Today, I’m bringing you all the tips, advice and insight you need to ditch the toxic products in your home.
OKAY, so I’ve wanted to switch to non-toxic lifestyle for years but there were so many things holding me back. For starters, it’s so hard! When it comes to accessibility and affordability, a nontoxic home seemed way too out of reach for me.
Well, now that I’ve been home full time for SIX WHOLE MONTHS, I was ready to take the leap.
My biggest pieces of advice for you, if you’re thinking about purging your house of toxic products and unneccesary chemicals, is take it slow! I’d call it more of a low-toxic lifestyle than non-toxic.
All you have to do is start somewhere– maybe it’s that air freshener that gives you a headache, those stained plastic food containers that are way passed their time, or that candle that you’re always burning but makes your house feel stuffy and stale. Ok, so it was a mix of all three for me!
I wanted to change all of these things for my family to feel healthier and BE healthier. Here’s how I started.
First I made a checklist of the top 30 things I want to switch out. You can find that here. This helped me narrow down a starting point, because it can be SO overwhelming when you’re just looking through your house looking for things.
KITCHEN PLASTICS: I decided to start in the kitchen by purging our plastics. Why ditch plastic in the kitchen? There are thousands of chemicals used to make plastic, and it’s not a secret that those chemical leach, especially when heated! If there’s one place you don’t want chemicals leaching, it’s where your food is prepared!
So, whether you’re putting hot noodles in a plastic strainer or Tupperware in the dishwasher, you’re exposing your food to toxins. The good news is…. it’s completely unnecessary, because there are other options!
The plastic in our kitchen was everywhere, sigh. food containers, our strainer, some spatulas and measuring spoons. We replaced them all with glass, wood or stainless steel. Here are a few of the things we got and love.
CANDLES: I’ve always been obsessed with candles. I love anything that smells like it’s baking in the oven– cookies, cinnamon rolls…vanilla everything. After I replaced them with a diffuser, I still kept them sitting around for weeks. I wasn’t sure I was ready to say goodbye forever. In less than two months, I’m addicted to my diffuser.
But first, let me tell you why I knew I needed to stop burning candles in our home. Everything from the wax to the fragrance is filled with chemicals. burning them releases highly toxic VOC’s that my family was breathing in. They cause a range of health issues from headaches to cancer. Say no more, BYE!
A good diffuser will cost you about as much as four candles, and it’ll last WAY longer. Enter Young Living into my life. A starter kit from Young Living comes with a good diffuser and bunch of oils. I started mixing a ton of different scent. I tried so many recipes! I liked lavender, lemon and peppermint first thing in the morning and late at night. And you can’t go wrong with a mix like cinnamon, orange and nutmeg. Using the oils is definitely a different experience than lighting a candle, but I love it! Plus oils have so many healing properties that I take full advantage of as well. My morning routine is to pour a cup of coffee and turn on my diffuser.
Once I got comfortable with my oils, I started using them as air fresheners too, and I’ve added oils to baking soda for a carpet refresher– My fav.
CLEANING PRODUCTS: Boy am I happy to see all of these go. Goodbye Febreze, Clorox Wipes, Windex… and a dozen other chemical filled cleaning products that have always made my head hurt. I bought a couple of glass spray bottles. In one I mixed a vinegar water solution and in the other I used Young Living’s Thieves Cleaner, which happens to smell like cinnamon and heaven mixed together.
LAUNDRY: It’s probably no surprise to you that a lot of the same harmful chemicals in candles and cleaning products are also in laundry detergent. Since our clothes sit on our skin (the largest organ in our body, YIKES) all day long. I can’t even imagine how many we’re coming into contact with every day.
It was out with the dryer sheets and in with wool dryer balls right away for me. I add a few drops of lavender to them to for scent, amazing.
Our Laundry detergent is next!
Two months later and we’re still in the process of switching out our products. The best advice I can give is to take it slow. It’s not realistic to change your whole house over night.
Next up for us is personal care products like deodorant and body lotion.
