Is Spring Cleaning Making You Sick?

Marilee Nelson’s personal story shows why cleaning products may make your symptoms worse each spring. The fix is simpler than you think.

Key Takeaways

• Your cleaning and household products may be hurting you more than you know. Conventional and even many non-toxic products off-gas harmful chemicals around the clock—even when the bottles are closed. "Non-toxic" on a label is not a guarantee.

• Mold and products with harmful chemicals compete for the same detox pathways. Every product with toxic chemicals you remove frees up your body's energy to heal. Marilee calls it removing the backpack—and says the results on your air quality are immediate.

• Some air purifiers make sensitive people worse. Marilee recommends all-metal, non-WiFi, non-computerized purifiers with HEPA filtration and large carbon capacity. She says hydroxyl and PCO technologies can produce secondary inflammatory particulates and by-products that are harmful and undermine health.

• Clean air and non-toxic products work together. As Marilee says: "You want to stop putting the chemicals in, and you want to filter what's already there. Both matter."

• You can start in 15 minutes. Branch Basics' free Toss the Toxins course walks you through creating a healthy home category by category—just a box and a little time to find out what your body does when given a real break.

Every spring, millions of Americans throw open their windows, grab their cleaning supplies, and go to work. It feels healthy. It feels like a fresh start.

But according to Marilee Nelson—co-founder of Branch Basics, board-certified nutritionist, bau-biologist, and one of the most knowledgeable voices in the country on the relationship between household chemicals and chronic illness—that familiar spring cleaning ritual may be doing far more harm than good. We sat down with Marilee during the Mold Solutions Summit, and what she shared was nothing short of life-changing.

"I Woke Up to the Fact That What We Breathe Can Be Just as Powerful as What We Eat"

Marilee Nelson did not set out to become one of America's foremost experts on non-toxic living. She was led there, painfully, by her own body—and then by her son's.

As a young woman, Marilee was told by eleven specialists that she needed a kidney transplant. They said she would never have children. They said her body was failing. She refused to accept it.

"I cannot be subject to what the medical world has to offer me today," she told her doctor. "I know there has to be a way."

She found a Boston doctor who used food as medicine. She removed processed chemicals from her diet. Against every medical prediction, she avoided a kidney transplant. She went on to have a son, Douglas. The doctors had been wrong.

She learned how powerful real food is and became a medicinal cook.  Marilee had no idea she had so much more to discover. 

When her son, Douglas, was five, they moved to Jamaica, where Marilee was working as a medicinal cook at a small resort. The air was pristine. The food was organic and fresh. And something remarkable happened.

"My son Douglas walked into the kitchen. He spoke casually, but with authority. He said, 'Mom, there are 70 toes in here.'" As cooks walked in and out, Douglas tracked the count—multiplying and dividing in real time. "He suddenly started multiplying and dividing. Soon, we found he could add three-digit numbers like a computer."

Douglas had not shown this ability before. Marilee was certain it was the pristine outdoor ocean air. Here she started to wake up to the fact that outdoor air quality, what we breathe, can be just as powerful as what we eat. She would later learn, again through her son’s experience, how vitally important indoor air quality is to your health."Research has now directly linked not only outdoor air but also indoor air quality to cognitive function, —finding that people in spaces with cleaner air and better ventilation scored dramatically higher on cognitive tests across every domain measured.

The Box in the Closet That Changed Everything

When the family returned to the United States, they moved to the hill country. At age ten, Douglas was exposed to a toxic mix of pesticides in their Texas hill country community. He went from a brilliant child multiplying toes in Jamaica to one who couldn't spell a three-letter word or do simple arithmetic.

"The doctor said he had irreversible brain and immune system damage," She was told the brain does not regenerate and that he was like a bubble boy, unable to detoxify the everyday chemicals we are all exposed to.

She refused to accept that prognosis. 

Because Douglas was so reactive to everything inside the house, the family began sleeping outside on cots. He simply did better outdoors. One night, while her son and husband slept beside her under the open sky, Marilee was asking herself: what have we not done?

"This thought came into my head: get up and take the box out of the closet."

