Walk down the cleaning aisle and almost every product is trying to tell you one thing.
Tough on stains.
Smells fresh for weeks.
Plant-based.
Powerful whitening.
Kills 99.9% of germs.
Ultra-concentrated.
Plastic-free packaging.
Sensitive skin.
That is how consumer products are often sold. Find one benefit people care about, make it easy to understand, put it in large letters on the package, and build the marketing around it.
There is a reason this works.
Cleaning is complicated.
Most people do not want to stand in a grocery-store aisle reading a chemistry textbook before choosing laundry detergent. They want to understand quickly why one product might be better for them than another.
So brands simplify.
Sometimes that simplification is useful.
The problem begins when one good attribute starts standing in for the entire product.
A detergent can come in beautiful recyclable packaging and still contain ingredients a consumer may not want.
A product can be fragrance-free and still have an unnecessarily complicated formula.
A detergent can use plant-derived ingredients and still perform poorly.
A cleaner can be highly effective and still include unnecessary fragrance or dyes.
A product can be concentrated but give consumers unclear dosing instructions.
And a package can say “green,” “natural,” or “clean” without actually telling you much about how the formula was designed.
At Myome, we did not want to choose only one problem to solve.
We wanted to ask a bigger question:
What if we looked at the whole product?
Not just how it cleans.
Not just what it smells like.
Not just the container.
Not just one ingredient.
Not just one environmental claim.
The formula, the format, the ingredients, the dose, the packaging, the performance, and the experience all interact.
That is why Myome’s approach was never about winning one category.
It was about building a cleaning system that makes sense as a whole.
Cleaning Products Have Been Designed Around Headline Benefits for Decades
Think about how household products are marketed.
Laundry detergent promises stain removal.
Fabric softener promises softness.
Scent boosters promise longer-lasting fragrance.
Bleach promises whitening.
Stain sprays promise targeted treatment.
Dishwasher detergents promise spotless glassware.
Rinse aids promise fewer water spots.
Sanitizing products promise germ reduction.
Each product has a clear job.
From a marketing perspective, that makes sense.
Consumers can quickly identify a problem and buy something intended to solve it.
But over time, this can create a strange outcome.
One cleaning task becomes a collection of products.
Take laundry.
A household might use detergent to clean, a stain remover for difficult spots, fabric softener for texture, scent beads for fragrance, a whitening booster for whites, dryer sheets for static, and another specialty product for odors.
Suddenly, washing clothes is no longer about detergent.
It is a system of separate products, each optimized around its own promise.
There is nothing inherently wrong with specialization. Some households genuinely need specialty products for particular problems.
But specialization can also encourage a bigger assumption:
Every additional desired outcome requires another ingredient, another formula, or another package.
Myome started from a different place.
Before adding something, ask whether it needs to be added at all.
The Difference Between a Marketing Benefit and a Product Function
This distinction is important.
A product benefit is what consumers notice.
A product function is what the chemistry actually does.
“Fresh scent” is a consumer benefit.
Fragrance is the ingredient function that produces it.
“Removes oily stains” is a consumer benefit.
Surfactants help perform that function.
“Works in hard water” is a benefit.
Builders or chelating ingredients can help perform that function.
Understanding these distinctions makes cleaning-product labels much easier to evaluate.
The EPA takes a similar function-based approach when evaluating cleaning ingredients. Under its Safer Choice program, the EPA groups formulation ingredients into functional classes such as surfactants, solvents, chelating agents, enzymes, fragrances, polymers, oxidants, colorants, and processing aids.
Why?
Because ingredients should be evaluated according to the jobs they perform.
A surfactant is not included because “surfactant” looks impressive on packaging.
Its job is to help cleaning solutions interact with oils and soils.
A chelating agent can help deal with minerals in water.
An enzyme can target particular types of stains.
An oxidizing ingredient can support certain stain-removal processes.
Each component has a reason for being there.
That idea became fundamental to how we think at Myome:
Every ingredient should have a job.
What Happens When a Product Is Optimized Around Only One Thing?
