About Us
A little over 20 years ago, a happily married couple from Texas moved to a forest in the mountains of Colorado to live their dream life, running their little business in the basement, surrounded by a whole pack of dogs and assorted pet friends. And it was wonderful and so much fun... except for one thing.
I'm Aislyn, and that was me and my husband, Gary. The one thing that happened was that I got sick when we moved. The high altitude stressed my body and things started going wrong left and right. The formerly imperceptible smell of ordinary household chemicals in the bathroom, laundry room and under the kitchen sink was suddenly overwhelming, and I couldn't walk down the cleaning aisle at the grocery store without feeling that I was going to be sick.
We threw out every bit of it, well over $5K worth of every household chemical you can imagine, from beauty products to garage things. That was the beginning of our adventures in clean living.
We switched to organic food and began doing our own cooking. We detoxed our bodies with clay, switched from plastic to glass, and began cleaning with vinegar, baking soda, and hydrogen peroxide. We made our own body oil, lip balm and personal care from from organic coconut oil, cocoa butter and beeswax.
I felt better, bit by bit, but I could not tolerate unnatural fibers against my skin. I never liked unnatural fibers anyway because they make me feel too hot, but suddenly I couldn't stand them at all. My skin was going red and itchy wherever they touched. Only when I wore 100% cotton or wool or linen did my skin feel normal. So I got rid of everything unnatural in my wardrobe and I've been buying only natural fibers ever since.
I'm not sick anymore -- this all happened years ago -- but we never even considered going back to the plastic and chemicals lifestyle because clean and natural is so much better in every way. Over the years, through research and experience, it's become obvious that we could all be living so much better, easier, healthier lives by just aligning our needs with the natural properties of the elements given to us. Take copper, for example. It has natural anti-bacterial properties and has been used to purify water for centuries. So why don't we use that more to our advantage in regular life, and why haven't we always done so? Copper sinks, tubs, toilets, water storage, drinkware, doorknobs... think of all the hand sanitizer no one would need. (Be sure to see our selection of copper sinks, under Fixtures; working on the rest of the list.) And it's completely passive, you don't have to lift a finger or spend a penny ever again to make it work for you, your children, your grandchildren, their grandchildren, it just does.
If natural fibers and materials are already important to you, then I don't have to tell you what a wonderful difference it makes in your life. But you also know what a pain it is every single time you go to purchase something. You can't just buy what you like, you have to spend *so* much time searching and reading labels, because almost nobody makes it easy to know exactly what's in anything. That's not the fun kind of shopping, it's just so much work, each and every time you need to buy anything at all.
And that's the point of Castlewares. Everything here is made of clean, natural fibers and materials, most of it organic. Knowing that, you can relax, you don't have to scour labels, you can just shop for what you like, and shopping can be fun again.
Welcome to Castlewares. Your home is your castle. Let's keep it clean!
-- Aislyn
P.S. Castlewares is a new business without any reviews to look over and you might not feel comfortable being an early adopter. Remember that business I mentioned before, the one we've been running in the basement for over 20 years now? Well, you're welcome to go look at that one, if you like; it has a gazillion reviews, a long history, and that's us, as well.
Nice to meet you. :)