Helen Christoni: The Hidden Dangers in Your Tap Water & How to Combat Them

Did you know that the water that you're drinking every single day getting piped into your house, or maybe you're filling up somewhere, it could be affecting your health in ways that you won't like. But we're going to talk about it because there's something you can do about it. This is why I brought in Helen Crestoni onto the show. She's a trailblazer in wellness tech. She's been doing it for a very long time. She's going to talk about the hidden dangers that we have in our water supply, the things that you could do about it, the stuff that you could change right now after listening and go research yourself. She also talks about the ups and downs of her own journey and how she got to this point. And the cool thing, because a lot of us are entrepreneurs, we're doing marketing and sales. She actually heads up the promotional efforts for Ideal Living. That's the company she works with. And, you know, all the products they have, like Aqua True and Air Doctor, all the different things that help fill, filter and purify the air and water around us. She talks about how she has thousands of promotional partners and the marketing strategy she's doing to promote things and to get the word out there. And it's something that you could swipe.

So there's.

There's a little marketing business and sales mixed in with this crucial information. You got to know about the water and the air and what we're doing in our houses to keep ourselves safe. So, hello and Christonis here. Before you get into the episode, hit pause, go to a browser really fast. Type in hustle and flowchart.com/ clone, C, L, O, N, E. What that is is a digital mind. It's an AI digital mind that I built using Delphi AI. This platform I'm an advisor of and I love it. Been using it for a couple of years. This thing has 600 episodes from the podcast here, along with YouTube videos, blog posts, emails, trainings, all inside of this platform that you could use for free. You could chat with it, you can talk with it with audio, and you can even use video to Facetime. Me, and it's me. So it's AI Joe. If you go to hustleandflowchart.com clone, you can use it for free. You'll love it. I'm curious at what you do about it and learn, but for now, let's go listen to Helen and we'll see you there.

Are you ever in those moments where you're asked at a party or something, hey, what is it that you do as a business owner or as a marketer?

Let's say, do you describe.

They have to generate a bunch of leads or create content, gather information, analyze data, things like that.

You probably wouldn't want to because you'd.

Be like, oh, what is it that I do? I'm kind of spread too thin. I know a lot of us are who are running businesses or marketing campaigns. That's why HubSpot has a better way. And they have a collection of AI tools that you can actually take advantage of. They're called Breeze, and it has a bunch of features like content remixing.

It's basically turning one piece of content into a bunch of different assets.

Helps you pinpoint prospects that you follow up with, level up the campaigns with tracking, analytics, KPIs, along, everything that they show in their new suite there. And at the end of the day, you'll be able to describe to other people, let alone yourself, what is it.

That you actually do for your job or business.

So go check this out. Go visit HubSpot.com marketers that's with an S at the end to learn more. Again, visit HubSpot.com marketers to learn more.

We're going. Helen, we're here. I appreciate you for taking the time with me. I know you're busy. Busy doing these kind of things. Lives and all the social stuff. Right?

Yeah. Yeah. Hi, Joe. So nice to be here.

Yeah. And so I've heard a lot about you from our mutual friend, Angela Hartman. She's awesome. And I'd say she's more behind the scenes of. A lot of people have been on the show, too, so got to give her big thanks and what you're doing, doing. So this is the first time we've met, but, like, I've definitely heard a lot about you. I'm using one of your products, Aqua True, which we'll talk about water and why that matters.

Yeah.

I also have a client, Dr. Savage, who's big in the longevity and always talks about, you know, microplastics, forever, chemicals, all that stuff that's basically everywhere where we live in. So definitely we'll be talking about that with you. But really, I want to go back and, like, hear how you got to this point of essentially doing some really cool marketing, you know, for a good cause. I feel like. So we're gonna learn a lot strategy, but also wellness and making sure that, you know, we're doing the right stuff. But I had to get here, like, what was. How'd you get it all Started. Ellen?