Imagine designing a detergent with one instruction:
Make it smell incredible.
You could optimize the fragrance profile.
You could make the scent more noticeable when someone opens the package.
You could design it to remain on clothing after washing.
You could give it a memorable name.
You could make fragrance one of the main reasons consumers buy the product.
But what happens to all the other questions?
Does the scent improve cleaning?
Does a person with fragrance sensitivity want it?
Does it require additional formulation considerations?
Is long-lasting fragrance even necessary for a product whose primary purpose is removing soils from clothing?
Now imagine another instruction:
Make the packaging look environmentally responsible.
You might redesign the box.
Reduce plastic.
Use recycled material.
Reduce package size.
All of those could be positive changes.
But packaging is still only one part of the product.
What ingredients are inside?
How much product is required per load?
How well does it work?
Does the formula contain unnecessary additives?
How is the product transported?
What happens when its ingredients enter wastewater?
The package matters.
But the package is not the entire environmental story.
A single positive feature should not become evidence that the entire product is perfect.
That applies to Myome too.
Powder alone does not make a product better.
Microplastic free alone does not make a product better.
Fragrance-free alone does not make a product better.
An intentionally designed product is what matters.
We Started With Performance
There is an easy mistake for brands in the “clean” product category to make.
Focus so heavily on what is not inside the product that you forget what the product is supposed to do.
A laundry detergent still needs to clean laundry.
A dishwasher detergent still needs to clean dishes.
If a formula requires consumers to repeatedly rewash clothing, use excessive amounts, or add multiple supplementary products because the primary detergent is not performing, that is not necessarily a better system.
Cleaning chemistry is sophisticated precisely because soils are complicated.
Oil is different from protein.
Protein is different from starch.
Starch is different from particulate dirt.
Minerals in water create additional challenges.
Different fabrics and surfaces behave differently.
That is why detergent formulations often combine multiple functional ingredient classes rather than relying on one “hero ingredient.”
A scientific review of detergent chemistry explains that surfactants and builders are among the most important components of detergent formulations because they perform complementary roles in the washing process.
Surfactants help loosen and remove soils.
Builders help create conditions in which cleaning chemistry can work effectively, including by dealing with water hardness.
Other formulations can use enzymes for specific stains and additional ingredients for other functional purposes.
The lesson is not that detergents should contain as many ingredients as possible.
It is almost the opposite.
Use the ingredients that are necessary to accomplish the job effectively.
Then We Asked What Didn't Need to Be There
This is where the Myome philosophy becomes different.
Most product development starts by asking:
What can we add to make consumers notice this product?
We also think brands should ask:
What can we remove without compromising the reason the product exists?
Take fragrance.
Laundry has been marketed so aggressively around fragrance that many people instinctively associate fragrance with cleanliness.
But fragrance does not remove dirt.
It does not lift oil.
It does not manage hard-water minerals.
It does not break down a food stain.
It creates scent.
For a person who loves fragranced laundry, that may be a desired feature.
But it is still an optional feature.
So rather than asking how to create the most memorable scent profile, we can ask:
Do we need fragrance for this product to perform its core function?
That question sounds small.
It represents a much larger philosophy.
If something does not contribute meaningfully to performance, stability, safety, or another necessary product function, it deserves scrutiny.
More Features Don't Necessarily Mean a Better Formula
Consumer products often operate according to a simple equation:
more features = more value.
The bottle cleans.
Whitens.
Brightens.
Softens.
Freshens.
Protects color.
Fights odors.
Leaves a scent.
Maybe that sounds better than a product that simply says:
cleans your clothes.
But formulation is not always improved by adding more functionality.
Ingredients interact.
One component may affect another.
Conditions that improve one function may complicate another.
This is especially relevant in detergent chemistry.
Research on detergent systems has shown that surfactants and enzymes can interact in ways that influence enzyme stability and activity, illustrating why effective detergent formulation involves balancing ingredients as a system rather than simply stacking more active components together.
That concept matters far beyond enzymes.
