There's No Place Like Sensitive Home

Today we take another of those Points of Personal Privilege.  Readers here may recall that I periodically write about my friend, Dr. Greg van Buskirk, chemist extraordinaire.  I met him and his wife Sharon Kantor when we lived in the same graduate dorm at UCLA.
 
The eminent Dr. Buzz worked for years at Clorox, where I've always liked to say he invented Scrubbing Bubbles, even though a) he didn't, and b) that was from another company.  But he was in charge of some top products, and when he went out on his own, he invented a fabric softener, Sofft, that also acted as a stain repellent (a project which is still ongoing). 

And then a couple years ago, I wrote here about how he not only has a new one, but this invention is a full line of home products that has actually started to hit the shelves.  The only unfortunate news is that it came to the market too late to qualify for the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, which he long deserved.

It's a product line called, Sensitive Home, which are cleaning products, particularly suitable for those who suffer from chemical sensitivities and people who are concerned about toxins in their home -- but it's made, as Greg says with his usual eloquence, "for use and enjoyment by all!" 

​Well, just to let you know that – as I always say – I tries nots to steers ya wrong.  Yesterday, Greg announced that Sensitive Home was chosen as a 2022 Safer Choice Partner of the Year Winner by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the second year in a row!  And just to be clear, it’s “only” two years in a row because the company has only been in business for two years.
 
(What this all means is that the “EPA Safer Choice” program helps identify products with safer chemical ingredients that don’t sacrifice on quality or performance.  It focuses on efforts to advance sustainability, environmental responsibility, and product safety.  These are considered by many to be Good Things.  And all the better, the entire line of Sensitive Home products is certified.  Which is also considered A Good Thing.)
 
I feel obligated by contest rules of fairness to point out that the award is for the entire Sensitive Home team, not just its esteemed inventor.   But the inventor gets to sleep with the award under his pillow.
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​There -- proof that I’m not lying about the award.  And that Dr. Buzz actually exists, and is not a character like Mr. Clean.  (Well, okay, he is sort of a character, but he is real and has a PhD, so you don’t just have to call him “Mister.”)
 
Well, I must say that I knew he had it in him!!  I knew it.  When everyone else was saying, "Greg, stick with the guitar and taking apart motorcycles just so you could put them back together, I said -- No!  You can do so much more.  Like at least try to make sourdough bread and invent a line of great, environmentally friendly and safe homecare products.  (It’s long been my theory that he moved to Northern California in order to be closer to the sourdough industry.  That and so he and Sharon could be around more Dungeons and Dragons geeks.  But that's a long story, made more aching and memorable with Thanksgiving being only a few weeks away.  So, we'll leave it for now and stick with Sensitive Home, the EPA award, and sourdough bread.)
 
I am deeply impressed by this.  Actually, I was seriously impressed just by him inventing the Sensitive Home products, period.  And getting a company started.  This simply takes it to another level.  Though there was nothing simple about it.  So, big, huge congrats to Dr. Greg van Buskirk -- the chemist who takes chemistry out of chemistry by using chemistry.  Voted one of the world’s Top 8 most sensitive chemists six years in a row.  And seven years out of the last 10.