with it. But again, one of those rabbit hole things-you start thinking about what the dog, anything, anything the dog touches, whether it's what you're washing your dishes with, you're washing your floors with, right? Everything in my life from my laundry has changed because my dog, like you said, what you're what it does, and then you start incorporating into your own life, thinking about what I eat, and but it starts with my dog, right? My dog was like, "What is he? What is she eating? You know, and I'm like thinking about my own health after that.
Dr. Judy Morgan 39:35
You know, it is interesting because so many clients that came to me over the years, you know, my dog's got cancer. My dog's got this chronic illness, you know, chronic inflammatory disease, and they come. We design these really healthy diets, and we talk about you know getting as much organic as possible, and you know not having chemicals and cleaning up the environment for them. And it is amazing how many clients would come back a few months later. And their dog is doing great, and they're like, "Yeah, we totally changed the way that we eat, and you know how we're cleaning the house, and you know, basically we're changing the lives of families, because we want to do something better for our dogs,
Janine Ling 40:14
yeah, because we love them, you know, and it's like the most important. I mean, my dog's most important thing. Like that's everything revolves around my dog, and yeah, when you start thinking about what she touches, what she eats, and then I start thinking about myself. Well, my dog can't eat processed food. Processed food is no good, but I'm like, I shouldn't be eating processed food either, right? How about that? My dog drinks raw goat's milk. I'm like, I should drink raw milk too. And then even organ meat. I started thinking about organ meat and how important it is for dogs' diet. Started incorporating my own diet because of it.
Dr. Judy Morgan 40:42
Yeah, my daughter's on a beef liver kick. I, I'm not sure. I, I haven't, I haven't tasted it. Maybe I could. I don't know. But she said I don't have to drink coffee if I eat my beef liver. I have all this energy, which it is a superfood. Which, if we get if we get all the people in the world to start eating beef liver, there's not going to be enough left for all of our dogs. But people people tend to be like the face I'm making. Oh, you know, kind of like I'm not I'm not going to go there. But we really should.
Janine Ling 41:12
Yeah, yeah. I I've been taking beef liver pills because I think the texture is just a little bit hard for me to take down. I haven't gotten that yet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:18
I know Billy Hoekman comes to my house and he brings his raw milk, and then he takes my eggs, and he puts the raw eggs in the raw milk, and he slurps it down every morning. And I'm like, no, I just again, I'm making that face like, oh, oh god, it just the thought of it going down. I don't know.
Janine Ling 41:35
I'm trying to get there. Not there yet.
Dr. Judy Morgan 41:38
Yeah, I like my eggs gently cooked. Like I can eat them. They can still be the white part has to be pretty well cooked, but you know, I like a runny yolk. But yeah, so the way that we're feeding our pets, we really should look at more for ourselves, I think. And you know, then again, like I look at these shampoo bars for my dogs. I'm like, oh, they work really well. I'm using myself. So then, you also came up with a line of candles. So let's talk about the. I don't. I used to be. God, there was a candle company, Party Light. Back in the oh god, late 1980s and 1990s. It was sort of like a Tupperware thing where you would have Party Light parties. I think they still make them, and you know, you invite all your friends, and you sell candles and candle holders and decorative things to your friends. I was like, I I didn't work for the company, but I was like the queen. I would have 50 people come to my parties, and we would sell so much stuff, and then I would get all this free stuff. We used to. So for those of you who are into this, I'll tell you how we were so successful in that, and I wasn't. I just wanted the free stuff, but we were very successful because my Gwen's dad was into brewing beer, so all the guys would come and they would do beer tasting and you know learn about brewing beer, and all the women would come and we'd be talking candles and and you know smelling all the different candles, and our biggest party ever. All of a sudden, we're like, "What is that smell? And one of our cats had trotted through the room through where I had probably 50 candles burning, and the cat was running across the room with his tail on fire. Oh, he just stuck his tail into a candle. So then, 50 people chasing the cat to you know it. It all worked out fine. He just had some little singed tail hairs. That was kind of the end of my candle life, and I don't burn candles anymore. I guess I have too many animals. I'm a little worried, but I used to leave candles burning and leave my house and not even think about it, like yeah. Don't do that. Don't do that. But how did you get into candles, and why? I mean they are very popular, and you smell really good.
Janine Ling 43:49
Oh, thanks. Couple reasons. Well, one, we we came out with the dish soap, so we have the containers. So everything we do, we try to like.
Dr. Judy Morgan 43:54
So we had the containers.
