I want to avoid toxins. Where should I go green first?
In the overwhelming world of “green living” it is often hard to know where to start. Last week I shared my suggestions for how to start saving the planet. Today I want to focus on the first baby steps you can take towards avoiding toxins in your everyday products.
For information on the importance of avoiding toxins, read my post Why be Green?.
The first place I suggest going green is with your little one’s bath and body products. (No little ones in your house? See my second suggestion below.) Here is why:
Young children, especially infants, are still doing a lot of growing and developing. Their little bodies are more susceptible to toxins. Plus because of their size, the toxins end up being more concentrated in little ones then they would be in adults.
Start with anything you put on their skin. Lotion, diaper rash cream, and bath wash are all great places to start. I love Method’s diaper rash cream. It doesn’t have the scary chemical smell that Desitin has.
If you don’t have children, then the next place I suggest you go green first is your cleaning products. It shouldn’t be any surprise that conventional cleaning products can be quite toxic. Have you ever used a product that warned you to wear gloves or use it in a well ventilated area? I have!
Lately I’ve been using Shaklee cleaning products. I like them because they are super concentrated and can be used on just about everything. Oh and the fact that they are organic is pretty nice too. 😉
Going green to avoid toxins is a very personal decision. Keeping that in mind, I decided to ask some of my favorite green bloggers what they think the first baby step should be. Here is what they had to say:
Stacy from A Good And Simple Life – An easy way to go green is to make white vinegar your best friend! You can replace your toxic cleaners, herbicides, pest control sprays, and even your chemical laden hair conditioners with vinegar! There’s nothing this stuff can’t do!!
Kate from Kinda Crunchy Kate – Going green in the home: Water, vinegar, baking soda, castille soap, and a little bit of elbow grease will clean almost anything in your home. Bonus: Your kiddos can help you clean without you worrying about what kind of fumes they are inhaling. Going green with your diet: Replace store bought chicken stock (which often has MSG and unhealthy amounts of salt in it) with healthy & nutritious homemade stock. It tastes so much better and is inexpensive to make.
Michelle from Open Eye Health – For me, starting to go green and avoiding toxins started by watching what I was putting in and on my body- first and foremost. That meant organic or natural foods whenever possible and starting to use the most natural body and hygiene products available.
Megan from Sorta Crunchy – I strongly believe that if you are a parent, the first (and probably easiest!) step is to get rid of toxic baby care products. With the amazing work done by the Skin Deep Database, it doesn’t take much time at all to invest in discovering the healthiest baby care products you can choose. And this doesn’t mean you have to spend a lot of money! Homemade baby care products are very easy to whip up as well.
Emily from Live Renewed – I think if I had to suggest one change to make first in going green it would be to get some castile soap. Castile soap is great because it is so multifunctional – you can use it in place of body soap in the shower, use it to make foaming hand soap, and use it to make non-toxic homemade cleaners. Because it’s so versitile, castile soap can help you to make changes in many different areas even though you’re only buying one product.
Stacy Karen from A Delightful Home – A simple, inexpensive, and easy way to reduce toxins is by making your own cleaners. Vinegar and baking soda can handle almost any job. The best part is, homemade cleaners are safe for your children to use (so you can put them to work)!
I love how the suggestions of starting with your little ones or your cleaning products was echoed by my colleagues. It sounds like we’re pretty much on the same page. Be sure to visit their links above for more detailed information on their suggestions.
Do you try to avoid toxins? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This post is being linked to Healthy 2day Wednesday on Day2Day Joys.
Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. Thanks for supporting Simply Rebekah.
Lots of good tips here. I love that focusing on taking care of the little ones was echoed throughout!
Thanks for sharing this. I definitely agree with you and all the other ladies above.
Getting pregnant the first time around motivated me to look at the chemicals around our home for sure. Now I make my own dish washing powder, all purpose spray cleaner, sometimes laundry powder – and if I’m not making it myself, I’m buying the greenest version I can get.
Emma, it seems like pregnancy/babies are a big motivator for a lot of families to start going green. I know it certainly made me kick it up a notch! It sounds like you’ve got it all figured out and I could learn a thing or two from you. 🙂
All I have to say it Norwex. Y’all have to check it out. I got rid of a ton of cleaners (household and body and baby) when I bought their products. Now I use water and Norwex products that have silver in them. Silver alone kills bacteria . check them out at http://www.norwex.com
I have heard nothing, but good things about Norwex. They are a home selling based company, right? I’ve got to get myself to one of their parties!
You can’t go wrong with castille soap, white vinegar and some tea tree oil. I love that I can use these products to clean my home and my body. I really started cleaning with baking soda and vinegar back when I first got married. Now 17 years later they are still the best thing to use.
Lisa, I’ve never used tea tree oil. What is that good for? Is it expensive?
Tea tree oil is great for everything. I use it my homemade disinfectant (water, castile soap and about 20 drops tea tree oil). I also make my hand sanitizer with it (water and ten drops of tea tree oil in a glass spritizer for home/my purse and ugh, plastic containers for the kids to take to school b/c they can’t take glass).
On the surface it seems expensive, but there are generic brands and it lasts for a really long time.
A diluted tea tree oil (20%…can be bought this way) is great for boo-boos. Don’t use full strength on kids. It’s too powerful.
A couple drops of tea tree oil and eucalyptus oil in boiling water makes a great steam for colds.
Thanks for all the great info, Julie!
I love the Skin Deep Database, and was going to suggest that. We went green with our kids bath products, and somewhat with ours (I couldn’t use several of the natural shampoos i’ve tried, but I am now going to try baking soda and apple cider vinegar rinse!) We switched our kids bath products, and the majority of our cleaners about 4 years ago, and I still love it and highly recommend it. We also make our own laundry detergent and stopped buying household paper products except for toliet paper (so no napkins, and no paper towels.) We use Palmolive Eco+ dishwasher detergent, but I recently found a recipe for that as well that I can’t wait to try!
Kelley, you are way greener than I am. I love it! Good luck with the “no poo” shampoo method. I haven’t taken that plunge yet. Let me know how it goes!
I, too, love tea tree oil! It’s a great antiseptic. We use it on our boo-boos, too. Melaluca makes some great products with that in mind. Still, my favorite way to clean a bathtub is with a little baking soda, vinegar, and hot water.
Check out Crunchy Betty’s website, http://crunchybetty.com/ . She has the most awesome body care ideas using primarily kitchen ingredients. And the research she puts into her topics is beyond thorough. I always feel like an expert after reading what she has compiled.
I have a suggestion for reducing toxins in your home, diffuse essential oils to cleanse the air in your home, check out my green clean shoppe on Etsy, greenchicshoppe@etsy.com. Made with essential oils.
what’s up, We a problem at my shopping center basically the club is riddled by vermin. Any reccomendations on how to get rid of them? thanking you, George.