Ways to a Toxic Free Home

Home sweet home. Our home is so much more than a house. It’s where we raise our families, celebrate life’s little moments and where we feel safe and secure. When we come home after a long day, we want to kick our feet up, relax and spend time with our families. The last thing we want to wonder “is our home really safe?” Truth is our homes are filled with toxic products. Cleaners, personal care products, candles, laundry products and more are all products we expose ourselves too every day. We may not even know how harmful they can be. This may seem a little scary or overwhelming, but the good news is there are steps you can take to create a toxic free home.

There are so many environmental toxins we expose our bodies to daily that we can’t control. Good news is we are the gate keepers to our home, and we can control the products we bring inside!

Everyone’s journey looks different, and you don’t have to go and throw all of your products away! These are some ways you can reduce toxins and things I have personally done to reduce household toxins. Take it day by day and do what you can!

This post is all about different ways to create a toxic free home.

GET RID OF FRAGRANCE

Fragrance is an umbrella term for a list of thousands of chemicals and ingredients that companies use on their products. Instead of listing out the ingredients, companies only have to put the word fragrance/perfume on the product. When the word “fragrance” is listed as the ingredient it may be composed of hundreds of different synthetic chemical compounds, none of which have to be listed on the label. 

Fragrance is a known endocrine disruptor which can trigger allergens and asthma. It is also the most common cause of “rashes” or contact dermatitis with personal care products. 

If you want an easy button or easy way to get started reducing household toxins start avoiding the word fragrance.

CHECK LABELS ON PERSONAL CARE PRODUCTS

Fun Fact: The US has some of the loosest rules and regulations on ingredients that can be used in products compared to other countries.

Europe bans thousands of chemicals from being used in personal care products where the US only bans a handful. Other countries take a much more precautionary approach and if it has the chance of being harmful, they ban it. The US hasn’t updated the laws regarding chemical testing and approval in a very long time. 

On average women apply about 300 chemicals to their face and skin per day. These chemicals include talc, bismuth, parabens, lead and mercury to name a few. When we use these products day after day and expose our bodies to all these harmful chemicals is when the toxins build up and accumulate in our bodies. This is called bioaccumulation and it happens when we take in chemicals faster than our bodies can get rid of them. 

To check the ingredients in your products you can download the “think dirty” app or go to ewg.org and plug in your products to look at the toxicity levels.

WATCH OUT FOR GREENWASHING

Have you ever seen those products that are marketed as “natural” that have fun labels that look plant based? That’s what green washing is! We cannot trust companies to tell us what is natural anymore, we have to look at the labels to see the ingredients that our inside our products. Even when we think we are making better choices by buying “green” we have to double check the labels to avoid toxins for ourselves and our families. 

SWITCH OUT PRODUCTS FOR PLANT BASED ALTERNATIVES

No judgement here! I was there! I used these products just like you. Once I knew of the toxicity of productsI use in my home I switched our products for plant based alternatives. I started to look for nontoxic cleaning supplies and nontoxic skincare to replace items I was previously using. Ditching products like febreze, Lysol, candles and fragrance filled personal care products will change your health and help create a non-toxic home

I personally use Young Living Essential Oils in place of candles, air fresheners, dryer sheets to make better choices for my family. Young Living products are also staples I use to replace cleaners, personal care products etc.

I hope this information was helpful! Like I said before take it day by day, baby steps. If you are passionate about finding ways to reduce toxins in your home and about nontoxic living start where you can and switch out products for cleaner ones as you run out. Changes like this are easy to attain when taken one step at a time and you will know your home is a safe place for you and your family!