Oh, gosh. You know, I mean, I think like how it really got started is I started working advertising about 25 years ago and I was just kind of this, in this crazy advertising circle circuit which for those of you who've worked in advertising, you know, it's long days and longer days, you know, so. And I just wanted to come client side and so I took a job at Ideal Living, where I work now. He's the parent company of both Air Doctor and Aquatru. And I was working with the founder in product development. And so I went from advertising to product development and I worked with Ideal living for about 10 years and. And that's when they were like starting to get into the air purification space and. But I was really obsessed at that time in my life in the beauty business. And so with the full support of, you know, the founder at Ideal Living, I embarked on this beauty business career. And I, as a result of that, I became kind of a, I guess, I mean, somewhat of an expert on licensing, influencer marketing, you know, personality driven branding, that sort of stuff. All those things on beauty, the overdrawn eyebrows, you know, so that was kind of my. I, I was responsible for a lot of that for a long time. And then I personally got, I had like a health crisis, you know, so I was in my early 40s and I'm an avid athlete, I'm an ultra marathoner. Like I do all these crazy things and my body, my body started breaking and so I broke my pelvis. And then four months later I broke the other side, my other pelvis. And a couple weeks later, from running or any, so it's, I had severe osteoporosis. I was menopausal. In my early 40s, I was diagnosed with severe osteoporosis. And I had to really take a look at my lifestyle and I was like the non fat, you know, double sugar free pump girl, you know what I mean? And all those things. And I was like, you know, everything was no fat, everything was no sugar, everything was no carb. And I was in this industry where I was basically like mainlining chemicals all day because I was in the beauty business. And so we'd have fragrance parties. And so I was in a very toxic environment. And I had reached out to Peter, who's the founder of Idoliving, who's a mentor of mine. And he was like, you gotta purify your water and you gotta purify your air. And also in conjunction, I changed my diet completely. I'm an all fat girl now. Give me all the sugar, all the fat, you know, you know, like all the dairy. Like, give it to me.

So avocados, everything. Yeah.

Yes. And so I. I was a little disillusioned in beauty, and I had this health crisis. And then I came back and I started consulting, you know, here at Ideal Living. And. And while I was here and I was learning about these products, like the science behind Air Doctor and AquaTrue, I felt very kind of motivated for the company to start talking about them on social media. So that is kind of how this all started. You know, I took all that beauty social media, you know, influencer marketing, know how, and I applied it to wellness tech here.

Got it. That's okay. That's really cool. So, yeah, now I see why you did kind of like started here.

Yeah, the whole round robin.

And that's so interesting. Like, the beauty space, it's just, what, laden with chemicals and I mean, my wife was getting her nails done literally last night, and I walked by and I just poked my head and I'm like, I. Instant headache. Like, not good. And I was telling her, she's like, I didn't get the. You know, there was someone getting acrylics or whatever. I'm just like, that's horrible. Just like instinct. Yeah, it's horrible. So. But that stuff I know is around us everywhere, and so I want to get to that. And specifically, I want to dig into water, because you shared a resource that. When I was doing some sleuthing on you, and then I looked up the water quality in my area, and it's frightening. I think that's the case everywhere. I'm going to just let that sit for a moment though, because I want to talk about that shortly. I want to hear about the. So the social commerce and like, so the stuff you learned in the beauty space or just experimented with for a ton of time and how that's been taken over here, I guess, like, define what that is. Social commerce, influencer marketing, and then want to hear your style.

So, I mean, look like it was kind of a juxtaposition. You know, in the beauty space, they do a lot of pay to play. You know, you hire influencers to. To talk. Talk about your product, you give them some things to say and they do it. That is very far from what we do here and what we've done here in our social commerce business at Ideal Living. And when I had this idea about, like, hey, we have to be social, you know, ownership here, the CEO was like, yeah, but we're not doing pay to play, you know, that's off the table because they're a very results driven company and we wanted to make sure that everything was done kind of on a, on a CPA basis and a rev share capacity. And you know, at that time, and this is like six years ago, people weren't moving products that were several hundred dollars on an Instagram swipe or you know, TikTok wasn't even around then. And so moving that price point and having it be a rev share was a challenge, you know. And so I think when people talk about social commerce and that's using people, brand ambassadors, you know, to go out and talk about your products and share them with their followers, they often forget like one of the key components and that's the social media piece, you know, because social commerce goes hand in hand with social media. And if you aren't tying the two together, that's kind of where like everybody wants to be in the social commerce space and have a bunch of people out there promoting their products that honestly love it and doing all the things like easy to say, really hard to do. And the foundational building blocks of building a strong social strategy starts with your own social content and really kind of building a me too moment, you know, that people can then like talking about your products, how you want people to talk about your products, educating on your products, how you want people to educate on your products, and really having that honest dialogue about, you know, like pulling the curtains back when you're looking at your social media strategy is really important. And that is key before you ask somebody else to do it. Like, you know, you have to have your own house in order, you know, so it's, it's interesting that people try to skip the social content piece. And so when I started this here, you know, I was like, we gotta be on social media and we have to do all the things. And I never in a million years thought that we'd be here today doing.

All the social stuff.