Every ingredient changes the formulation environment.
pH matters.
Water hardness matters.
Solubility matters.
Stability matters.
Concentration matters.
Compatibility matters.
A detergent is not a shopping cart where you keep adding “good ingredients” until the cart is full.
It is a system where components need to work together.
Myome Didn't Want a “Hero Ingredient”
Clean-product marketing loves hero ingredients.
One botanical.
One mineral.
One enzyme.
One naturally derived surfactant.
One recognizable ingredient printed prominently across the front of the package.
Hero ingredients make products easy to explain.
But they can also distort how cleaning actually works.
There usually is not one magical ingredient doing everything.
A cleaning formula works because multiple ingredients perform complementary functions under the right conditions.
This is why EPA's Safer Choice framework is useful.
The agency does not simply identify a handful of trendy “good chemicals.” Instead, its Safer Chemical Ingredients List organizes evaluated ingredients according to their functional use, including surfactants, chelating agents, enzymes, oxidants, solvents, polymers, processing aids, and other classes.
That helps shift the conversation from:
Is this ingredient trendy?
to:
Is this an appropriate ingredient for the function it needs to perform?
That second question is much closer to how Myome thinks.
Ingredient Function Was Only One Part of the Equation
Once you begin evaluating the whole product instead of one headline benefit, the questions multiply quickly.
How effectively does it clean?
Why is each ingredient included?
Is fragrance necessary?
Are dyes necessary?
Are there materials consumers may intentionally want to avoid?
Is the formula concentrated?
How is it dosed?
How is it packaged?
Does the product require shipping large amounts of water?
Is ingredient information understandable?
How does the formula behave after it goes down the drain?
One answer cannot solve every one of those questions.
That is precisely the point.
We did not want Myome to be “the detergent that solves one thing.”
We wanted to look across the system.
That's Part of Why We Chose Powder
The decision to formulate in powder form fits into this philosophy.
Powder is not a magic environmental solution.
There are excellent and poor powder formulations just as there are excellent and poor liquid formulations.
But powder gave Myome a format that makes sense for what we are trying to accomplish.
Your washing machine already supplies water.
Your dishwasher already supplies water.
So a dry format allows the cleaning ingredients to remain concentrated until the product reaches the appliance where water is actually needed.
That can influence packaging and transportation considerations as well.
Rather than building the product around a large liquid volume, we can focus on delivering the cleaning system itself.
But even here, we do not want to reduce the entire brand story to:
Powder is better.
The real point is larger.
Powder supports the system we wanted to create.
Concentration Is Useful Only if Dosing Makes Sense
Another example of whole-product thinking is concentration.
“Concentrated” sounds automatically positive.
And there can be meaningful benefits to delivering more cleaning performance in less product volume.
But concentration only works as intended when the consumer knows how much to use.
If a product is highly concentrated but people routinely use two or three times the necessary amount, some of the advantage disappears.
That means formulation and consumer behavior cannot be treated as separate universes.
The measuring system matters.
Instructions matter.
Dose matters.
Performance per dose matters.
The product has to make sense once it leaves the factory.
That is a recurring theme in environmental research around laundry. Life-cycle work on detergents has shown that the environmental picture involves more than the package sitting on the shelf; research evaluating detergent footprints emphasizes the importance of the washing phase, packaging, and end-of-life considerations when assessing overall impacts.
The “best” detergent cannot be determined by one feature alone.
Microplastic Free Is Important — But It Isn't the Whole Product Either
Microplastics are another good example.
For Myome, avoiding microplastics is part of our formulation philosophy.
But we do not think consumers should evaluate an entire cleaning product using only one question:
Does it contain microplastics?
That question matters.
Then keep going.
Does it clean?
What surfactants does it use?
What other ingredients are present?
Does it contain fragrance?
How concentrated is it?
What is the packaging?
What does the brand disclose?
A microplastic free detergent that performs poorly or hides the rest of its ingredient list would not satisfy the kind of product philosophy we are trying to build.
The same principle applies to every “free from” claim.