She slipped back inside alone—in the middle of the night—and removed a small sealed box from the closet. It contained her favorite perfumes and other products she had held back from the purge, telling herself she would use them again once Douglas recovered. She put the box outside in a shed, returned to her cot, and said nothing to anyone.

The next day, when she was preparing lunch, Douglas had been in the house for about ten minutes when he  said: "Mom, what did you do? I'm just not feeling as agitated as I usually do."

She played dumb and said,  “Just stay in as long as you feel like it.” He ended up spending the night in the house without reacting. Marilee began doubting and questioning herself as she couldn’t imagine how those few products in a box could have kept him reacting. A few days later, walking past the cleaning aisle at the grocery store, the full picture snapped into focus.

"Those bottles are not only closed, but they're also sealed," she realized, stopping her cart. "And yet I can smell them. The same thing is happening to the air quality in our house  from those few products sitting inside a box in a closed closet." He had not been near it. He had not touched it. The VOCs simply existed in the same airspace he was breathing, and he was reacting.

The removal of the box created a baseline of a safe home where he didn’t react.

Soon after establishing this baseline, Marilee bought what she believed was a safe cleaner—fragrance-free, labeled non-toxic. She set it on the counter. Douglas, in another room, was seized by a blinding migraine.

"He was on the floor. He had his hands over his ears, his eyes closed, begging me to turn off the lights." The cleaner, she later discovered, contained EPA-registered pesticide preservatives that are neurotoxins from the isothiazolinone family—commonly found in many products labeled "non-toxic."

"Clearly, non-toxic on a label was not enough." She began to do a deep dive into the ingredients of products used in the home.

She also began to think, “Oh my gosh, indoor air quality matters! All Americans are living in homes with a chemical soup created by the products with toxic chemicals sitting in the homes, and these chemicals are undermining health.

How Branch Basics Was Born

Over seven years—removing chemicals from their home, studying building biology, creating what she called a safe haven—Douglas fully recovered. He went on to the Naval Academy. After he left, Marilee's consulting practice exploded. Word had spread about his recovery—doctors had called it a medical miracle—and people were calling her from all over the country, desperate for answers after seeing doctor after doctor and getting nowhere. 

She had the opportunity to substantiate her theory that products with harmful chemicals impact everyone’s health.  She developed a no-cost, stress-free process to create a healthy home  (now offered as a free online course, Toss the Toxins)  for her clients that immediately improves indoor air quality. The results repeatedly revealed how much these products are impacting people. Then her niece Allison changed everything.

Allison had become severely ill in college. Her parents took her across the country for two years looking for doctors who could help. None could. Finally, she and her best friend Kelly came to stay at Marilee's house for two months—eating real food, living in a chemical-free home, and reducing technology exposure.

"In two months, Allison was a new person."

Kelly, who had come along simply as a healthy companion, experienced her own quiet transformation. Her period cramps disappeared. She no longer needed deodorant. Muscle cramps and symptoms she had always treated with over-the-counter medications were just gone—things she had assumed were simply normal.

For two months, both women sat in on Marilee's client consultations and heard story after story of recovery once harmful products were removed. They felt a desire to join Marilee and share information that had changed their lives.. Branch Basics was born from that urgency.

They created products with a purpose that act as a vehicle for their mission to help people create healthy homes. What followed was over two years of development and 99 iterations of their concentrate formula— each round tested on chemically sensitive clients. Our goal was to create a product that didn’t irritate the eyes, skin, or lungs. As long as anyone reacted, we worked to make the product better. On the 99th iteration, she overheard a chemist whisper about an undisclosed ingredient, sodium benzoate.

"Before I finished asking about it, he said, 'Oh, don't worry. We don't even have to report it. It's such a small amount.'"

Sodium benzoate had been on our NO list and full transparency had been non-negotiable from day one. Marilee's response was calm and immediate: "Take it out and let’s try without it." That was the winning formula as finally no canaries reacted. Independent third-party testing confirmed it was not an eye irritant and was 100% not a skin irritant—a result the lab said they had never seen before.

"They asked, 'Marilee, who is your chemist?' she said, 'Actually, it's my canary clients—and my son who was a bubble boy. The human laboratory of experience taught me about these ingredients.'"