I mean, we have thousands of partners, you know, and we have a beautiful network and a beautiful community of partners that we built this together with. And so, you know, I was really passionate about breaking into wellness because I personally was over the beauty business. And so I was very driven on making this a success story. And so I personally was shooting the content with my iPhone in my house, you know, like overseeing the graphics, like making sure the messaging was.

Understandable, you know, to our audience. And I think that that's one of our sweet spots at our company. You know, we're talking about really important scientific stuff and we're able to in the social environment to really speak about it in a relatable way where people can understand what we're actually talking about. Because on social media nobody like has time to like dig into a phthalate and what that really means and why it's bad for you, you know, so, you know, taking, you know, making it in nice little sound bites for, for the customer to like digest is really important.

And that's, that's the world we're in. That's why I'm kind of chuckling over here because yeah, not most of us are, you know, we're not reading essays about all the different contaminants that we're drinking or breathing or whatever it might be. And yeah, now you have TikTok or.

All these other like little reels that like, oh, whoa.

And then it's obviously shareable. But yeah, have you seen that, Ben? It sounds like that's probably part of the strategy or like, hey, if someone's wrapping their story into it sounds like that's what you're looking for. And really that's just great social media if you're going to sell anything at the end of the day.

Yeah, and it's interesting that you're talking about like, you know, the essays and I mean that's really like the. Also it's very foundational for our company here. Like we started with Kickstarters, long form email series, webinars, you know, all of these things where we really dug in to the details, to the science, to the studies and all of our products here are third party validated. We are really science geeks in our like DNA and we're passionate about the truth. And so but you know, when having that foundation and then, and then, you know, taking it into talking points from there was really, really helpful. And, and you know, when I was going out and I was starting to, I just really was like, who should our brands be friends with? You know, and I followed and I looked at how people talk to their, to their, you know, their groups and like, did they really have a relationship with people? You know, a lot of people think that they could just go on a SaaS tool and check, check, check and go out there in the world. That's not how this business was born. This business was really born by like making friends with people and just being like, look like I'm gonna send you this product and if you like it I'll send you a link. If you don't breathe some, you know, breathe some Great air and drink some pure water. You know, that's how it started. There was no, you know, there was no big, like, program back then. And so we've really, you know, and then one thing I think that's super important to us is we. We started with just a handful of people and we held our hands. You know, I was gonna ask about.

That, like, the early days. Cause I've dealt with. I've run affiliate programs. I've been an affiliate for a lot, a lot of years in various ways. And I think that's the best part. It's like this grassroots, like, hey, you have access to us because we chose you to basically work with us as a partner. And that's how I've always seen it.

Yeah, I mean, I always talk about, like, social influencer one and two, and I'm not going to name them. And they're so dear to my heart, and they couldn't be, like, they're so different from one another. And. And, you know, one of them is a md and she was so, like. I mean, I. I would put, you know, calls together with her and the engineers. She literally devoured all of our science. And we. We, like, walked down this path together. And we learned as we went, because, like I said, no one was moving, you know, a $600 item on a swipe at that time. And I was, you know, even me, I was like, ooh, there's one thing about selling a mascara. There's another thing about selling. Selling a health tech product through an IG swipe. And as we started to see success, I lost my fear of that price point, you know, and. And so I. I myself had to get over my. Myself, you know, like, the pay to play in my head. And I had to just go right out there and say, we'll send you an affiliate link and get out of my own way. And.

It was hard for me in the beginning to just be, this is our program. This is what we can do. And also say, no.

That's sometimes the hardest thing, because you don't want every affiliate. And that was one of the things I learned very early on is a small group of really tight. They know the mission, they know the story. They're actually living that as well in their own variation. Makes for just perfect. I don't even want to say media or content. It makes for great connections, like the best with your audience. And literally, there's no scripting done. You just flip on the camera and start talking about your life and the cool stuff you're using.

And it's educational. Right. I think that our main mission here is that everyone have the right to pure air and clean water. And so educating on that is really our number one value. And that's the value try to provide to that end customer. And then our products are going to have an impact on their life. You know, so this. And what happens is if you get like a group that's really, really kind of with aligned mission and focus, then you know, there's the ripple effect. And you go like we started with.

Naturopathic doctors, doctors, you know, people that are just really wellness advocates. And then that, that extended to mom, you know, and then with moms, like that was bananas. Like we won with moms, I mean it was like, it was that, you know, moms are magic. Mom makes moms make the magic happen, you know. And so, and as a mom myself, you know, it's, it's beautiful to see air purification, water purification going into households across the world now. And I'm just very proud to be a part of that.