No single absence defines the entire formula.
“Non-Toxic” Can't Be the Only Thing Either
The phrase non-toxic cleaning products has become increasingly popular.
Consumers want products they feel better about using in their homes.
That desire makes sense.
But “non-toxic” is another phrase that becomes less useful if it replaces deeper questions about formulation.
The FTC's guidance is actually quite strong here: companies making a broad non-toxic claim should have competent and reliable scientific evidence supporting safety for people and the environment.
That is why Myome's approach to non-toxic cleaning is not based on pretending that chemistry itself is dangerous.
Everything is chemistry.
The more useful approach is thoughtful ingredient selection.
What does an ingredient do?
How much is used?
What are its health and environmental characteristics?
What happens under the intended conditions of use?
Could another ingredient perform the same function with a more favorable profile?
That is far more meaningful than simply placing a leaf icon next to the word “clean.”
We Look at Fragrance as Part of the System
Fragrance deserves special attention because it illustrates exactly what single-benefit product design can create.
For decades, scent has become a major differentiator in laundry.
Brands can compete on who smells fresher.
Who lasts longer.
Who smells stronger.
Who creates the most memorable “laundry day” experience.
But if you step outside that marketing framework, a different question appears.
Why does clothing need to smell like detergent after it has been washed?
Clean clothing does not inherently have a fragrance.
Ideally, dirt, sweat, oils, and unwanted odors have been removed.
Adding another scent afterward is a separate choice.
And fragranced cleaning products can contribute compounds to indoor air. In a peer-reviewed study measuring chemicals released during real-world household cleaning and controlled testing, researchers detected volatile compounds associated with both conventional and some products marketed as “green,” including fragrance-related compounds in certain green cleaners.
That does not mean every fragranced cleaning product is dangerous.
It means “green” branding does not automatically answer questions about exposure.
Again, you have to look at the whole formula.
For Myome, removing unnecessary fragrance fits our larger goal of simplifying where simplification makes sense.
We Look at Environmental Impact as More Than Packaging
Packaging is incredibly visible.
You hold it.
You throw it away.
You see the plastic.
That makes packaging one of the easiest environmental issues for consumers to understand.
Ingredient fate is harder to see.
Energy use is harder to see.
Transportation is harder to see.
The wastewater leaving a washing machine disappears down a pipe.
That means brands can receive significant credit for changing the most visible environmental feature while leaving less visible ones largely unexplored.
We think the better approach is to consider both.
Packaging matters.
So does concentration.
So does formula.
So does dosing.
So does performance.
So does the way consumers actually use the product.
None exists independently.
We Look at Ingredient Safety and Environmental Fate Together
A household cleaning product has two environments.
The first is your home.
The second is wherever the ingredients go afterward.
Laundry detergent enters wastewater.
Dishwasher detergent enters wastewater.
Cleaning agents do not simply disappear once they leave the drain.
This means a formula can be evaluated from both a human-health and environmental perspective.
Surfactants demonstrate why.
They are extremely useful cleaning ingredients.
But different surfactants have different properties.
EPA's Safer Choice criteria specifically evaluate surfactants using factors including aquatic toxicity, biodegradation rate, and the characteristics of their degradation products.
That is much more useful than saying:
surfactants are good
or
surfactants are bad.
They are a functional category.
Evaluate the actual ingredient.
That is how we want consumers to think about cleaning chemistry.
The Goal Isn't the Shortest Ingredient List
This point is especially important.
“Simple” can easily become another single-attribute marketing strategy.
Five ingredients!
Three ingredients!
Only ingredients you can pronounce!
But ingredient count alone is not a meaningful measure of product quality.
A product with five ingredients is not automatically safer than one with ten.
A product with ten ingredients is not automatically more effective than one with five.
And whether someone can pronounce a chemical name tells you nothing about toxicology.
The question is not:
How short is the ingredient list?
It is:
Can every ingredient explain why it's there?
If eight ingredients each perform necessary functions and together create an effective formula, eight may be completely appropriate.
