THE LILLY STORY
Lilli Klint came to Ireland from Finland for a year over ten years ago with a back pack full of enthusiasm. What started as an excitement, curiosity and mere practicality turned into a life changing adventure.
Lilli started a contract cleaning business on the East Coast of Ireland and she worked with conventional cleaning products on a daily basis. Some months later she began to feel ill and developed a very bad sinusitis that didn’t respond to medication. Not nice. She was sneezing so hard that her back got sore and her business that was going brilliantly was in jeopardy. It was time for her to detoxify her life.
Lilli started to look for answers and stopped using conventional cleaners after finding out what they can be made of. She used to be a girl who just luved the smell of bleach, especially with a lot of smelly artificial lemony stuff in it. Her trust in the products she had used all her life was shattered -they gave her a big head ache, quite literally.
She created the concept of an eco-friendly contract cleaning business and named it Lilly’s eco clean. She began to look for alternatives, searched out old recipes for cleaning agents derived from plant and vegetable-based materials. That led her to experiment with making her own cleaners for the business in her kitchen.
They had to be effective and smell pleasant. She chose a range of delicious essential oils for her products, not only because they make the cleaning feel like a dance in a park, but also for their different antiseptic and antibacterial properties.
Irish Times reviewed the business in 2003 and the resulting article hugely enhanced its profile leading to increased demand. This inspired Lilli to develop and manufacture a range of high quality, safe and effective household cleaning products on a larger scale. The same year she received an award from An Taisce for the most innovative environmentally friendly entrepreneur- what an honour!
In 2005 Lilly’s Eco Clean Ltd moved to ruggedly beautiful West Cork by the Atlantic Ocean we all want keep clean and free from toxic chemicals. Castletownbere has been the home of Lilly’s Eco Clean ever since.