That's awesome. And there's as you were talking about that and I totally agree with moms or basically run, especially the health, but really everything in the house and life. I mean my wife, she sends me stuff on Instagram all the time. I'm not on Instagram much, but I sure as heck learn a ton. And you know, it's usually about parenting or health and all the above, you know. And yeah, keeps us in order. So thank you moms. Including yourself.

And what I was thinking about is.

You'Re describing that back to that client I have. His name is Dr. Savage. I don't know if you got to connect with him, but like when there was something, you know, Angela, back to Angela, she helped me out with some stuff with PR and what I'm doing over there with Dr. Savage. And they basically realized, oh, Dr. Savage has been recommending your products, Idealiving's products for, for a ton of time just because they're great. And you know, he's very concerned about the whole, just all the contaminants around us. So just that alone, you know, just speaks that when you have a really good product, you have the mission, the science is backing it in your case or whatever credibility you need for your product. It becomes like a no brainer, you know.

Yeah, I think there's that part of it which is kind of like the front, the front view, you know, that we have all these great people and they're continuing and we have this relationship with them. But like how do you maintain those relationships and also when you encounter tremendous growth, you know, so it's the ability to support that infrastructure that's really important. Like you have to pay people, you need to track their sales. You need to understand what's working, what's not. You need to make sure everything works and as you grow that things continue to work. And as tech evolves and all this stuff happens, you need to be next and stay next. And so that commitment to being a good business partner.

Is very important in the operational standpoint. And so I think, like, for me, I'm not like a highly, like, technical as it relates to platforms and that sort of thing and making sure that I'm surrounded by the right people that understand what's next and like, how, you know, AI is going to affect social commerce and all these things that are coming up that, you know, that might not be my cup of tea. I'm really great at connecting with people and talking about clean air and clean water and why they should have it, you know, but when it comes to that infrastructure, that's really key for success because when that breaks.

It'S really hard to overcome something like that.

Oh yeah. And yeah, there's some tech we've actually been scheming on behind the scenes. I don't know if you're aware of that yet, but Angela me with some AI. So we'll talk about that later though.

I'm going to pause this really fast to shout out another podcast to put on your radar. This one's called Ogmentors. It's hosted by Julie Mayer and Jimmy Edgerton and it's brought to you on the HubSpot podcast network, audio destination for business professionals. And this show is perfect for anybody in the mentorship or mentoring space and leadership development. So if that's your realm, these two are the ones to follow. Over at Augment 3D, they have great.

Guests, they keep it funny and they.

Get into details that actually help you get further faster. So go listen to augmentors wherever you get your podcasts. Have you ever thought about cloning yourself? And not the physical form of you, but using AI to clone you and the expertise that you have. The stuff that you already publish online can now be enhanced and making you accessible infinitely at all times.

24.

7. That's what I've done with my brand and the Joe Fear clone that you probably used. I shouted it out at the top of the episode. It has 600 plus episodes, podcast episodes inside of their YouTube videos, blog posts.

And all that stuff.

And people can now Interact with it.

People can, you know, I could generate.

New leads that way. I use it for customer service and I book calls for consultations. And there's so many ways to monetize and scale what I'm already doing, but via my clone, it's really, really cool. You could do the same. You can clone yourself and scale your expertise infinitely right now. So if you use the code Hustle at checkout, you can actually get 50% off your first month of Delphi. That's the platform that I use is Delphi AI. But the URL to go to to go capture this deal is hustle and flowchart.com/Delphi D E L, P H I. And make sure you're using the code Hustle at checkout to get that 50% off. And I just wanted to shout it out there as well is my team and I build a lot of these clones for our clients, our partners. And there it's interesting.

It's really cool.

We've done like 50 plus clones or so. So if you want us to actually just handle it for you, because some people don't want to do the setup, the testing and the integration to launch fast, you can just head over. There's a little quick form that we made if you want to fill that out. We can still hook you up on the sweet deal, but it's@hustleandflowchart.com Delphi Maker. That's D E L P H I M A K E R. And if you go there, it's a quick form and once you fill it out, basically lets us know about your business. I can let you know about the cool deals that we have and how we work to get your clone up and live really fast. So either way, go check out Delphi again. The 50% off code is hustle and flowchart.com/Delphi. Use the code Hustle. And if you want us to do the help, it's hustle and flowchart.com/Delphi maker. All right, let's get back to the.

Episode I was going to ask you. You said your favorite word is hustle and I'm curious about that. And because I was going to wrap that back into exactly what you were starting to describe here is like, hey, you start off kind of like grassroots with any kind of partner, influencer, whoever, referral partner, and it is grassroots. It feels like hustle. You know, it's the check ins. It's like I'm also a connector type and it's very easy to just feel like you're always in hustle mode.

