The Gleener Story

It's been said that 'Necessity is the mother of invention' and in this case, it's true! The idea for Gleener literally sprung from a favorite sweater that became covered in pills after just a few wears. It was awful. Somehow my beautiful merino wool turtleneck had turned into a weekends-only item ~ overnight! I'm sure that many of you can relate to the frustration of having paid a lot of money for something nice only to find it looking old and worn before its time. Determined to salvage my sweater, I set out to find a solution. I soon discovered that there are many fabric care products on the market, but none of them were efficient, easy and effective. After trying a few, I thought that there should be a better way, people need a better solution to this annoying problem! This was my first a-ha! moment... I would set out to develop one. The only things holding me back were 1) I was seven months pregnant and 2) I didn't have a dime to spare!

As any mother out there will know, motherhood is demanding, especially those first few months. Needless to say that although I was confident that I was onto a great idea, my would-be ultimate depiller was just a thought as there was a baby that needed feeding and diapers that needed changing. My second a-ha moment happened about six months after the first one and came straight from the mother-of-all-a-ha-moments herself, Oprah! Yes, indeed, there I was, folding laundry in my living room, watching Oprah while my baby napped. Oprah was featuring ordinary people with great ideas who actually followed through with their dreams. At the end of the show, she looked into the camera and said, for all those people out there with great ideas, 'Go For It!' My jaw dropped (and probably a sock or two), I was convinced that Oprah had spoken to me, she encouraged me to Go For It! It was June 19th, 2003.

From that point forward, I set out on a very long product development journey, enduring one bump after another, learning a ton along the way and never giving up. It's hard to believe that the son I was expecting all those years ago will be nine next year and that Gleener has only recently hit the market. I guess the saying 'better late than never' applies here! If there is one thing that I would like to impart to readers it is to never give up on your dreams. I hope you Go For It! and while you're at it, I really hope you enjoy using your Gleener!

The Gleener Name

Many people have asked me how I came up with the name – and that's a very good question! My product was already well into development before it came to me... I just couldn't figure out what to call "the thing." I referred to it as a fabric care product, but it really needed a name – and hopefully a catchy one. Lots of ideas were thrown around, some purely descriptive and some more on the racy side – my Aunt Jeannie in Kansas City came up with a doozie – but none of them were working for me. Then one day I had my third a-ha moment – and everything clicked. I happened upon an old painting by French artist Jean-François Millet called The Gleaners. It is a painting of three women picking up little bits of wheat after a field had been harvested. It is a beautiful painting, and one that I had seen before – it was one of my grandmother's favorites, as it reminded her of her modest roots growing up on a farm in Alberta. As soon as I saw it again, it hit me like a ton of bricks – that's it! Gleaner! A gleaner picks up little bits and pieces... my product is a gleaner! I loved the fact that this painting was important to my grandmother, and that my product would glean away the bits and pieces from people's clothes. The name was a winner. But "gleaner" reminded me too much of farm equipment, and I wanted to put my own little spin on it – so that's how the name Gleener was born.