ZenCleanz Kits Explained: ONE, FORGIVE & the Rainbow
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Which one is which & how they differ
You have probably heard of ZenCleanz by now, but you're probably wondering, which one do I do first? Where do I actually begin? Which of these is the one for me?
These three are where most people begin, and part of why the naming confuses everybody is that "I'm doing a ZenCleanz" can mean any one of them. You will see the brand written both ways too, ZenCleanz and Zen Cleanz, and it is the same company either way. Which one suits you comes down to fairly ordinary things: how much time you can clear, whether you have done anything like this before, and whether you are after a single day or a full week. If you have something going on with your health, that is a conversation for the practitioner you work with rather than a page like this one.
So here they are side by side, with how long each one takes and where it sits in the order.
First, the five elements
ZenCleanz build their range around the five elements, a framework that comes from Chinese medicine and is thousands of years older than any of us. Earth, Wood, Fire, Metal, Water. Each element carries its own season, its own mood and its own part of the body, and each of their kits belongs to one of them.
I want to be clear about what that is. It is a traditional way of understanding the body, not a modern clinical one. It goes back to at least the Warring States period, and it was never only about medicine: the same five phases were used to think about seasons, music, politics and the shape of a life. If you want it properly explained, the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good entry on wuxing.
I love it because it maps the way women already sense themselves, in seasons and cycles rather than in straight lines. But it is a lens, and it is offered here as tradition.
That framework is also why the kits are numbered the way they are, and why the order is not arbitrary.
| Days | Element | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| ZenCleanz ONE | 1 | Earth | Where most people start |
| ZenCleanz FORGIVE | 1 | Wood | Usually the second |
| The Rainbow Protocol | 7 | Earth & Wood | Once you know how you respond |
ZenCleanz ONE
The Earth element, and where ZenCleanz place the beginning of the sequence. Earth is the ground beneath you and the centre you keep coming back to.
Built as a single day. Inside are numbered sachets of intestinal management powder in three formulas, plum, cacao and oat, small bottles of Ambrosia, which is their liquid enzyme, and a sachet of Fiber Crystals.
Like almost everything this brand makes, those powders are fermented, and fermented slowly. Three years, drawn from a library of more than one hundred and fifty plants. That is the whole philosophy in one line: nothing rushed, nothing stripped, plants broken open by time rather than by heat or chemistry.
It is also the gentlest place to begin. One day is a Saturday you can give up without rearranging your life, and you learn how your own body responds before you ask anything more of it. ZenCleanz themselves describe ONE as something you return to across a season of your life rather than a single event. Earth is not a thing you finish. It is a thing you tend.
ZenCleanz FORGIVE
The Wood element. Wood is movement, vision, the sap rising in spring. It is also the element that holds everything we have swallowed and not said.
Also built as a single day. It holds numbered enzyme sachets in pineapple and apple, bottles of Hygieia, which is their liquid enzyme for this pairing, and a two part Flush Formula: one bottle of lemon juice, one of cold pressed olive oil.
Two ingredients your grandmother would recognise, sitting beside a three year ferment. That combination of very old and very considered is what makes this brand what it is. If the word enzyme keeps coming up and you have never quite pinned down what one is, I have written about plant based digestive enzymes separately.
The name is not decoration. Of the whole range, this is the one that seems to ask something of you emotionally as well as physically, and I do not think that is accidental. Wood is the element of what we are still carrying, and forgiveness is the medicine that element asks for.
Most people come to this one after ONE rather than instead of it. They are not really alternatives to each other, and the order they are usually done in is the order they are numbered.
The Rainbow Protocol
The seven day one, and the largest of the three.
It is a bundle rather than a separate formula. It puts ONE and FORGIVE together with Hygieia and their three gut essentials, spread across a week instead of squeezed into a day. So if you have already done the two single days, you will recognise most of what is in the box, and if you have not, this is both of them and more.
Seven days of eating differently wants a properly quiet week, and the women who come through it happily are nearly always the ones who cleared the time before they started rather than after.
So if the Rainbow is the one you are drawn to, what to ask yourself before any cleanse is the page I would sit with first. The questions on it are about your own health, any medication you are taking, and what else your life is carrying that week. Seven days is long enough that they matter more here than anywhere else in the range.
To read more about any of these three, including the full ingredient lists and the user manuals, I have linked them at the bottom of this page.
How these are made
I think you deserve to know how a thing you are putting in your body was made, so here is what ZenCleanz publish about that.
They ferment more than one hundred and fifty plants, and almost every product in the range is fermented for three years before it reaches you. The exceptions are the FORGIVE flush bottles, the INSPIRE tea and the ORIGIN capsule.
The range is not certified organic, and they are open about why. The plants come from a global network of small farmers, and a single certification across all of them is not practical. What they say they do instead is test the finished products rather than certify each farm, and they publish the detail of that testing in their own materials.
I would rather point you at their answer than leave a silence where the organic question should be. If you want the long version of how the fermentation itself works, they have written it up in detail, stage by stage.
The ZenCleanz kits beyond these three
There are more than three. INSPIRE, FLOW and ORIGIN sit alongside them, and there is no rush to meet any of those on your first go. The three on this page are simply the ones most people begin with. The others will still be there when you are ready for them.
I found the company's own materials confusing when it came to knowing where to start and how to pace it, so I mapped the whole thing out as a six month guide over on The Nourished Woman. One a month, in the five element order, paced around your cycle rather than around a calendar.
So which one?
It usually comes down to the week rather than the box. If you cannot clear the time, the seven day one will not go the way you want it to, whatever is inside it. If you are new to all of this, a single day will tell you a great deal about how your own body responds.
Before any of them, I would sit with what to ask yourself before any cleanse. It is the piece I point people to first.
If you would like to read how a full week actually goes, that is my week with the Rainbow kit, and my ZenCleanz review has the longer view.
If you are ordering into Australia, what that actually involves is worth reading first.
Find the products here
- •ZenCleanz ONE
- •ZenCleanz FORGIVE
- •The Rainbow Protocol
- •Their user manuals and FAQ
- •5% off with the affiliate code nourished
If you are still deciding
You are welcome to write to me on Instagram. I am always happy to talk through the practical side of it, which one to begin with, how much time each really takes, and what a week asks of you before you commit to one.
Anything to do with your own health belongs with the practitioner who knows you, and they are the right person for that part. But the choosing, and the working out where you are in all of it, I would love to help with.
With love,
Jodie Louise