I personally don't want to live in.

The hustle, but I've been there for a lot of years. But that's where systems and you know, but tell me why you love hustle and maybe the transition from a hustle point to more of a, I mean, I say a flowchart or you know, systems kind of thing.

I think I personally as a person, I'm that person, you know, like, I hate to be bored. When I actually first interviewed with a senior CEO of Idea Living like 22 years ago.

He was like, what but what bothers you the word most about, you know, work? And I was like, I hate to be bored. I can't be bored. And it's like a running joke, like, are you bored? Are you like, don't be bored. Are you bored, Ellen? And it's really funny. It's a running joke around here. But you know, I am that kind of triple type A personality. I love to be busy all the time. It gets to the point though, even for those people that are like out there hustling like I'm a builder, I love to build things, I love to stand things up.

I'm so like the starter of a lot of it. And then, okay, that makes sense.

You know, it's, it's funny because I always talk about this, you know, when I was in, in other industries and you know, I was calling on the Sephoras and you know, Walmarts and resetting modulars, like I love to sell in, but then the self through and going up for line review and all that stuff. I mean I, it, it, I completely lose interest at that point. So it's the startup of something that really gets me going. And the beautiful thing about social commerce is it's always new.

You know, it's like a new partner or new conversation happening, okay?

New platforms, new tech opportunities.

New niches to talk to. I mean there's always something new. So I really think I like found my lane in something that keeps me inspired and ready to go to work every day. But also it's very like when you're working for like you can go to work and you can hustle and you know, you can achieve the success and grow the teams. But when it's mission driven and you're actually having an impact on the wellness and lives of families, then that work takes on a whole new meaning. And so I love to get out of bed every day. And like today, like I was saying, like I had a IG live and We're. I'm having this podcast and I'm doing a training. You know, I mean I train partners twice a month. You know, I mean I am in it. We don't miss a month. Like, I'm so dedicated to the education and, and so, I don't know, like transitioning I think.

Is important to think about that and create like a foundation of people that.

That also have that hustle and support you.

Right. Like, maybe they're. Because I was thinking about it, it's like, yeah, maybe you don't need to, you don't need to necessarily leave the hustle. No one really should. If you're wired like that, like lean into it, but just make sure you don't get sucked up doing that line, like the drawn out work, the sustaining stuff that happens.

It's the support team that really, really like making. Identifying where and when you need support is so important for growth. Because if you're not really identifying the balls that you're dropping and making sure that someone's picking them, like not one person can do everything. Like, I mean, we have a tremendous partnership business. We work with thousands of people and it's all in house, you know, everything is done internally. And so because I'm, you know, I'm really having high touch relationships is really important and making sure that, you know, I always make a joke that everybody can get me on my phone and I'm not kidding, you know, so, you know, it's. Everybody really can, you know. And so but like having, creating a culture of that, you know, mission purpose driven environment and people that really understand the, the cadence of our 24 hour world that we're in, you know, is, is really important. So I'm really, I'm really, I. I have such a tremendous team and it's like, you know, and we do such great work with Angela. I mean, she's one of them. She's always bringing people, she's always connecting us.

Well, she's like you, I'm sure. I mean, I know she's tight. Yeah, she's just go, go. She never stops either. So similar. Yes, that's great. And that's the big thing is like for anyone listening, watching, definitely lean into your skills if it's hustle, if it's not, whatever. But just get support from systems people, tools, whatever it is to just have you lean into you more.

I think too for social commerce there is that flowchart part. And when you're building a program, it's really important that if you have the big vision that you have someone that can the financial metrics in place and the model in place to understand, you know, kind of what this is going to look for, look like for your company as far as, like, margin goes and, and scalability, that sort of stuff. Because that I, you know, when we, you know, first of all, the founders of these companies of Ideal Living, they're, you know, direct to consumer, direct response, you know, icons. And so they're really measured for results. So they held me very accountable to the bottom line right from the beginning. And, and I live in what's my margin? Every day. Like, every day I'm saying, well, what's the margin? What's the margin? How does it affect the margin? Like, I don't stray from that. So even though I'm not, you know, I'm not building flowcharts over here, I do understand the numbers and the effect that it has on the bottom line. And I'm pretty laser focused on making sure, like, we stay within our guardrails.

