My Search For A Nontoxic Cleaner And My Introduction To Bon Ami
by Debra Lynn Dadd
author of Home Safe Home: Creating a Healthy Home Environment by Reducing Exposure to Toxic Household Products
www.dld123.com

As a consumer advocate for health and the environment, I've been recommending Bon Ami as a nontoxic cleaner for over twenty years. In fact, Bon Ami helped launch my career many years ago. As a result of their help, I've helped hundreds of thousands of people create healthy home environments, and prevented tons of toxic chemicals from entering the environment.

It all started in 1982. After discovering that my body reacted to a wide range of toxic chemicals, I began to compile a list of nontoxic products. These were few in number in those days, but fortunately Bon Ami was on the shelf in every supermarket. So I began to recommend Bon Ami to all the people I knew who also were sensitive to toxic chemicals and couldn't use the standard cleaners. I also wrote and self-published my first book on household toxics and safe alternatives in 1982, and included Bon Ami as one of the few safe cleaners.

Then Bon Ami began to run an ad that said something like "Write to us and tell us your story about using Bon Ami." My roommate saw the ad and responded saying "You should know that my roommate is recommending Bon Ami in a book about nontoxic products."

Bon Ami immediately contacted me and asked me if I wanted to go on a media tour as their spokesperson. I would be presented as the author of my book and give a presentation about nontoxic cleaning. I would bring along props including baking soda, vinegar, a lemon, and a can of Bon Ami. All I needed to do was mention Bon Ami at some point during the interview.

I readily agreed. Bon Ami sent me to Chicago to a top public relations firm for one day of intensive interview training, then sent me off on a one-week tour. The first interview was a television show. The host picked up the can of Bon Ami, held it up next to his face, pointed to the can, and said with a smile, "My grandmother used to use this!" As I walked off the set, a representative from Bon Ami was waiting on the phone to sign me up for another one-week tour.

As a result of those tours, I sold several thousand books--even though they were just photocopied pages stapled together. Those two tours and the book sales were enough to get a small publisher interested in publishing my book. Many revised editions of that first book have been continuously in print now for twenty-one years. Many other authors and organizations use my books as references. Millions of people have been educated over the years directly and indirectly as a result of my work and many, many more nontoxic products are now available in the marketplace. But it all started with my self-published book and that first media tour sponsored by Bon Ami.