Women Like Me Stories & Business

Toxic-Free Nesting: When Interior Design Meets Motherhood

• Julie Fairhurst • Episode 151

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What if the beautiful nursery you've created for your baby is actually filled with invisible toxins? When interior designer Alexandra Shield found herself sitting on the empty floor of her unborn son's room, overwhelmed by research on harmful chemicals lurking in seemingly innocent furnishings, she knew she had to make a change.

Alexandra takes us on a journey through the hidden dangers in our homes – from PVC-laden blackout curtains that off-gas harmful phthalates to the chemicals coating "performance fabrics" marketed to families. With her decade of interior design experience and passion for sustainability, she reveals practical ways to create healthier spaces without breaking the bank or throwing everything away.

The conversation explores startling realities about our indoor environments: children's uniquely vulnerable physiology, the chemical cocktail hiding in household dust, and how standard building materials impact not just our families but farmers and ecosystems worldwide.  Alexandra breaks down what certifications actually matter (look for GOTS for textiles and Green Guard Gold for furniture) and which natural materials naturally perform better without added chemicals.

Beyond personal health, Alexandra addresses the staggering environmental impact of interior design – 10 million tons of furniture enter US landfills annually – and shares inspiring alternatives like upcycled marketplace finds, water-saving fixtures that conserve 6,000 liters per person yearly, and innovative materials made from coffee grounds and mushroom roots.

Whether you're designing a nursery, renovating a home, or simply becoming more conscious about your living space, this episode provides actionable wisdom for creating beautiful interiors that support both human and planetary health. Connect with Alexandra for her free guide on designing a healthy nursery or to learn how her virtual design services can transform your space from anywhere in the world.

 Free Gift:  https://www.alexshielddesign.com/sign-up-nursery-guide

 https://www.alexshielddesign.com

 https://www.instagram.com/alexshielddesign/

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Who is Julie Fairhurst?
Julie Fairhurst – Speaker, Author, and Founder of Women Like Me

Julie Fairhurst is a champion for women’s empowerment and the founder of the Women Like Me Book Program. Since 2019, she has published 30 books and 300+ true-life stories—at no cost to the writers—giving women a platform to heal, inspire, and reclaim their power. Dedicated to breaking generational trauma one story at a time, Julie’s mission is to uplift women emotionally and financially, helping them create better lives for themselves and their families.


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Speaker 1:

Well, hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Women Like Me, stories and Business. Today I have somebody that is super interesting, so I hope you stick around for the entire interview. She's going to talk about some stuff that I've actually never heard myself, so we're going to learn something from this fabulous lady. So today I'm joined by a woman who's redesigning more than just rooms. She's redesigning the way we think about our home, our health and motherhood. So Alex Shield is an interior designer from Canada, founder of a business that helps busy moms create beautiful, toxic-free spaces for their families. Interesting stuff. So welcome, alex. Thank you so much for doing this with us.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Perfect Well let's jump in with. You mentioned that becoming a mom changed everything for you, so can you talk a little bit about the moment that you were on the nursery floor and just having that passion for safety sort of come alive?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I'm an interior designer. I've been doing it for over a decade and when I I was always I was working for different firms and things like that and I started learning a lot about sustainability and I sort of I took a lot of courses on sustainability, I dove right into it. I was trying to build a more sustainable lifestyle and and then I got pregnant and I was pregnant with my son and I was designing his nursery and this is when I was learning more about toxic chemicals in things like paint, textiles, furniture, mattresses, all of the things and I was trying to find healthy options for his nursery and it was so overwhelming. There was so much research. I spent hours and hours and I would ask suppliers, questions and sort of. I found myself sitting on the floor of his empty nursery just feeling so overwhelmed and thinking that I can't be the only mom who wants to have a healthy home for her kids and I think I think that a lot of us just don't know about all of the toxins in the furniture and the off gassing and the harmful health effects that these materials can have on us. So for me, it was sort of the a turning point.

