At Truly Wholesome, you will find nutritionist-curated, toxin free, organic and natural products delivered to your door every month! You can shop products on the website, or treat yourself to a subscription, or give one as a gift. These beautiful boxes are designed for mums-to-be, new babies and new mums – you choose which one will best suit. All the products have been triple-checked for irritants and ingredients that cause health issues, nasty chemicals, toxins and unnatural ingredients. We spoke to Rebecca, the founder of Truly Wholesome, to find out how they got started.
The passion: What inspired you to set up your business?
More than 10 years ago I discovered my love for all things natural, and over the years my research and health science degree in nutritional medicine has led me to living a toxin free lifestyle with my daughter. I wholeheartedly believe most of our illnesses and diseases come from the unnatural way we live. Once my daughter came along in 2016, I found I was doing more research than ever on which products are best to use on a newborn, what’s harmful and what to avoid. My research took an enormous amount of time and while researching I realised I could save new mothers from doing this time-consuming task. That’s when I started the online store.
My research revealed an enormous amount of toxins in the products we purchase and most people are unaware of this. After discovering this I decided I needed to make people aware of how we are harming ourselves and our families with hidden toxins all throughout our homes. I wanted to support and educate parents on living a natural, organic and toxin free life and this is now the mission behind Truly Wholesome.
Truly Wholesome organically evolved over a year into an online store for mums and dads, friends and relatives where all products have been tried and tested by mums and all ingredients triple-checked to make sure there are absolutely 100% no toxins or chemicals. The new addition has been our subscription service which conveniently packages a monthly box together with toxin free goodies for new mums, mums-to-be and new bubs.
The Launch: How did you start out in the beginning?
It’s been a slow burn from the start. Being a solo mum with my daughter at home full time meant that I didn’t have a lot of spare time. Working while she slept also wasn’t an option because she didn’t like to sleep without me, so I had to work out other ways of developing and growing my business. That meant the slow route – do what I can when I can, and of course my daughter is my number one priority. It has slowly evolved over the last 12 months to the online store and a monthly subscription and gift box service.
The innovation: What was the biggest breakthrough for you with your business?
I think my biggest breakthrough was when I decided I needed to focus on one thing instead of focusing on and pleasing every single customer. I originally had just the online store that catered to every person and their dog, literally, I was also selling dog food. This ended up being way too much for just me to establish properly and I had to rethink what message I really wanted to get across. I needed to really find my niche market and that’s when I had someone ask me what was it that I really felt drawn to doing. I realised it was helping parents raise their children in the most natural and non-toxic environment as possible, hence our tag line mums&bubs.
Toxin free living is something I’ve been passionate about for a long time and even more so since having my daughter. This has really helped propel the business forward. We are only in the early stages so I look forward to more major breakthroughs in the future.
Yin and Yang: How do you balance work and family?
Balancing family and work is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. You want to succeed in your business and grow and nurture your business, but you also want to spend those precious moments with your children, loving and nurturing as well. I’ve had to let go of a lot of expectations of having things done on time and in a certain way, as this would just stress me and cause home life to be really unbalanced. So instead I try to go with the flow, get what I can done and not worry too much about what can’t be done. Family comes first and raising my daughter is my priority, my business is still important to me but I’ve just have to accept it will be at more of a part time rate than full time 24/7 start up rate.