If ingredient nine exists only to create a color consumers were trained to associate with cleaning, maybe ingredient nine deserves another look.
Function before count.
The Goal Isn't “Natural,” Either
Natural is another one-dimensional way to evaluate a complex product.
Natural tells you something about origin.
It does not automatically tell you toxicity, biodegradability, sensitization potential, performance, concentration, or environmental fate.
A naturally derived substance can be irritating.
A synthetic ingredient can have a favorable safety profile.
Both need to be evaluated based on what they actually are.
Myome does not believe consumers benefit from chemistry being divided into:
natural = good
and
synthetic = bad.
We would rather divide formulation decisions into:
necessary and unnecessary
well-characterized and poorly understood
higher-hazard and lower-hazard alternatives
effective and ineffective
Those distinctions are much more useful.
We Didn't Want Sustainability to Become a Trade-Off for Performance
One of the worst outcomes for a better-for-you or environmentally conscious product is when the consumer thinks:
I love what this brand stands for, but the product just doesn't work.
That is not the goal.
People should not need to choose between cleaning performance and a thoughtful formulation philosophy.
This is part of why EPA's own safer-product framework emphasizes performance alongside ingredient criteria. Safer Choice is not simply a list of approved chemicals; products seeking the label undergo product-level review that includes performance considerations.
That makes sense.
If the cleaner does not clean, the system has failed.
At Myome, performance is not something we want to apologize for.
It belongs inside the sustainability conversation.
The Whole-Product Question Changes Product Development
Imagine two ways of developing a detergent.
The first starts with a marketing brief:
Consumers want clothes that smell fresh for longer.
The formulation process begins from there.
The second starts with a system:
We need to clean clothes effectively. What functions are required? What ingredients can perform those functions thoughtfully? What can we leave out? What format makes sense? How much should consumers use? How should we package it?
Those are very different starting points.
The second does not give you one easy headline immediately.
But it can produce a more coherent product.
That is why Myome did not begin by choosing one “hero” promise.
We started with the entire experience.
Cleaning Performance
First question:
Does it work?
Not does it smell powerful.
Not does the package look clean.
Does the formula perform the cleaning job for which it was designed?
That is non-negotiable.
Ingredient Purpose
Next:
Why is each ingredient included?
Surfactant?
Cleaning function.
Builder?
Water-management function.
Enzyme?
Targeted cleaning function.
Other ingredients?
Explain them.
An ingredient should not hide behind a vague category if consumers want to understand what they are using.
Unnecessary Additives
Then:
What can be removed?
If fragrance is not necessary for cleaning, do we need it?
If decorative color does not improve performance, do we need it?
If another material does not improve the formula meaningfully, does it earn its place?
Removal can be a form of product development too.
Microplastics
Then:
Are we introducing plastic materials into the formula unnecessarily?
For a brand focused on reducing microplastics, the answer matters.
But again, this is one piece of the system.
Format
Then:
How should the formula actually reach the consumer?
For Myome, powder made sense.
The appliance supplies the water.
The product supplies the cleaning chemistry.
Concentration
Then:
How much does someone actually need?
The goal is not maximum volume.
The goal is the appropriate dose.
Packaging
Then:
How can the product be packaged responsibly and practically?
Packaging has to protect the formula.
It also has a material footprint.
Both matter.
Transparency
Finally:
Can consumers understand what they are buying?
That is where the system comes together.
A thoughtful product should be able to explain itself.
One Product Decision Can Affect Another
This is the central reason we think whole-product design matters.
Nothing happens in isolation.
Choosing powder can affect packaging possibilities.
Concentration affects dose.
Dose affects product use per wash.
Ingredient selection affects cleaning performance.
Water hardness affects cleaning chemistry.
Removing fragrance changes the sensory experience.
Changing packaging can affect transportation.
Enzymes can influence lower-temperature performance depending on formulation.
Surfactant choice can influence both detergency and environmental characteristics.
Every decision creates another decision.
That is what makes product formulation interesting.