Speaker 2:

For me, it was the catalyst to starting my own business, so I founded Alex Shield Design. As you mentioned, we are an interior design firm with a focus on healthy, sustainable interiors, but I also want to educate, because you know, you can't walk into a store and know what's healthy and what's not healthy just by looking at a couch or curtains, or so how do we know what materials are healthy for our homes? Um, what will contribute to better indoor air quality? And so my mission is to design the beautiful homes, but also to educate and empower people to to design their own healthy when you were talking I thought to myself, we don't know what.

Speaker 1:

We don't know until we know. And it's like, yeah, and I mean I don't know. You know our difference in age. But I remember paints as a kid, you know, and we were all. And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, those paints aren't healthy, we shouldn't be having that kind of thing. But that's the thing we don't know until we don't know. So it's so important. In this age of the internet and information overload, it's fabulous to have somebody who's an expert in that.

Speaker 2:

So I have two Go ahead.

Speaker 1:

I was just going to say that I've got two little grandbabies, a granddaughter and a grand. We have more than two, but two little babies. And when you were talking, I'm thinking about my daughters. How do I know? I don't know. You know both of them, like one's six months old and one's almost a year, and I'm thinking, you know, are there? As you're talking, I'm thinking well are there?

Speaker 2:

are those rooms safe? So babies and children especially. They spend a lot of time on the floor, right, babies put everything in their mouths. And children their skin is. It absorbs more easily than as we get older, our skin gets a little bit thicker. So so as babies and children, you're playing on the floor. And if there's any.

Speaker 2:

So mattresses is one, you know, an organic. You know, invest in an organic mattress for your kids. Organic crib mattresses are not more, not too much more expensive than regular mattresses. There's, you know, the, the rug. What type of rug? What materials are on the floor that your baby is is crawling around on or in? You know we spend so much time sleeping. So there's the, like, I said, the mattress, the sheets, the crib. My, my kids chewed on their crib Like I didn't think that was a thing, but it is. And then you know. So there's different certifications for furniture. You can look for a Green Guard Gold certification when you're shopping for furniture, which essentially means it's been tested for thousands of chemicals.

Speaker 2:

Curtains is another one. So if you're a mom these days, you know, and your babies don't sleep, the recommendation is make sure you have blackout curtains, you're not letting any light in. Recommendation is make sure you have blackout curtains. You're not letting any light in. But traditional blackout curtains are made using PVC which contain phthalates which can off-gas and cause all kinds of harmful health issues. It can cause respiratory issues, liver disease, cancer. There are so many different issues and you mentioned paint, so paint, I think, is one of the ones we know a little bit more about. So paint, you're looking for zero VOC paint if you can, and more and more brands offer this, so there's different options for paint. There's also mineral based paint, which is even better, but it's true. But it's every single. So I was. I was looking for for everything for my son's nursery and it was literally everything, every single thing the rug, the curtains, the crib, the mattress, the furniture, the accessories, the stuffed animals, everything that I was putting in his room. I was researching.

Speaker 1:

So tell me then, because I'm I've never even thought about this, so who knows what's going on in my house? But tell me what would be organic. What would a mattress be that's organic? What would our blankets or our sheets be Like? What is the organic stuff?

Speaker 2:

So if we're looking at organic mattresses, I think the healthiest option is natural latex. So natural latex. Latex comes from the rubber tree. There is a artificial latex. You don't want that, but the natural latex you can get. If you look up organic mattresses, there's different kinds. They have some with you know organic cotton, organic wool. So there's different. There's different things you can look for when you're different types of organic. But organic essentially means there are no chemicals, there are no pesticides added throughout the process. When we talk about organic wool, if there's a certification for organic wool, there's also the animal cruelty sort of aspect to that too. So the organic wool is certified that there was no animal cruelty in that as well. So that's mattresses. And then if you're looking at sheets, you want organic cotton and look for the GOTS certification, g-o-t-s. It's just a certification, meaning it really is the organic, so G-O-T-S.

