About

Who are we? The Soft Landing Team of Moms. We’re family. We’re co-workers. And we’re serious about raising healthy kids the natural way.

What does Eco+Logical mean to us? It means protecting families first and foremost by creating a safer living environment, which also results in a more sustainable lifestyle.

We believe in caring for the earth in order to safeguard the health of our children and to honor God’s gift to us. By choosing products made with fewer toxic ingredients, and also products made by local entrepreneurs, we not only lower our impact on the earth, but we also build a solid foundation for our own economy and sustainability.

It’s all about getting started and then continuing to learn, making one change at a time. No one expects you to climb Mount Everest on your first day out! Those seemingly small, simple changes in the products you use can have long lasting impacts on your child’s health.

Join us in a powerful movement to create change and return to the basics!

Live in Kansas City!

We’re excited to bring our passion for eco+logical living home to Kansas City!

We’ve made a lot of friends and great connections during our journey in business, and we can’t wait to share them with you! You’ll find us teaching new parent and healthy living classes at local birth centers and corporations, as well as offering the first consignment and sponsorship connection program of its kind.

Kansas City Resource Guide

Our Team

Alicia Voorhies

Alicia is the oldest girl. She married her Knight in Shining Armor over 20 years ago and has homeschooled her three amazing kids for the last eight years. She’s a nurse by trade and a medical research geek. The Soft Landing was her brainchild. She loves her extended family more than anything and looks forward to every minute spent enjoying the sunshine and sitting around the campfire with them. Her best ideas always happen while she’s sleeping. Go figure.

Joanie Whitman

Joanie is girl number two. She’s a happy wife, mom and foodie who believes everyone – including babies – should come back to the kitchen table to enjoy real, unprocessed food. Joanie is founder of Itsabelly Baby Planners here in Kansas City and continues to make waves in the natural health community with her extensive knowledge of green living. She is expecting her fourth baby this year!

Laura Saville

Laura is girl number three. She had years of experience as a manager in the restaurant industry before becoming a wife and mother. She was born to handle our special projects (read difficult jobs) since she is a researcher extraordinaire. As a believer in extended breastfeeding, co-sleeping and an alternative health advocate she practices what she preaches. She is the grease that keep these wheels moving smoothly and efficiently, keeping us on course and heading in the right direction. Laura was endowed with a clear vision and firm grip on reality. She’s never been one to live in a fantasy world of how we should be living; rather she adjusts her course with the common sense changes she can practically carry out in her own life with the latest information available. And stay current she does! We count on her to keep us abreast of the latest studies and findings.

Pat Land

Pat is our Mama. She’s the Boss (or so she says – because she gave birth to us ) . She’s our mentor and motivator, cheerleader and foundational support. She broke the mold in the 1970′s when she left the formula behind against her pediatrician’s advice and exclusively breastfed her babies. She made sure we ate whole foods growing up, showing us the difference between real and fake food. She continues her search for good health and has informed the doctors about her decision to begin reducing and eventually eliminating all medications from her routine, including the one she was scheduled to take for the rest of her life to treat her heart’s atrial fibrillation. She believes that proper food intake can heal the body and is working toward getting the a-fib under control without medication.

And we can’t help but mention our Dad. We nicknamed him the Can Do Man because there’s no problem he can’t solve, no project too big. He taught us the value of integrity and hard work, thinking outside the box, and testing mainstream thoughts against common sense. He recovered from Agent Orange exposure with alternative health methods. He stretched our thinking by teaching us how to use vitamins, herbs, homeopathic remedies and other natural treatments like sinus washing. We all still call Dad for his recommendations when we catch a bug. And being an over achiever, he is both a Block Certified Master Electrician AND Plumber. When we say there is nothing he can’t do, we really mean it.

How it all Began

It all started in 2006 when Joanie, one of the Land sisters, moved to South Carolina with her husband and baby boy for a work assignment. She called home one morning after taking her son to their new pediatrician for a checkup. The doctor advised her to immediately throw out all clear, hard plastic baby bottles to protect her son from being exposed to estrogen. She left the appointment in shock and began to worry that she was dealing with a doctor who was off his rocker! So she turned to her sister Alicia, a Registered Nurse and unapologetic medical research geek, for help.

Alicia set out that day to prove him wrong but, surprisingly, hundreds of research studies only proved him right! The more information she pored over, the more she began to see a pattern of chemicals leaching from plastics and skincare products to cause endocrine disruption – especially in children. Alicia was shocked and began a search for a plastic baby bottle made without bisphenol- A to recommend to Joanie. When she came up with only one possibility and saw how hard it was to find, her continued research for safe products lead to the birth of The Soft Landing, LLC.

Safer Product Database

The Soft Landing was created to help busy parents navigate the sea of unlabeled mama and baby products. We take the headache out of locating safer alternatives—no rocket science required! With our shiny new searchable safer product database, you can easily locate healthy, eco-friendly products that have been carefully reviewed by The Soft Landing’s seasoned team of moms.

All products listed in the database have been confirmed with manufacturers to be free of cancer-causing and endocrine-disrupting chemicals like BPA, PVC, phthalates, melamine, cadmium, lead and flame retardants. Our Seal of Approval system was created after five years of researching products and constantly running into incomplete information and endless dead ends with call center reps who were unsure what’s in their products. And we’re tackling products that aren’t always straightforward too, so that it’s truly a help to frustrated parents. We’re diving into the trenches with tougher ingredients to navigate such as formamide, nano particles, microban, formaldehyde, and polyethylene glycol compounds.

As part of our ongoing search for safer products, we continually come across green manufacturers who are really getting it right in the face of competitors who rely on toxic, cheap chemicals to boost their bottom line. We make it a point to sing the praises of manufactures who are choosing to put the welfare of people before profit.

Safer Product Database

Shopping Guides and Blog

We share our experiences with researching products in an effort to educate parents about the dangers of common, everyday chemicals. Our work has been cited by ABC News, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Kansas City Star and health-conscious websites such as Dr. Greene, National Geographic’s The Green Guide, Environmental Working Group (EWG), and the Center for Health Environment and Justice (CHEJ). Alicia is currently serving as a Healthy Child Healthy World Parent Ambassador and volunteers for the Natural Parents Network.

Avoiding Toxic Chemicals