Baby Steps To Clean Living: natural cleaning products
Happy Friday Beauties!
First things first, we have a winner to announce. Congratulations, Janine! You are the lucky winner of the Luxe De Mer body scrub. Send me an email to claim your prize. 🙂
When it comes to removing toxins from our daily routine, cleaning products are a good place to start.
Remember, we’re taking BABY STEPS to detoxify our lives in 2015.
It’s impossible to avoid exposure to toxic chemicals altogether, but with a few simple swaps we can greatly reduce the toxic chemicals that we allow in our home.
Unfortunately, the household cleaning industry is a largely unregulated industry, which means they can use harmful chemicals in their products if they choose. Most companies are concerned with making products that work rather than products that are safe. So it’s important to become an informed consumer to protect your health, your home and your family.
Thankfully, the Environmental Working Group comes to the rescue again. You can easily search the EWG Guide To Home Cleaning and find out how products rank on their scale of toxicity.
It’s important to use their guide because even though a product appears to be “green” or nontoxic, that may not be the case. For example, Simple Green is one of the worst offenders even though it is marketed to look like a safe product.
Cleaning Products
A good place to start with cleaning out your household cleaners would be tossing out any products that are listed here on the EWG Household Hall Of Shame.
If you’re the DIY type many household cleaners can be made naturally and easily at home.
Here are a few easy recipes for DIY natural cleaning products:
photo via wellnessmama.com
If you’d rather not mess with making your own, there are a handful of high quality, non toxic cleaning products on the market.
Some of the links below are affiliate links, and at no additional cost to you, The Balanced Life receives commissions for purchases made through links in this post. Full disclosure.
These 5 all received great scores on the EWG’s database:
The Honest Company’s Cleaning Products (I use these and love that I can have them delivered to my door along with my diapers)
Hand Soap
It can be so frustrating to think we are doing something really good for our health (like washing our hands) only to find out that we may be doing the opposite.
Don’t stress about this (remember, the point is not to go crazy) but keep this in mind when you’re purchasing hand soap or hand sanitizer for your home.
Triclosan, the antibacterial agent found in antibacterial soaps and gels (and toothpaste!), is being studied for potential hormone disruption, asthma, and allergies along with the growing concern of producing antibiotic resistant bacteria.
“Triclosan-resistant bacteria: Since 2000, a number of studies have found microorganisms that are resistant to triclosan, and there is mounting evidence linking the use of triclosan with the promotion of bacteria that are resistant to both antibiotic medications and antibacterial products.” –Campaign For Safe Cosmetics
Since this is about baby steps and simple swaps so I’m going to leave it at that, but if you’d like to learn more about triclosan this article or a simple google search will bring up all kinds of interesting information.
Although we can’t avoid triclosan altogether, we can greatly reduce our exposure by using natural hand soap and antibacterial spray/gel that contains more natural ingredients.
Here are a few non toxic hand soaps and gels:
photo via honest.com
Laundry
Homemade, non toxic laundry detergent is super easy to make. You can fill a large jar and store it for months. If you’re up for that kind of thing check out Wellness Mama’s Homemade Laundry Detergent or this simple recipe by DIY Natural.
If you’re like me and you love the idea of making your own detergent but it’s probably not gonna happen, try these nontoxic laundry detergent brands:
I could go on and on, but the point is just to become aware of the toxins that find their way into our home and take steps to live a cleaner life in 2015.
Don’t be overwhelmed, just do the best you can.
Baby Steps…
1. Go through your home and toss all products that are on listed on the EWG Hall Of Shame.
2. As products run out, replace them one by one with a homemade or natural option.
3. When you find a high-quality, natural brand on sale stock up to save money in the long run.
Question: what is ONE step you will take to detoxify your home cleaning products in 2015?
xo,
PS – you may also enjoy these Baby Steps To Clean Living posts: Clean Eating, Non Toxic Baby Products, and Natural Skin Care and Makeup.
PPS – there is a BIG, long-awaited announcement coming soon! Be sure to get on this list to be the first to know. I’m dying with excitement over here. 🙂
disclaimer: This post was not sponsored. All thoughts are my own. Affiliate links are used which costs the same to you but a small percentage goes to support The Balanced Life.
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