Speaker 2:

G-O-T-S yeah, the GOTS organic cotton. And there's G-O-L-S, g-o-t-s yeah, the GOTS Organic Cotton. And there's G-O-L-S for the Organic Latex. So sheets, yeah, you're looking for organic cotton. Organic linen Linen is generally better, even if it's not organic Cotton. There's a lot of water use, a lot of pesticides in the production of cotton and then there's. So there's that aspect and what's in our homes. But there's also the farmers who are growing the cotton and using the pesticides and what is the impact on them and what is the impact on the planet if we're using all of these pesticides and it ends up in the water and we end up, you know. So there's a lot of you know. We can look at it from from a health perspective inside our homes, but then there's also what are all the other effects of everybody else in there in the supply chain?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, for sure. Wow, I never. Yeah, I'm looking around my office, I'm just like, hmm, I don't know about all this stuff.

Speaker 2:

I got in here now.

Speaker 2:

So the other thing, so the other thing is that it becomes very overwhelming, right, because you do, you start looking around and you say, oh, what do I have in my home and I need to change everything, and you don't. What I would recommend is the next time that you need to make a change. Just look at are these natural materials? So polyester is out, okay. So look for, you're looking for cotton, you're looking for linen, hemp, all the sort of natural materials that are found in nature. Same thing If you're looking for furniture, you're looking for solid wood, you can look for the Green Guard gold certification.

Speaker 2:

There's different, different things to look for in that. But for now, open the windows more. You know, open the windows, let the air circulate. We spend 90% of our time indoors, most of the time with the windows closed, so how can we help get some of those toxins out of our home? It's really it's opening the windows and letting the air circulate. It's another thing which seems, seems sort of, you know, unbearable, usual. But you know, you, you clean, clean, wet dust, wet, mop, right, because the other thing is that some of the chemicals end up in your dust and so they end up on the floor or the dust is in the air and we're inhaling them, so it's not always and the baby's crawling down there Exactly.

Speaker 2:

So it's not always the off gassing of chemicals. Sometimes it's in our dust as well.

Speaker 1:

Wow, yeah, you know a lot as well, wow, yeah, you know a lot.

Speaker 2:

I have done a lot of research. I've done a lot of research. I'm very passionate about it. So, yes, I can tell that's perfect. I've worked for other firms. I've worked for other firms, you know, I've been doing this for over a decade, but then it was the sustainability aspect and the health aspect that really made me sort of go out on my own at the firms I was working for. You know, sometimes I'd be like, oh, look at this cool material or this cool material, or they would show me something and I'd be like, yeah, but it's polyester.

Speaker 2:

You know, it just didn't align with sort of what I was where, what I wanted to promote and, you know, having people- at home.

Speaker 1:

And I think that, no, and I think that I think you're right, because when you were talking, as I said, I started looking around and then, of course, I started feeling overwhelmed.

Speaker 1:

But you're right, it's baby steps. Right, it's when you're going to go get that new piece of furniture, or you need to get the new sheets, or you need to get. You know, whatever it is that you get you start to do slowly. Just don't burn the house down and start from scratch. Exactly, exactly, yeah. So can you tell us what your biggest challenge was when you were starting your business as a new mom and how you moved through that?