For the company makes sense. I mean, you got to have a KPI for. And you're tracking that. And yeah, it's, I mean, if you're not doing that, then it's not going to sustain, period. So especially with the influencer marketing and all that, I mean, it's very easy to bleed time, money, product, whatever it might be. So. Absolutely. Well, I want to talk about the water side of things because that fascinates me and also frightens the hell out of me, to be very honest. So, you know, obviously aqua.

True.

And luckily I have one of those in my kitchen. I'm literally obsessed. I have like the one that's on my desktop or what countertop. And I feel like I refill that thing every 45 minutes or something because everyone in the house is just. And it's. It just like radically change. Changes the taste and all that stuff. But that's not even what I want to talk about. I want to talk about like, what was the. I guess what was the aha moment? Or the time where you're just like, holy crap, this is like this water thing that. That's coming into our house. Maybe even the bottled water, just anything that we're consuming, maybe even showering with. I don't know if that plays a part, but what was that moment for you?

And my aha moment? Like, I mean, I told you that I had these health issues. And you know, Peter, the, the CEO here at Ideal Living was like, you need to filter your water. And so I was like, yeah, okay. But then it Was. It wasn't until I. I came and I actually started working for the company and I went to EWG.org and so we're gonna. Let's drop into this right now. If you're not driving, go to EWG.org on your phone and type your zip code in. It's on the top toolbar, like, right in the. Right. You can drop your. Your zip code in to run your water report. And when I ran my water report, and I live in La Crescenta, little mountain area here in Los Angeles, its own little water district. And I had 13 contaminants that exceeded the environmental Working Group's guidelines. And so. And they all caused cancer. And that.

I just pulled mine up too. So there you go. I'm in San Diego.

So that was my. That was my aha moment. And I. When I. And then my, like, aha moment number two was when I learned that contaminants do not boil out. And so let's just sit there for a minute and understand what that means. So as a parent and as a homemaker, when that really, like, hit home for me, I was like, think about all the Mac and cheese you made. Think about all the pasta you boiled. Think about all the tea kettles you've put on for hot cocoa. Think about all the stuff that you've done with boiled water. And that we're programmed to think that it's pure. It is not. These contaminants concentrate. They do not dissipate. The only thing that we're boiling out is bacteria. You know, and so when you. When you. When that really hit home for me, I was like, we gotta talk about this, you know, because people just don't know. And so I. That's why, like, one of my key phrases is contaminants don't boil out. And it's imperative that you purify your drinking water, purify your cooking water, and purify the water that you're giving to your fur babies. Like, those three things are very important because the stuff that's in our water is really, really bad for us. These forever chemicals, they're called forever chemicals because they last forever. They do not break down, and they cause horrible things. There's all kinds of direct correlations between forever chemicals and cancer and bone disease and all. All kinds of things, like hormone fluctuation, early menopause, like fertility issues. I can go on and on with all the things that forever chemicals are linked to. So as a society, it's so important that we're purifying our water. Because not in my lifetime will we see the end to this in our. In our water supplies. Because it's that big. It's that big problem. And the government doesn't want, you know, the population to think that they can't drink the water.

Right.

It's crazy.

On this. On the EWG results for my area, like I said, I'm over. Yeah. 12 that exceed the health guidelines. Total of 22 contaminants. And it lists everything. And then the multiple times that how much that is above the guidelines that are set. And what's interesting is there's most of these have no legal limits, even though the first one here is like, can't even pronounce half of these things. And that's partially. It's like, I got to learn what all these are. But they all cause cancer, basically, at.

The end of the story. They all cause cancer. And let's talk about the one that I always like to talk about. Chromium 6. Right. So, you know, everyone's heard of Aaron Brockovich. That movie came out 30 years ago about chromium 6. We are 30 years later, and there's chromium 6 in our water. It's in the water of three out of four Americans. And it's bananas that it's still there with all the fanfare, all the. The media attention. She's still out there fighting the good fight for water. And then also fluoride, you know, it's being spoken about a lot right now, which I'm glad that it's getting its awareness. The only thing that removes fluoride from water is reverse osmosis, which is aquatru, which is what is in our aqua. True. That makes it different from like a pitcher filter or a fridge filter. Is that our countertop units are compact. You put tap water in the back, and it purifies the water just like they purify bottled water that they're selling to you. It's basically going through that same process. And our company is.

Rooted in science, so we're certified to remove 84 contaminants to NSF standards. So we really spend the money to go out there and make sure that we're. We're going through the hoops to make sure that we're a third party validated to remove the toxins that we promise our customers that we are.

Got it. And nsf. Yeah, I just looked up yet National Sanitation Foundation. So they basically oversee the whole thing, right?