For those recovering from mold exposure, Marilee recommends the Premium Starter Kit, which can replace every laundry and cleaning product in the home. This is a concentrate model that comes with Oxygen Boost Powder and a cleaning concentrate that is diluted in reusable bottles and mixed in different ratios for various cleaning purposes - from oven cleaners to windows. This versatility simplifies your life.  

It's a minimalist dream. It'll save you money, time, energy, and space."

Mold + Chemicals: The Double Load Your Body Cannot Afford

This is where Marilee's story becomes directly relevant to everyone recovering from or currently living with mold exposure, which, in spring, especially, is more common than most people realize.

"When you have mold exposure," Marilee explained, "you may have a complex mix of biotoxins from the mold.” Our diluted concentrate is used for mold abatement and is proven to remove mold and the entire biotoxin chemical soup.

After mold is properly removed, I have seen with my mold-exposed clients that it is essential to reduce your body’s total toxic load to fully recover.  If you have products with harmful chemicals in your house,  they must be removed. Reducing exposure to EMFs and high-frequency fields from the technology you use is also important...And the more you can lift off of you, the faster you can heal."

She described it through one of her most powerful teaching metaphors: the backpack.

"I would ask them to imagine that they had a very heavy load in a backpack they've been carrying their entire life. We all have a body burden no matter how strong we are," she said.

"And then I would ask them to imagine that someone comes up and offers to take a few things out—that might or might not give some relief. However, imagine offering to remove the entire backpack. The relief would be so incredible and free you up to do so much more."

For mold-exposed individuals and those with chronic illness, the chemicals in cleaning and household products are not a separate problem. They compete for the same detoxification pathways.

"If you remove the toxic chemicals, you've got more energy to deal with mycotoxins or whatever else you're dealing with," Marilee said. "Or just regular aging. Literally anything."

And critically, the chemicals do not have to be sprayed or actively used to impact your air.

"It's not just about what we're spraying. Having it in the house is impacting what we're breathing in," she said. "Products with harmful ingredients limit our potential and hijack our ability to heal, recover, and rejuvenate."

What Marilee Found Out About Air Purifiers

Marilee has spent decades helping people create truly safe indoor environments. That means she has also learned, often through her clients' reactions, which air purifiers help—and which ones hurt.

One case in particular stands out. A client who had made significant progress after mold remediation suddenly began declining—poor sleep, agitation, worsening symptoms. Marilee walked her back through every change she had made.

"I did buy this air purifier that is supposed to be the best on the market for mold," the client told her.

Marilee asked one careful question: "Do you know if this air purifier has any computerized components?"

It did. Marilee asked her to unplug it—without removing it from the room, because she wanted to isolate the variable of EMFs from any possible off-gassing from plastics.

The next day, the client called: "I slept better. It was much better."

Marilee called the manufacturer—multiple times—and asked them to offer a version without the computerized technology. They declined. Smart technology was the direction the market was moving.

"I have an air purifier that I've used with so many chemically sensitive people," Marilee said, "and it is all metal. It has no variable speed motor. It has regular AC technology. It has a huge capacity for the removal of chemicals and particulates. It is highly rated for mold."

That purifier is an Austin Air.

"It's not plastic. It's metal. It's used with non-toxic powder coat paint. It doesn't connect to Wi-Fi. It doesn't have all the electronics. It's just doing what it's supposed to do."

She also added one specific caution: "You're not going to put your head right by a running air purifier at night because there's a magnetic field that extends about three feet from the unit. Place the air purifier at least three feet away from the body."

Marilee also warns against air purifiers that use hydroxyl or PCO technology, UV lights that produce ozone, electrostatic filters or precipitators, or any technology using electronic oxidation. 

On the surface, testing results may look impressive. But the unintended consequences include the creation of secondary ultrafine inflammatory particles, formaldehyde, aldehydes, and ozone. 

Marilee’s mold, chemically sensitive, and EMF “canaries” were reacting and warning us of these problems even before 2000.

Julie Meissner: 20 Years of Illness—Then 2.5 Weeks of Change

The power of what Marilee teaches isn't theoretical. It shows up again and again in real people's lives. Not just hers, her son’s, or her niece’s. She has a consistent, 30-year track record with clients that proves that products containing harmful chemicals do not belong in our homes.

