Inside Free Living Co: Park City’s new clean living destination

PARK CITY, Utah — When Dana Grinnell couldn’t find reliable, non-toxic products for her family, she created a business that would make it easier for others to do the same.

Grinnell, founder and CEO of Free Living Co, is opening a brick-and-mortar retail space in Kimball Junction after gaining traction as an online store and home-based showroom. The new shop, located at 1476 Newpark Boulevard, Suite 100, will celebrate its grand opening on Friday with giveaways, music, and opening weekend discounts through Sunday.

“What prompted the retail space is people wanted an in-person shopping experience,” Grinnell said. “They would text me, come by the house, and just wanted to talk to someone—like, ‘Hey, I use this laundry detergent, what do you recommend?’”

Free Living Co. began in November 2023 as an online platform, with just one Baker’s rack of products on the ground floor of Grinnell’s home. However, customer demand quickly grew. “Slowly but surely, it expanded and became the entire room,” she said. “At one point I had over 100 brands, and I was like, wow—people are really wanting this.” Today, the store offers over 2,000 SKUs across 150 brands, ranging from home cleaning products and skincare to baby items and sustainable household goods.

Grinnell’s passion for clean living was sparked during her 17-year career in healthcare, where she observed patients undergoing treatment for illnesses like cancer and began to question environmental factors contributing to disease. “I started doing my own research and found out how [toxins are] literally everywhere,” she said. “At the time I was starting to think about having kids, so I became really concerned about my own health and the health and safety during pregnancy.”

One defining moment came when a bottle of detergent leaked on her way home from Costco. “It turned this crazy fluorescent purple, and I thought, ‘Oh my gosh, this is not clean at all,’” she said. “If this crept into my house, it’s definitely happening to people who don’t even know enough to look.”

Free Living Co focuses on simplifying the often overwhelming process of detoxifying home and body products. The company offers “no brainer swaps” for daily-use items and aims to guide customers with both verified clean ingredients and personal product testing. “It’s really about progress over perfect,” Grinnell said. “Just eliminating a couple of things, you’re actually doing a lot of good.”

Free Living Co vets every product it carries for safety and efficacy. The company relies on third-party verification from organizations like Environmental Working Group (EWG) and Made Safe, while also testing products in-house and consulting with integrative health professionals.“Our number one standard is: Is the product safe for repeated human use?” Grinnell said. “There are natural ingredients that are great, but also synthetic ingredients that are perfectly safe. It’s really about the overall formulation.”

The company’s top-selling products tend to be simple, high-impact swaps like dish soap, surface sprays, body lotions and laundry detergents. “People don’t mind swapping their laundry detergent,” Grinnell said. “They start to recognize the synthetic fragrances in Tide Pods as almost repelling once they start using cleaner alternatives.”

Sustainability is also central to the brand’s ethos. From upcycling shipping materials to reducing the need for multiple shipments by offering a wide range of product categories, Free Living Co aims to lessen its environmental impact.“Park City was the perfect place to launch this,” Grinnell said. “People care deeply about health and wellness—and sustainability is either the leading mission or a very close second for the brands we carry.”

This summer, the company will launch its first private-label skincare line for teen girls, certified by Made Safe and packaged in biodegradable bamboo resin. “It took us almost a year to get the right ingredients and packaging,” she said. “But it was important to me that we do it the right way—and that we’re not feeding the plastic problem in the world.”

Beyond product offerings, Grinnell hopes the store becomes a supportive, welcoming space for anyone interested in living a healthier life. “You don’t have to be a hippie, you don’t have to be wealthy, you don’t have to meditate or do yoga,” she said. “This is a place for everyone—and we want to make it fun. There’s already enough stress in the world.”

The grand opening celebration will begin at 4 p.m. Friday and run through the weekend. The store will be open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

“We’re so grateful for the support of the community,” Grinnell said. “And we’re here to serve it—whether it’s carrying the products people love or offering pop-ups, collaborations and community events.”