Janine Ling 43:56
Yeah we try to reuse the containers and keep the the everything consistent and tight with the you know packaging and again back to sustainability. So I like candles, like you said, right? Like people are a fan of candles. The problem with candles is a lot of them are paraffin based candles. Paraffin is like a nasty, nasty wax to use. It does not burn clean. If you ever like, I remember when I was a kid, I used to run my hand over the candle, and you had that soot, that line of soot. I had no idea what it was. That's like a dirty burn. That's like what's going into the air, what's going into your house. There's a couple waxes that you could use that are safe. We use 100% soy wax, but you can use beeswax. You could use a coconut coconut based wax, which is different than coconut oil, so it's not the same. It's it's a coconut wax, but those three are a clean burn where you could actually run your hand over it. You won't have any soot. It burns completely clean. The other thing we use, we use a phthalate free fragrance. So fragrance in general is a dirty word because you could put anything under the fragrance name. Like you don't need to disclose what's in it, phthalates are like a chemical. They actually used to make plastic. It's it's. I don't know why it's so common in fragrances, but it's very common, and that's actually a dirty burn too. Like I said, it's like plastic chemical base. So it's it's when you burn it, it's leaving toxic toxins in the air. So we use a phthalate free fragrance. The everybody asks about this, right? Why don't use essential oils? We use essential oils on all our products. Why don't you just use essential oils? There's three main reasons you can't use essential oils in candles. One of the big reasons is the flash point. Flash point is the temperature something goes on fire. Essential oils have most essential oils have very low flash points. So the the temperature the candle goes to the essential oil will actually go on fire and makes it very unsafe. Somebody actually showed me a video of she's like, "You're right. I bought this essential oil candle. The whole candle went up. So absolute safety concern. You can't use essential oils. The other thing is essential oils when they're burnt. It's different than if you spray it, diffuse it, or warm it. When you burn something, it changes the the the chemical consistency of it. It's not it's not the same, right? So burning an essential oil can actually make it toxic. So again, essential oils they're not not not everyone. But even if you found one that had a high flash point that was safe when you burnt it, the third reason is essential oils do not smell the same when they're burnt. So you know, take take a rose and rose oil smells nice. You burn it, it does not smell like roses anymore, right? So not everything is is safe to just burn. So those are the three reasons we don't use essential oils in our candles. Again, we work with essential oils. It would have been super easy for us to make in essential oil candles, but the safety concerns are the reasons we don't use it. So we pick,
Dr Judy Morgan 46:45
and cats are so sensitive to a lot of those oils, particularly if they're burned or heated.
Janine Ling 46:49
yeah, yeah. Like I said, it's completely different when when it's burnt. So those are the three reasons, and so we pick the safest fragrance scents that that we could use as the cleanest scent to burn in A candle,
Dr. Judy Morgan 47:01
interesting. So I know that at our office, everybody loves these candles. They're burning all the time. Every and and it's funny because we've got all these separate offices, and everybody has their own favorites. Yeah. You go from office to office, and it smells different in every office. So what's on the horizon?
Janine Ling 47:21
What's on the horizon? So we just came out with some supplements. I know we're going to try to get some oil bags for you. Yeah. So we did our stuff. I was a huge fan. Like I always go back to food. I feel like there are so many really good food companies at this point, right? Like everybody's doing. Like we have evolved so much, and everybody's doing so good. But I'm a huge fan of whole food supplements, right? One thing I can't stand is synthetic vitamins, minerals, right? I don't think your body processes. I think we should go back to basics. Whole foods, whole foods, your body sees it as food. It's food, right? You absorb it. Your body uses it. With synthetics, when your body encounters synthetics, your body processes as a foreign object, it has to go through your organs and filtered out, and most of it's not absorbed. So we did a couple of our whole food supplements. Again, huge fan. Going back to basics, real foods. That's that's on that's our newest products we're launching.
Dr. Judy Morgan 48:15
Can't wait. can't wait because you know I'm a huge fan of not having synthetic anything. You know, and and we have this conversation a lot that not everybody can afford to go buy these new human grade, no synthetics, everything made from Whole Foods. It's not in everybody's budget to, especially if you have multiple large dogs. It it it's not something that's possible, but having a topper that we can put on that is whole foods, the superfoods, just 20% of the diet.
Janine Ling 2 48:50
Yeah something is better than nothing. Yeah, even just cracking a raw egg in your food, you know, just adding that
Dr. Judy Morgan 48:56
Just makes a huge difference. You know, I've got so many eggs at my house right now. The chickens are going crazy. I I I need to go crack some eggs on platters and let all the cats and dogs have it. I'll tell you what our our barn cats. If we have a dozen eggs that we're you know we collect and we're ready to bring them up to the house, and if I sit them down somewhere in the barn, the cats literally will go over, open the carton, and take out all the eggs. And now I've got a dozen cracked eggs in the barn that the cats are going crazy. They're they're really good at finding. I mean, they love them. Yeah. And so just adding anything. Anything super fresh or anything whole food to the bowl makes a huge difference.
Dr. Judy Morgan 49:37
So what are these toppers? These supplements going to look like? Are they crumbles? Are they treats?