Speaker 2:

As a new mom. Well, for all of the moms, listening, doing anything as a mom besides being a mom is difficult.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It was. It was very challenging to. I knew I knew what I wanted to do. I knew that I wanted to to start this business and I also knew that I wanted to be a mom and I wanted to have time for my kids. So, um, I started just part-time and I'm still I'm still pretty much part-time in my business. Um, I spend a lot of time with my kids, cause I want to, because I want to be there and enjoy. I don't want to look back and think that I missed out on them growing up. So the biggest challenge, I think, is that there's a lot of research to what I'm doing and I want to get all of the certifications and I want to make sure that I have all of the knowledge, which is forever constantly changing in terms of the information that we have available. So it's finding the time to fit everything in. That's my biggest challenge, yeah, but I'm also loving it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

I'm very passionate about. Yeah, when you find your passion, it's amazing how it lights you up. The world seems brighter, lighter. I was in sales for 34 years and got completely and I love my job. But I got completely burnt out to the point where I was useless. I was not answering the phone. You know that whole going down there and then and then I discovered, you know, started the Women Like Me and wow, I could just work all day long, all night. I'm just like I love it and the passion is there and it just really, when you find that thing, that's just yeah, you got it. Yeah, I can tell you're super passionate about what you're doing, I am.

Speaker 1:

So they say that. So sustainability is a bit of a buzzword out there right now. Yeah, and so what do you think every mom should know? I guess we kind of almost covered that, but what would be the let's give like the three top things that moms should know.

Speaker 2:

Okay. So when you're looking for materials or furniture for your home, always look for natural materials. So, like I said, not polyester, not synthetics. You want natural materials. You want cotton, linen, natural wood, bamboo, jute, sisal. All of those beautiful natural materials are going to be healthier for your home. When you're looking at paints and wall coverings, we mentioned zero VOC. There are so many options for zero VOC paints. You can also look at lime paint. It's a mineral-based paint.

Speaker 2:

It actually absorbs lime yes, the mineral and it absorbs CO2. It doesn't have any off-gassing or VOCs. It's a very cool product. What else? And I think it's asking questions? There's a lot of.

Speaker 2:

You know, if a company is sustainable, as you said, it is a buzzword. If a company is green, sustainable, eco-friendly, they're shouting it from the rooftops. They have something on their website that says why they're sustainable. So look on the website, do the research, and just because they say they're sustainable doesn't necessarily mean they are or all the products are. So you know if they have a sustainability statement on their website.

Speaker 2:

Also, look at, well, what is the couch made of? You know, is it polyester fabrics? Oh, performance fabrics too. Performance fabrics is another one you have to be so careful of, because what is performance fabrics? So performance, if you go into a showroom and you want to buy a couch and you say I have kids and I have a dog and I have a cat, they say, oh, you need the performance fabrics because these fabrics will resist stains and pilling and this and that A lot of the time, they're just full of chemicals. So not a healthy option for your home. There are performance fabrics that they are performant in terms of the type of weave, how they're weaved, the materials that are used, and they don't use harmful chemicals. So that's a whole other thing, but I think it's just being aware of these different things and asking the questions. Yes, and there are so many questions to ask, so I mean you can feel free to reach out if you have questions, I'm happy to answer too.

Speaker 1:

Yes, we will have Alex's details in the details section of the show notes, so you guys will be able to reach out to her and find her Absolutely If you have any questions or need any help. So what's something about the interior design industry that you feel needs to change?

Speaker 2:

There are so many things. Right now. We're talking about health, but there's also the environmental impact. So the amount of waste that's created in the interior design industry is immense. 10 million tons of furniture end up in landfills in the US alone every single year. 10 million tons of furniture end up in landfills in the US alone every single year. 10 million tons, ok, I think there's I don't remember how many millions of tons of construction debris. It's. It's incredible amount.

Speaker 2:

So I think we need to to sort of refocus a little bit and look at how can we use what we have already. How can we shop vintage or secondhand? There's so much out there on the market that we can. I'm working on a project right now and my client wanted a storage bed, so one that you open up and you can store things underneath. And we found a beautiful bed on a marketplace and it was 250 bucks and we're going to reupholster it and it's going to be incredible. But, like there's just there's so much out there already. So I think we need to. You know, interior design is about. You know, our interior designers I guess are are creative, right, and they they make things look beautiful. But how can we use our creativity to also use what's already here instead of always looking for new things. Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so there's I mean there's. There's the waste, there's the energy efficiency is another one, you know that'll help you save money over the long run. There's water, um, water savings. How do we save water? If you changed every single water fixture in your home every sink, every toilet, every shower head? Um, with a water sense certified fixture, you can save 6,000 liters of water per person per year. Holy smokes, right, and the water pressure is still the same. But it's just so. It's these there's.

