Published by Vitamagazine.com on July 9, 2023
Can cleaning your house be good for your mental health? Founded by sisters Rachel Garbutt and Amanda Riva, Dotti aims to refresh the cleaning category with reimagined home tools that are high-performing and beautifully designed, beginning with the signature Super Scrubber. We chatted with Rachel to learn more. —Vita Daily
Hi Rachel! Please tell us a bit about yourself to start.
I’m a fashion school grad that jumped right into entrepreneurship at 23 years old with my first business, an e-commerce marketing agency that serviced over 200 brands across North America. I had little experience or real skills except for pure determination at that point. My friends and family are my absolute rocks and I’m a very lucky ducky to have such an incredible support system including my sister who now works alongside me. We’re extremely excited about the launch of our new business, Dotti, an elevated home cleaning essentials brand.
When and why did you launch Dotti? What niche were/are you aiming to fill?
A couple of years ago, my sister Amanda and I had a heart-to-heart about wanting to work together. At the time, we had both recently moved and were focused on creating beautiful and peaceful home environments (little did we know this would become an even bigger focus when Covid hit). We started brainstorming things we wished were better in our homes, which is how Dotti came to be. It clicked when we conducted market research and learned that 80 per cent of respondents across North America were also craving upgraded cleaning tools. Nothing gets us more excited than disrupting an industry ripe for change, which is the gap we identified in the cleaning space. Dotti offers cleaning tools that meet today’s consumer preference for better quality materials and beautiful designs.
What products do you currently offer, and what makes them unique?
We’ve recently launched our inaugural product, the Super Scrubber, which is a long-lasting, odour-free and antibacterial food-grade silicone scrubber sponge. The Super Scrubber is high performing and offers consumers a beautiful product in three on-trend colours: Sage, Odyssey and Blush. Our goal is to offer a dish and surface cleaning tool you don’t need to hide because it looks good and doesn’t smell.
How does cleaning/a clean space translate into mental health benefits?
I’m a big mental health advocate personally, and one of the reasons we started Dotti in the first place is to inspire increased happiness by taking care of your environment and practicing good habits that contribute to improved mental health. Many studies have shown even an hour of housekeeping is correlated with a 53 per cent boost in overall happiness.
Speaking of mental health, tell us about Dotti’s give-back component.
We are so proud to have giving-back at the heart of Dotti’s brand. From launch, we are donating $1 from every order, no matter how small the order, to mental health research and programming. For me, the more we sell, the more impactfully we can give back, and that’s a core driving force for the Dotti team and our consumers.
Any advice/top tips around making cleaning up a positive/happy experience (rather than a, well, chore)?
Absolutely, I’ll try to keep this brief because I can go on and on:
- Crank up the tunes! I like to set a positive mood with music to make cleaning more fun!
- Prioritize the small dirty jobs (ex. the kitchen sink drain is often a massive bacteria holder, scrub it weekly to avoid build-up)
- Make cleaning a small daily habit by tackling one task at a time ex. scrub the stove Mondays, dust on Tuesdays, clean floors Wednesdays, etc.
