Clean Freak: Time To Learn About The Toxins in Our Cleaning Supplies.

I’m a clean freak.  Guilty as charged and not ashamed.  I am one in a long line of matriarchs obsessed with a clean home, and as far as I can tell, this gene has been passed on to my daughter as well.  

Keeping my house clean and organized just makes me feel good.  This, of course, extends to laundry. Call me crazy, but I love doing laundry. I love for every item of clothing my little family wears to smell good and be nice and soft.  

No one ever runs out of socks and underwear, and it’s a point of pride for me.  I’m kind of a modern day Suzie Homemaker, and totally ok with that.  Doesn’t make me any less independent or worthy of a revolution, don’t worry.

There was a time I would troll the supermarket shelves looking for the most potent, scented, anti-stain, softening laundry concoctions available.  Then of course, I got “woke” and realized that the super laundry products I was using were full of chemicals and that stuff was rubbing off on my kids’ skin, and mine.  

Once again I realized my shopping habits had to change.  I started digging deep to find the dirt on commercially prepared and sold laundry detergents.  I found that they contained chemicals that did not rinse off in the wash and remained on our clothes, transferring onto our skin, for days after being washed and dried.  

Some of these chemicals include benzaldehyde, artificial fragrances, diethanolamine, qauternium-15, 2-butoxyethanol, perchlorethylene, ethyl acetate, nonylphenol ethoxylate, and petroleum distillates.  See any of those on the ingredient list of your detergents, and you might want to throw those babies out with the bath water.

It’s a concerning thing when research shows that the dryer vent of the average home contains 25 different VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds) with seven of them being classified as hazardous air pollutants.  And we want that stuff stuck onto our skin, why??  

Luckily, finding healthy alternatives for laundry soap was easy….and yes, I know you can  make your own and that it’s way cheaper blah blah blah…but I suck at DIY, am a total Pinterest project failure…..and buying it pre-made was the only way the clothes in my house were going to get clean.  

What wasn’t so easy was finding a fabric softener alternative that wasn’t full of carcinogens.  Not easy at all.  Mind you, fabric softener isn’t something that I always feel I have to use, but we’ve all felt the struggle of doing laundry in winter when static cling is on advanced level fire.  

Sometimes you just need something to keep your g-strings from clinging onto your son’s hoodie because, damn, that makes for an embarrassing middle school drop-off.

So, what’s a girl to do to keep her clothes cling-free?  Well, after finding out that the dryer sheets on store shelves contain acetaldehyde, benzene, and toluene….all of which are classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as carcinogens….I had to get back to work and find some less deadly alternatives. I mean who the hell gives the approval for this junk to get put in our stuff anyways?!  

What I found is that there aren’t many actual dryer sheets that are friendly to our bodies and the environment.  A few companies make them (links below), but the cheapest is to use dryer balls (link to that below too), herbal sachets (the lavender ones from Trader Joe’s are great), or simply by adding a cup of white vinegar to your rinse cycle, or by tossing a vinegar soaked cloth to your dryer load. The vinegar smell goes away. I promise.  Easy peasy.

I know I can’t protect myself and my kids from all the crap in the air, the water, etc…..our bodies are on a constant toxin overload.  We are built to naturally detox, but this over-saturation is wreaking havoc on all of us.  Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it’s not.  

Allergies, skin irritations, inflammation, chronic illnesses, hormonal disruption…..there are so many ways in which this chemical overload is affecting us that it’s essential to do whatever we can to at least cut back on our exposure somewhat. Especially for the kids. We owe it to them.  

Being healthy doesn’t have to cost a lot either….things like dryer balls that last forever, or using white vinegar, is completely cost effective….and believe me, your bodies will thank you for the change.

**As an affiliate, I make a small portion of every sale made via links in this blog.