Speaker 2:

There's a lot of really cool products and technology, but they're not necessarily well known or mainstream in the market. Yes, but there's more and more. So I think the industry is changing and is starting to become more sustainable, but I think we need to, as consumers, just be aware of these things and like these, the water, the WaterSense faucets don't cost more. There are regular Home Depot faucets that are WaterSense certified, so it's not about spending more money. I think it's just about slowing down and asking the questions and doing the research instead of oh, I found this thing online, click, buy, it arrives right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I love that you said that, because we actually are looking at. We just noticed that we need to do some replacement with some of our taps and when I go out looking, I will be looking for something that is and, again, I didn't need you know, you see the refrigerators and the dishwashers, yeah, but you don't think about taps yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

So if you're looking at sort of basic models like Kohler, moen, delta, they all have the WaterSense and you can even go on some websites you can go and you can filter by the WaterSense certification so you only see the ones with the water sense feature perfect.

Speaker 1:

Yeah and um, it's too bad. We don't see more builders using these kinds of materials yes, it's starting as well.

Speaker 2:

I think there's more and more um innovative, uh, building materials there's. There's different ways of building walls there's. There's recycled insulation you could. There's a recycled denim insulation you could, um, you can use. Yeah, there's all kinds of. Really. There's hempcrete, which is um, which is a like a concrete but made of hemp, that you can use for interior, for building walls. There's all kinds of really cool stuff out there, but again, it's not mainstream, right um? So we don't hear about it as much.

Speaker 1:

No, for sure, but there are so many. I just get blown away all the time. You know, when I was in real estate, I'd go into someone's home and it would be, oh, that's a lovely countertop. And they're like, oh, it's a paint. I'm like what do you mean? It's a paint? I mean, there's just so many different. So much out there. So much out there.

Speaker 1:

It's it's, it'd be fun to renovate, yeah, well, there you go. Exactly, exactly. So how do you, how do you stay inspired when your work maybe gets heavy or your process progress feels like it's slowing down? Like how do you, how do you keep your mindset in a positive mode?

Speaker 2:

I believe that what I'm doing is the right thing to be doing, and if I am feeling uninspired, I will go out and I will look for things that inspire me, things that you know, different designs, or look at different architecture or different and think of. You know, how could we create this in a sustainable way? There's so many, you know. I have even right here I have, like this beautiful organic cotton velvet, like there's. There are so many I think I'm inspired by, or I get excited about all of the really cool, innovative products. There's, there's.

Speaker 2:

You can have furniture made from coffee grounds, like there's. There's just, and I think that's what inspires me or light fixtures made from mycelium, which is the mushroom root. There's just there's, and I get excited just talking about it, because there's so many cool things out there and I think, seeing the, that I'm not the only one trying to, you know, break down these, these walls. You know I have a I'm growing a community, too, of of people who are like me, who want, you know, the same outcome as me, and how can we support each other, and, and you know so, I think it's surrounding yourself with the right people, too, helps you to to to keep going and keep being inspired for sure and if somebody's really, really concerned about their environment and the environment of the world, but you know and their home environment, reaching out to someone like you is going to be so helpful because you've already done the work.

Speaker 1:

that's the the thing, you know. A lot of times we think, oh well, we can just, you know, we'll just figure it out, but experience and all of that other stuff is so, so important. It's just so important. So we already asked you that. Oh so what do you wish? More women in business knew about creating a brand, because you really are creating a brand, one that's rooted in personal values and lived experience.