For example, Julie Meissner had health issues for more than 20 years. And, for 20 months, she experienced ongoing daily mold exposure on top of those decades of accumulated illness—the kind of total body burden Marilee describes so precisely. Then Julie found Branch Basics and committed fully to the Toss the Toxins protocol.

Within two and a half weeks, Julie told Branch Basics she had experienced the most significant healing to her body in decades. This included removing all essential oils from her home.

Her story—which she shares in a moving video—is a window into what becomes possible when you systematically remove the chemical inputs that are constantly taxing a body that is already fighting to survive.

Watch Julie's full story: Branch Basics—Julie Miessner

How to Start: Toss the Toxins This Spring

Marilee is direct about where to begin—and she is also compassionate about how.

"We're not asking you to throw anything away," she said. "Just take a box, put the products in it, walk it out of the house, and all of a sudden, your air quality improves. We're basically just doing an experiment to see what your body does when all the products with harmful chemicals are removed. Because we don't realize how much they impact us until they're removed." 

She suggests starting with about 15 minutes of introductory videos to learn about the process of the Branch Basics' free Toss the Toxins online course that Julie Meissner did.

"Today, you can start creating a healthy home at your own rate.”  It's simple.  We don’t ask you to throw anything away. You put products in a box, walk it out, and put it in your garage or outbuilding. The immediate improvement in air quality is mind-boggling." .

We teach you to become your own product expert. "We do not go by the 'dose makes the poison' toxicology model," Marilee explained. "We go by what I call the human laboratory of experience."

Clean Air and Clean Products Work Together — In Every Room

Marilee put it simply: "The air quality piece and the product piece work together. You want to stop putting the chemicals in, and you want to filter what's already there. Both matter."

Running your Austin Air purifier on high during and after any cleaning—even with non-toxic products—improves indoor air quality. The act of cleaning stirs up settled dust, mold spores, and residual VOCs from previous products. The 15 pounds of activated carbon and zeolite in Austin Air units is specifically engineered to adsorb the gaseous chemical compounds that conventional cleaning products introduce into your air—the kind that standard HEPA-only purifiers simply cannot touch.

But here is something worth noting: clean air is not a one-room problem. Mold spores, VOCs, and chemical off-gassing move through your entire home. The living room, the kitchen, the kids' rooms—they all matter.

That is why we offer whole-home air purification bundles that make it easier and more affordable to protect every space, with volume pricing that reflects the reality that most families need more than one unit. You can even build your own bundle to fit your unique needs.

Every Austin Air bundle includes a Bedroom Machine—because the bedroom is always where we start. Marilee was emphatic about this.

"It's at night when we sleep that our body is trying to go into that repair mode," she told us. "We really want to get the bedroom to be as clear of technology as possible. Austin Air is just a phenomenal air purifier."

Sleep is when your body detoxifies, repairs, and rebuilds. It is your most concentrated window of healing—and also the longest stretch of time you spend breathing the air in one place. If there is one room to get right first, it is the room where you sleep. The Bedroom Machine is engineered specifically for that environment—low noise, powerful filtration, no computerized components, all metal construction, running quietly at least three feet from your body all night long.

The Power of Removal Is the Most Underused Tool in Chronic Illness

Marilee closed our conversation with something impactful.

"The power of removal is an underutilized and unrecognized weapon against chronic illness."

She has never had a single client ask to bring the backpack of toxic chemicals back in.

"Because why would you? You've been free. You felt it,” she said.

This spring, you do not have to overhaul everything at once. You just need a box, 15 minutes at a time, and the willingness to find out what your body does when you stop assaulting it.

Take the first step:

• Toss the Toxins free course: Preview it here.

• Austin Air Healthy Home Bundle: Order with volume savings

• Branch Basics Premium Starter Kit: the concentrate that replaces everything

• Julie Meissner's story: Watch here

Clean products. Fresh air. A body that finally gets to heal.

In the Mold Solutions Summit interview with Marilee, she recommended the Branch Basics Starter Kit for those just starting out. Use code MOLDSUMMIT15 at https://branchbasics.com/ for 15% off site wide, one time use! 

Last updated April 17, 2026