Clean Mama’s cleaning routine brings tidiness, calm, and margin to your home

As an art teacher, Becky Rapinchuk ’97 would send little tags home on her students’ color-splattered clothing—“this is acrylic paint, and this is what you need to do to get it out.” 

“I loved helping parents with the laundry,” says Rapinchuk. “And I’ve always enjoyed the experimentation of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to cleaning.” 

That knack for getting tough stains out, as well as keeping things tidy, turned out to be a harbinger of Clean Mama. Rapinchuk—a source of practical resources and tips to maintain a well-kept home now known as Clean Mama—has more than two million followers on social media. She has a blog, a “Homekeeping Society,” cleaning courses, and her own line of natural, safe cleaning products. The brand offers laundry powder and dish soap, as well as paper products—everything from planners and notepads to digital links that automatically add the Clean Mama cleaning routine to your Google calendar. She’s the author of four books, most recently Clean Mama’s Guide to a Peaceful Home; has been featured on Oprah.com and HGTV; offered cleaning consulting to Scotch-Brite and Bissell; and regularly contributes as online columnist and home expert for Real Simple, the New York Times, Houzz, and Martha Stewart, among others.

This widespread success, however, was never her end goal. With an art education major and photography minor from Bethel, Rapinchuk immediately went into teaching—and cleaned colleagues’ houses for a little extra cash on the side. “But I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, and God knew that that was my heart,” she says. “Doors have not just flung open. Instead, He’d open a door, just a little bit, and I’d say, 'I guess I could try that,’ or ‘let’s see where this goes’ or ‘OK, that’s not so bad.’”

By the time her second child was born in 2007, Rapnichuk was living her dream—home full-time with her little ones. But she was also keeping her house so cozy and clean that friends and family were asking her for tips or print-outs of her routine. She began blogging and opened an Etsy shop in 2009 to sell PDFs of her steps. Her system began catching on and getting featured in various magazines. The birth of her third child in 2013 brought more laundry, more messes, and more cleaning challenges, but as she tweaked and updated her routine to work through these, she continued blogging about it. “I was living it. I was in the thick of mothering, working, trying to keep my house clean, and keep everything together, and it was working,” she says. “So, that’s what I was sharing with people.” Then she was offered her first book deal—The Organically Clean Home: 150 Everyday Organic Cleaning Products You Can Make Yourself—The Natural, Chemical-Free Way.

What she offers is a way to bring not just cleanliness to your home, but calm and happiness because getting efficient with your to-dos frees up both mental and physical space. Some chores are done daily, some weekly, some monthly—leaving you with margin to breathe and spend time with family. To get help perfecting this system in your home, you can read her blog, download her free guides, take a course, or become a member of her Homekeeping Society—what might be her favorite corner of the business, Rapinchuk says.  

“I do live events with Homekeeping Society members, and people can ask me questions. I love Q&As because I'm a problem solver,” she says. “Tell me how bad the mess is, and let me help you.”

Although Rapinchuk doesn’t broadcast her faith, people—often overwhelmed moms—will ask her if she’s Christian. And she has had many opportunities to speak to MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) groups, women’s bible studies, and single mom ministries at churches. She didn’t land in a job squarely within her art education major, but she says Bethel prepared her to be well-rounded and equipped her with critical thinking and problem-solving skills. “I am still teaching in a way. I’m laying out step by step how you can get that done. I’m giving you the how-to. And with my photography minor, I have an eye for making things pretty, ” she says. “Bethel’s liberal arts education sets you up for whatever you end up doing.” For a time, she shared this with prospective students as an online admissions counselor for Bethel—another way God allowed her to be home with her three children, while still working part-time during the early years of Clean Mama.

Looking ahead, Clean Mama has a new line of organizing, cleaning, and laundry products coming out in early 2025 at PopShelf, now with some 220 stores mainly throughout the southeast United States. Rapinchuk and her husband George ’95, also a Bethel grad, live in the Chicago area. Their little ones aren’t so little anymore, with the oldest one now in college. But her home still needs cleaning and so do the homes of millions of mamas—and dads!—who could use some help. 

“I became a cleaning expert because I was sharing it and living it and creating things,” Rapinchuk says. “And I can see God’s hand woven through the entire story. It’s so fun, and there’s a mission behind it.”

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Throughout all of Bethel’s 100+ areas of study, you’ll experience outstanding preparation that will equip you for your career and help you reach your full potential. Learning from distinguished scholars, you’ll gain critical thinking and problem-solving skills that you’ll use no matter your chosen field. 

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