Speaker 2:

So I think what's really important is staying true to what you believe and being yourself. Yes and um, you know, I talk about being a mom and I talk about I mean, it's part of my story, is why I started my business, right? And some people, people who are close to me, like my family, who's maybe not my ideal client they'll say, no, you shouldn't, you shouldn't talk about being a mom, it's not professional. You're an interior designer, you're but but it's part of my brand, it's part of who I am, it's part of my purpose, right? So I think it's just staying true to who you are and telling your story because people will. That's what's going to attract people, is the story. It's your why, it's your purpose.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely A hundred trillion percent. That is it. I tell a lot of people, ladies, that I'm involved with that story, your business story. We all have a business story why we're doing what we're doing, and it's important to craft that and, as you say, to be able to talk about it, because you're just taking an example of what you've already told us. If I was a mom and I wanted to redo a nursery or start my nursery or any of those kinds of things, I would be reaching out to you because you know it, you've been it, you're doing it, but I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't heard your story.

Speaker 2:

And I actually have a free guide if anyone's interested in how to design a healthy nursery. So if you want to add that in the comments, they can go, they can click, they can sign up, they can get the free guide and it has all of the things to look for in terms of furniture, bedding, curtains, all of the things.

Speaker 1:

Oh, my gosh, that's beautiful. Do you have a link that you would be able to send to me? Oh, that's fabulous, alex. Thank you, that's great. I'm going to send that to my daughters. They can have a look at that for sure. So well, I have just loved our conversation and you really are a wealth of of knowledge and um, and I love what you're doing and I love how you're, how you're. You know, you're not just a designer, you're an educating designer.

Speaker 1:

I am no you are for sure, and that's important because, um, it's great to have somebody who knows what they're doing, but to know what they're doing with everything behind that is just, it's invaluable, absolutely. So I love it, love what you're doing. So, in closing, is there anything that you would like to say to our audience before we close, to say to our audience before we, before we?

Speaker 2:

close. I think it's again just coming back to you know you might have listened to this and now you're looking around your home and maybe feeling overwhelmed. Don't feel overwhelmed. It's something that I think we can. We can do over time. You know, if you next time you're gonna get a new couch, well, let's do some research. What are we, what are we looking for in, in the materials and all of that? So I think it's just one step at a time. It's baby steps, like you said, and um, and just trying to slowly, over time, build that healthy home, because I mean, it's not sustainable to throw everything away and start from scratch and I mean, who has the budget for that?

Speaker 2:

anyway, right so yes, just slow baby steps.

Speaker 1:

Open your windows and yeah, I have another question for you before we go. Yeah, sure, so do you. Can you consult with people over the internet, like you're in, I think you're? Are you in Montreal, montreal, okay, so I am out near Vancouver, so we're like a good six-hour plane ride away from one another. But you would be able to consult if I was redoing the nursery or any of those kinds of things. You don't necessarily as a designer, you don't necessarily have to walk into my home.

Speaker 2:

Correct. So I do a lot of consulting. I do have clients right now in Toronto, Ottawa, California, Florida, so all over, and really it's just about we could do consulting or I can do the full virtual design. I'm not there to pick the pieces with you, but I can send you a shopping list with all of the things you need to complete your space.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, perfect. Oh, that's good to know. Wow, okay, alex, well, that was so educational. I'm just still. My eyes are now dotting around. I'm going to have to focus. Julie, bring yourself in. You can't go, get up and start throwing stuff out. Not yet, not yet, not yet.

Speaker 1:

Not yet my husband might have something to say yeah, Okay. Well, if anybody would like to consult with Alex I know she does she does speaking events. If you wanted to bring her in for that, or or just needed a consultation with her, I'm going to have all of that information for you to reach out to her in the show notes, and she's very open to chatting, so don't hesitate to reach out to her everybody if you're interested. So thanks again, Alex, for being on the Women Like Me podcast. I appreciate it so much. Thank you so much for having me. Okay, Take care everybody. Bye-bye.

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