Yeah. And so, you know, it's complicated. That science of water is complex. And we, and, and it's really crooked, you know, like all these plastic bottles that we're going, we're buying a plastic bottle, they're filled with microplastics. We just got certified to remove microplastics. So I'm very happy about that.

Wow, that's big.

And these microplastics, I mean they're people, they're finding microplastics in, in arteries. You know, they're, they're finding microplastics in. When they're doing autopsies of people that have dementia in their brain, the more microplastics that they're finding in people brains, they're finding a correlation between that and dementia and increased dementia.

News. Yeah, it's horrible. I think there's like a Dr. Savage, the doctor, he said there's like a credit card's worth of plastic every year in your bloodstream that cycles through. I'm like, holy crap.

Yeah. And not to be gross, but they're fighting, they're funding microplastics and like penile tissue, it's affecting like.

It'S affecting like fertility. There's all kinds of fertility issues. And so there's just a host of bad stuff in our water. And getting a little RO water purifier, like Aquatru will just take the guesswork out of it for you, like purify your water.

So RO is the big thing then and because that's like before legit, before aqua. True, I didn't know all the science and I'm learning a ton right now. But like just taste test, like from what I was doing before, which was a single filter from tap, not ro, but you know, I thought I was doing a decent job. And then like just taste wise, radically different. I'm like, okay, what's happening? And I've always heard good stuff about reverse osmosis. So I'm curious, like, can you explain it a little bit more and why. That's the thing.

Yeah, sure. Let's, let's get into ro. And so you typically, you know, reverse osmosis systems are big whole house systems, they cost a lot of money. And what reverse osmosis does is the water goes through a membrane and pure water goes through the membrane and contaminated water stays back on the other side so it separates purified water from the contaminated water. And so that's the reverse osmosis process. At Aquatrue, we actually have a four stage process. And so we put the water through a couple other levels of filtration specifically so we can make sure we Remove things like forever chemicals and drug residue and all the stuff that you wouldn't think is in your tap water, but it is. And that, that's not even, they're not even testing for things.

Didn't even say rocket fuel in like years. I heard when I was doing research, I was like, what? Rocket fuel.

Okay, Rocket fuel, antibiotics, birth control, antidepressants. I mean it's, the list is really. And they're not, there's not even things in place to test for those things. And we know that they're in our water supply. So. So, you know, we have a real beautiful compact four stage reverse osmosis system where you basically just put tap water in the back. It purifies it, you pour yourself up, beautiful cup of water. And the taste is. I am obsessed with Aquatru and I am that girl. I am a water snob. I go to restaurants. Like, I'll only drink water in glass bottles. I won't. I, I pass on the ice because once you learn this stuff, like you can't unlearn it.

Well, that's a good point on the ice because I've noticed have a new, new fridge. I just had to replace mine. And it's a nice fridge, but I know it's not, it's not being filtered with an ro. It has a filter. Actually has, yeah, one filter, but not enough. And I was actually thinking about when you go out in public, like, what's.

What'S the procedure there?

Because we can't bottle ourselves up in the house all the time. So like, yeah, tell me what you suggest and what you think.

So I really think that, like, if you have to buy water outside of the house, make sure you're buying filtered water and glass bottles. And, and also if you can take your water with you, I would take your water with you. There's also, you know, Aqua Chew. We just launched our Aqua True Pro, like our Enterprise units. And so we're taking our filtration and we have bottle filling station now. And you know, so, so for like high traffic areas, like literally just launched, we just got the units this past month because like you see these, you see these bottle filling stations. And so everybody's got their Stanley cup and they're going to their bottle filler and they're filling it up right? And they think that that bottle filling station has been tested and it's removing from contaminants. So most of the commercial bottle filling station you see out there that you're taking your Stanley cup to, they're not tested. And certified to NSF standards to remove much else than chlorine and lead. Those are the two things. But all this other stuff I'm talking about, they're not certified to remove any of that. So they haven't. The, the enterprise level of water hasn't spent the money to go and certify their units. And so there's a lot of smoke and mirrors out there in water. So my recommendation is you can bottle your own water at home with an Aqua Chew. It's very cost effective. I mean our units are just a couple hundred dollars and.

Really long filter life and take it with you.

My whole family has water bottles. My daughter goes to school with a pretty good sized one for a little girl.

Because I've actually thought about those filters because I like to see them, you know, when you're in the airport or even at her school. They have one of those. I'm like, I guarantee they're not filtering that well. And obviously there's no way to tell other than I guess, some water test kit. But like you're saying there's no real tests out there anyway?