Janine Ling 49:42
So we did it in a coconut flake. Huge fan of coconut, coconut oil, coconut flake. There's multiples of benefits. One of them is texture. Cats, right? Cats like are super picky, right? Dogs are not as much, but cats are particular about taste and texture, right? So we did the coconut flakes for palatability. And then everything is coated with our different superfoods. So we did our berry boost. We do blueberry, cranberry. Then we did marshmallow root and apple cider vinegar because apple cider vinegar right and all our products. But apple cider vinegar for urinary tract health is really important to help lower pH. It'll break down bacteria in the in the urinary tract and cats in general super because chronically get UTIs so that's good everyday supplement and like I said it's whole foods you can add it to their food it's not a medication you don't have to stop it's just food you add it in you could give it to them on a regular basis for a diet my one my one dog she was a little pity she was a low squatter. Doug ate raw diet goat milk. Like there was not a dried thing she ate, and she still got chronic UTIs because she was a low squatter. And so I used to I used to give her cranberry supplements to help keep her tract clear, so she wouldn't get chronic UTIs. And like I said, I wanted it to be an everyday supplement, a whole food that you could just add. So that's our our berry supplement, and then we did our hip and joint. A huge fan of turmeric. I love golden paste. I used to make it, but the whole process of making golden paste kind of a pain. But I still think it's like this awesome superfood. So turmeric, if you add, you could either add black pepper or ginger, and it increases the bioavailability, the cucumin, right? That you that your body absorbs. The other thing you need is a fatty oil. So we did a turmeric, and we use ginger instead of black pepper. Ginger is a little bit easier on the stomach. And we did our coconut flakes, and then you add it to your dog'sfood, so you have that fatty oil. So you have that whole combination that you need to actually get the benefits of the turmeric, and then we did two pumpkin supplements. We did a pumpkin RX. So a chronic thing being in the pet industry, dog has diarrhea, right? The dog's going to eat something weird, like it's going to go outside and eat, you know, deer poop or like something something odd in the backyard. It's going to get diarrhea. So we did a bentonite clay one. So that one's the only one that's like not a daily supplement. If your dog has diarrhea. Like it's bentonite clay-based. We use slippery elm. We use marshmallow root, ginger, and pumpkin. All things to help their digestive system. But it's just a really quick absorbing the toxins or extra moisture out of the dog's stomach. That's something you only want to use like up to three days after that. There's something else going on. You have to go to the vet because that's you know that's not a normal upset stomach. But it's a quick easy powder, you know, because that's like a one of those things you always hear. My dog has diarrhea.
Janine Ling 52:31
And then we did another pumpkin supplement. I'm a huge fan of probiotics, but I personally think of rotating probiotics, right? So I didn't want it to be a probiotic supplement. I wanted it to be more like a pumpkin supplement with probiotics that you could add every day. But we did a soil-based probiotic. Coconut flakes is a great prebiotic, and then we did our pumpkin, our ginger, our slippery elm. So we did the soil-based probiotics because again, huge fan of probiotics. But again, I'm huge fan of also rotating probiotics. But soil-based probiotics are more bioavailable. They stay alive longer. A lot of the probiotics I find like they die off very quickly, right? So soil-based probiotics have like almost this shell on the outside of them. They only start breaking down in the stomach acid liner, so they're more you get more alive probiotics by the time your dog digests it, where it's more beneficial. So that's our pumpkin supplement.
Dr. Judy Morgan 53:28
Your brain is always working.
Janine Ling 53:30
I like I said, I love it. I love what I do. Like I'm always thinking, and it's like you know, my dog's my life. So you know, always like staring at my dog. What does he need? What can I do better for you?
Dr. Judy Morgan 53:39
Well, in the process, you're doing better for a lot of dogs and cats around the world, and much appreciated. I mean, I'm just a huge fan. Have been a huge fan of Janine Ling and whatever you're bringing to the market because it's always amazing. And no, this is not just a big advertisement. We have talked about a lot of things that go into these products that could be in other products, or you could, you know, use individual ingredients. So apple cider vinegar, like the the the good live apple cider vinegar, is just huge. I know a lot of people just feed straight apple cider vinegar. I've never done that because I don't know if my dogs are going to like the taste. I don't want to turn them off from the the taste of their food or their water, but you know, talking about sustainability and really caring about the planet and the pets and you know what we're what we're leaving for down the line. So, Janine, thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for being here today. I really appreciate you.
Janine Ling 54:36
Thank you. Appreciate you. Love being here.
OUTRO/DISCLAIMER
The purpose of this podcast is to educate and to inform. It is no substitute for professional care by a veterinarian, licensed nutritionist or other qualified professional. You're encouraged to do your own research, and should not rely on this information as professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Dr Judy and her guests express their own views, experience and conclusions. Dr Judy Morgan's Naturally Healthy Pets neither endorses or opposes any particular view discussed here.
