Why trash-hating Lauren Singer turned to YouTube

We recently wrote about the impending shipment of Lauren Singer’s three-ingredient laundry detergent. The founder of Trash Is For Tossers, the blog and business around dramatically reducing the amount of waste that people produce, has started a YouTube channel in which she shows people how to make organic, homemade products.
Singer’s first episode showed her making toothpaste. With her second episode, about making body butter, we checked in with the entrepreneur about how YouTube fit into her larger strategy.

“It’s part of my blog, first and foremost,” she told us, in a recent phone call. “It helps to familiarize people with the concept of natural homemade products. People have the perception that if they make something themselves it will be inferior.”
Going to YouTube, she said, was fairly natural. Her company wouldn’t exist if not for the internet. If not for blogs, Kickstarter, Instagram and other media, she wouldn’t be able to get her ideas out.
“I’m going to be doing a full line of cleaning products, but launching with detergent,” she explained. “I’m doing all of this to make it easier for people to lessen their impact.”
So, if she shows people how the very proverbial sausage is made, presumably, they can understand it better. They can make products themselves with just a few ingredients, enjoy the results and trust the similar products she’s going to sell.
Singer finds it unfair that people don’t really know what’s in the products they purchase. “The success of my company is really proving that people are tired of not knowing what they are using,” she said.