And it is why reducing a detergent to one headline claim never tells the whole story.
“Better” Should Be Multidimensional
If we had to summarize the Myome approach, we would not define “better” with one word.
Better means effective.
Better means intentional.
Better means transparent.
Better means eliminating things that do not need to be there.
Better means considering the formula and the package.
Better means asking what happens during use and after use.
Better means giving consumers a product that is straightforward to understand.
Better means acknowledging trade-offs rather than pretending one product feature solves everything.
And better means continuing to improve.
Because there is no perfect cleaning product.
Every material has an impact.
Every manufacturing process uses resources.
Every cleaning cycle uses something.
The goal is not perfection.
The goal is better decisions.
This Is Why Myome Didn't Focus on One Thing
We could have built Myome around fragrance.
We didn't.
We could have made packaging the entire story.
We didn't.
We could have built everything around being powder.
We didn't.
We could have focused only on microplastics.
We didn't.
We could have made “non-toxic” the end of the conversation.
We didn't.
Those things matter.
But they matter together.
A microplastic free detergent should still clean.
A non-toxic laundry detergent should still be thoughtfully formulated.
A fragrance-free detergent should still perform.
A powder detergent should still dissolve and work effectively.
A more thoughtfully packaged detergent should still contain ingredients chosen for a reason.
That is the difference.
We Think Consumers Are Ready for a Bigger Conversation About Cleaning
People know more about the products in their homes than they did a generation ago.
They read ingredient labels.
They research materials.
They think about plastic waste.
They think about fragrance.
They think about what goes down the drain.
They think about the products used on the clothing they wear all day and the dishes they eat from.
That does not mean everyone wants to become a chemist.
They shouldn't have to.
Brands should do more of the work.
The brand should understand why the ingredient is present.
The brand should understand the formulation.
The brand should be able to explain the choices.
The consumer should not need to decode a marketing campaign to figure out what the product actually stands for.
The Myome Question Is Simple
When we look at any part of a cleaning product, we come back to the same idea:
Does this make sense?
Does this ingredient make sense?
Does this fragrance make sense?
Does this amount of packaging make sense?
Does shipping this much water make sense?
Does this polymer make sense?
Does this dose make sense?
Does this claim make sense?
Does this product work?
That question sounds almost too simple.
But asking it consistently creates a very different product philosophy.
Instead of trying to maximize one attribute, you begin balancing the whole system.
The Future of Cleaning Might Be Less About Adding More
For years, product innovation has often looked like addition.
More scent.
More features.
More specialized products.
More boosters.
More steps.
More promises.
But there is another type of innovation.
Remove unnecessary ingredients.
Reduce unnecessary plastic.
Reduce unnecessary water in the formula.
Simplify dosing.
Make ingredients easier to understand.
Design multiple parts of the product together instead of optimizing each in isolation.
Sometimes the smarter product is not the one that does the most things.
It is the one where everything it does has a reason.
The Bottom Line
Most cleaning products are easy to market because they focus on a clear problem.
Stains.
Fragrance.
Whitening.
Convenience.
Packaging.
Sensitive skin.
Microplastics.
There is value in solving specific problems.
But Myome was built around a broader idea:
A cleaning product should make sense as a whole.
Performance matters.
Ingredients matter.
Fragrance matters.
Microplastics matter.
Concentration matters.
Format matters.
Packaging matters.
Dosing matters.
Transparency matters.
None of those should have to carry the entire product story alone.
That is why we did not ask:
What's the one thing Myome should do differently?
We asked:
How many parts of the cleaning experience can we rethink at the same time—without losing sight of what the product is supposed to do?
The result is not a detergent built around one buzzword.
It is a philosophy.
Start with performance.
Give ingredients jobs.
Remove what does not need to be there.
Choose chemistry thoughtfully.
Think about what enters the home.
Think about what leaves it.
Think about the packaging surrounding it.
Make the dose make sense.
Be transparent.
Keep improving.
Most cleaning products are designed to give you one reason to choose them.
We wanted Myome to give you a reason to rethink the category.