The woman behind Mrs. Meyer's says selling the brand felt like 'selling my mother'

"It's really bittersweet. I had to sell my mother. At one time, we had this trailer that was designed like her kitchen. We used to take it to music events or places like the Embarcadero in San Francisco. People stood in line for that. They'd get samples, and she'd sign their bottles."

"It deserves to be in the hands of people who can scale this much better than we can. Nassif's 93-year-old mother is the inspiration behind the household cleaning products. Thelma Meyers, an avid gardener, raised Nassif and her eight siblings as a homemaker in Iowa. The items she grew in the family's backyard - basil, lavender, lemon- were the basis for the Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day product scents."

Monica Nassif founded Mrs. Meyer's Clean Day in 1999, inspired by her mother Thelma Meyers' gardening and homemaking. The brand featured scents derived from plants grown in the family's Iowa backyard, including basil, lavender, and lemon. Nassif also created Caldrea, a premium essential oil-infused cleaning product line. By the mid-2000s, both brands expanded significantly, with Caldrea in upscale retailers and Mrs. Meyer's in mass-market stores like Whole Foods. Facing scaling challenges that exceeded her company's capacity, Nassif sold both brands to SC Johnson in 2008 for an undisclosed amount. Though bittersweet, she recognized the corporation could better manage the brands' growth and distribution.

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