Lifestyle blogger Lee Anne Benjamin shares her best tips.
By Sommer Brugal, Photo courtesy of Lee Anne Benjamin
If you’re an avid social-media user, you’ve probably noticed the rise of influencers, bloggers, photographers and fitness professionals utilizing their platforms to highlight and promote the brands they use.
Lee Anne Benjamin is one of those individuals. The voice and brains behind lifestyle blog Life By Lee, Benjamin has more than 165,000 followers on Instagram.
On her blog, she discusses topics like style, travel and blogging, yet Benjamin believes it was opening up about motherhood that allowed her to gain the following she has.
“[My blog] took off when I had my first son,” Benjamin says. “I was able to connect with other moms in a way I felt was more authentic.”
Since becoming a mother, Benjamin has made a general shift toward living a healthier lifestyle, from making smarter choices at the grocery store to being more precise about the kinds of products she uses daily, like her makeup and dishwasher soap.
Interested to discover how she created a healthier home for her family, Austin Woman asked Benjamin to share her experiences.
A Treehouse for Adults
Founded in Texas, eco-friendly home-improvement store TreeHouse aims to ensure all homes are sustainable, beautifully built and healthy, working to solve problems that arise in the home (high water and energy consumption, land fill waste, toxic exposure) through the products it sells.
Products at TreeHouse fall into three categories: design, performance and outdoor services, and Benjamin and her family have integrated many of TreeHouse’s kitchen items into their home.
“The biggest thing for us is [that]we cook a lot at home,” she says, “so, we use a lot of [the TreeHouse]kitchen products.”
Her favorite is Better Life’s all-natural dish soap in lemon mint and the brand’s dishwasher gel.
Benjamin has also purchased a number of TreeHouse’s cooking pans, noting the absence of harmful chemicals used to make the products, and Ecos laundry detergent, which is hypoallergenic and dye- and fragrance-free.
Making the Change
The decision to integrate healthier, more sustainable and chemical-free products into your home can seem daunting at first, especially if it’s new territory for you and your family. But according to Benjamin, the switch doesn’t have to be anxiety-inducing. Her trick, she says, is to start small.
“[The switch for us] started in the kitchen,” Benjamin says. “Those changes are more attainable because you already use similar products daily.”
Making small changes like those, Benjamin says, can have a big impact in your life.
A Smart Home, Top to Bottom
Benjamin and her husband are currently looking for a new home and plan to use sustainable materials like Cali Bamboo flooring, Porcelanosa tile and, of course, a variety of safe, clean kitchen products.
Benjamin says her husband loves the new technologies TreeHouse offers and he plans to include sustainable elements like custom lighting down the road to help save energy.
Benjamin is a full-time blogger, business owner and mother of two, and it’s difficult to comprehend how she does it all so effortlessly. Humbly, Benjamin credits Treehouse for helping her maintain a healthy home.
“TreeHouse is a one-stop shop when it comes to safer living and safer products,” Benjamin says. “TreeHouse makes it easy.”