Well, I mean, you know, like they're just people. There are tests that people can do to certify their water. I mean it's really expensive. And so we've spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on certifying and doing third party validation for our products here. And so we're taking that consumer testing that we've done and we're applying it to the enterprise space. We're using the same filtration that's, that's really specific to Aquatru. So I, I look forward to those getting in on the market. And, and I think like one thing about like fridge filters, so.

When you purify with pressure, it's a little better. Like you need pressure to purify water. So fridge fridge filters, like look like if you're going to have some ice out of your fridge, the most important thing is that you're buying a high quality carbon filter for your fridge. Don't go on Amazon, don't buy the cheapest one. Make sure it's certified to NSF standards because look like people like to have ice water, right?

Oh yeah.

And so there's some things that you can do but like, like taking the, the shortcut isn't going to help you there. So do the research on the fridge, the fridge filter for your ice and make sure it's certified to NSF standards and understand what it's taking out. And then also it's really important that you stay on top of your filter changes. So with. Not with Aquatrue, because we have the way our system works. It lets you know there's a filter change, and then we also have like a window of period that allows you to go out and replace the filter. But with like a pitcher filter, for instance. This is what really people don't understand. When you don't change a picture filter on time and there's nothing to tell you, like, it's time to change the filter. You're actually like, if it gets. If that filter gets absorbed with water, you're super dosing your water with contaminants.

I learned that because with the filtration of Aqua Tru, there's still water that is left in the reservoir. But you guys are very clear and say, do not consume that. Dump it out.

Dump it out. Yes. Like, yeah, yeah, for sure. So there's a little bit of water left over. But I think it's really important that this is such a big topic and it's so important for our kids. Like, we don't want our kids drinking fluoride water. We don't want them, you know, with microplastics in their water. Like, if we can try and keep them without the toxic burden and free from environmental toxins, it's really important as a society that we do so. And that's why we're so passionate at our company about what we do.

I love it, Helen. And yeah, when it comes to water stuff, you know, fluoride's been in the news, politics. And, like, this isn't a political thing. It's literally like, it's. It's right here. And definitely, I urge everyone again, EWG.org just go type in your zip code, see what happens, and learn some stuff. My wife was frightened.

Yeah. And also, what's really important about the EWG.org like, after you. After you go through your results, scroll down because they will tell you exactly, like, what different types of water filtration will remove those contaminants from your water. And you'll see reverse osmosis, you know, so that's why we're so proud to be. We're the first patented countertop RO system, and we have something for every family. So we're. We're really proud of the impact that we're having on people's health. It's great.

Yeah. Now I just scroll down. I'm like, oh, yeah, a lot of checkboxes against RO there. So awesome.

Helen.

Well, is there anything that I felt like I should have asked you that we want to leave folks with. And as you think of that, I just want to shout out, definitely, Aqua True is awesome. You do have air doctors. So the whole air purifying side of things, we don't really have time to dive into all that. Maybe you can give us a little scoop. But obviously these contaminants are everywhere. But I'll have some links that probably have seen or dropped in the show notes to, you know, how to basically get this for yourself. And Ideal Living is the company that, you know, kind of basically makes all.

These awesome and yeah, I mean I think as far as like big ideas and partnerships, I just think that nothing, nothing replaces personal relationships, you know, and building relationships with people is number one, you know, and also really just being honest and just coming from a point of wanting to do good on the planet, like that's just a really great place to start. And then as it relates to Ideal Living and our purpose, like our mission is that everybody has the right to pure water and clean air. And so that's what wakes us up every day. And so if you're looking to, you know, learn more about non toxic home air purification, water purification, like I made, I said earlier, like you can always find me.

Yeah, yeah, well, and you guys, you guys have your own obviously Instagram, AquaTrue does Air Doctor Pro. So yeah, just check them out there. Is there anywhere else they should go to learn more maybe on Ideal Living? Like are there. Sure. There's all sorts of science out there too, huh?

So, yeah, I mean we have all of our science on our, on our website, so@airdoctor.com and@aquatrue.com, like we're very transparent parent about our science. And then also from the company standpoint, you can check us out on LinkedIn, we're on all the socials and you can also find me at helencrestoni.

Awesome. Well, thank you, Helen, I appreciate it and I've learned a ton. I can't wait to use some of those enterprise ones. I want to see them in the wild, so.

Oh, awesome. Yeah, anytime. Yeah, if you're in la, come through. We have them all over the office, so. Oh, really nice to talk to you. Yeah, Joe, this is, this was great.

Appreciate you.