Would you agree that these days people are sicker, both physically and mentally, than they have ever been throughout history? Cancer, autoimmune disorders, obesity, diabetes, childhood allergies, mental health issues and many other more subtle chronic health issues are becoming more and more common. Much of the current research suggests that the solution lies in minimising our exposure to toxins…from what we choose to place around us, on us and inside us.
Learning about the dangers of the chemicals we are exposed to on a daily basis can be quite overwhelming and it’s easy to throw our hands up and decide that it’s just all too hard to make a difference! Well, you CAN make a difference to your health and your family’s health (and the future health of this beautiful planet we live on) without breaking the bank or your brain in the process. It all comes down to how you choose to approach it…small steps add up to a long distance over time, so there’s no need to try to leap into making every change you want to make today. You could choose to create a list of changes you would like to make to eliminate toxins from your life over a period of time, and consider factors such as time, finances, and relative importance to you personally. Then simply start at the top of your list and work your way down at a pace that feels right for you.
It’s also important to acknowledge that whilst we can manage our exposure to toxins in many areas of our lives, we can’t eliminate them altogether. I can often be heard remarking that “we have to draw the line somewhere” when it comes to attempting to avoid toxins, otherwise we run the risk of adversely affecting our own mental health. The effects of anxiety and stress on our physical health can be actually be more detrimental than our exposure to toxins. It must also be said that different people will prioritise things differently in their lives, and that’s perfectly OK…we are all on our own journeys. So as with everything you learn, take what resonates with you and leave what doesn’t.
As always, BE KIND TO YOURSELF and know that most often we are all doing the best that we can with what we know and the resources we have at the time. I love the statement “we can’t DO better, until we KNOW better”. So don’t beat yourself up about your past and current choices, focus on the positive impact that your learning is going to have on your future choices. Choose to feel EMPOWERED by your new knowledge and your ability to make new choices that will improve your health and your family’s health! Are you ready? Let’s do this!
HOME AS A SHOE-FREE ZONE
This is one of my favourite tips for reducing toxins in your home because it’s FREE and it’s so EASY to do! Did you know that studies have shown that you can reduce the level of harmful toxins in your home by up to 60% simply by removing your shoes before entering your home?
Consider where your shoes have been and the types of toxins that reside on the bottoms of your shoes:
- Petroleum from visiting petrol stations and even just by walking on any surface that cars drive on leaving behind a petroleum residue.
- Toxic pesticides and chemical fertilisers from walking on grassed areas.
- A vast array of bacteria and viruses from walking on all public surfaces but especially places like public toilets, hospitals, and doctors surgeries.
- Heavy metals present in soil and on other public surfaces – in their warnings about lead exposure, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) specifically recommends that shoes remain outside the house.
So ditch those shoes at the door and you can drastically reduce your family’s exposure to toxins in your home. An added bonus is you’ll reduce the amount of dirt that gets tracked into your home which means less need for cleaning and who doesn’t want that?! It can take a little while to break a long-term habit, so I find that one way to help everyone remember to remove their shoes is to have a convenient place for them to place their shoes either outside or just inside the front door. Consider investing in a shoe rack or a nice large box or any other way to designate a specific area for shoes to be stored.
CHEMICAL-FREE CLEANING
Years ago, I used to think that if products were allowed to be sold to us as consumers then they must be safe for us to use. I was shocked to learn that this is not true and that many of the products that line the shelves in shops contain ingredients that are harmful to our health.
You’re probably familiar with the hazard symbols that appear on some cleaning products, along with word like “poison”, “corrosive” or “irritant.” These hazard symbols warn consumers about acute health hazards associated with a single or short-term exposure to chemicals in the product, but there’s no requirement for manufacturers to warn us about the health and environmental hazards associated with chronic, or long-term, exposure to chemical ingredients in household cleaning products. This is partly due to the fact that these long-term effects have not actually been studied because there are no regulatory requirements for this to occur – scary stuff!
When we use these chemicals to clean our home, they linger in the air (and on surfaces) and and we breathe them in. Researchers in the U.S. identified 133 unique volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from a small sample of consumer products, including six cleaning products. Each product tested emitted between one and eight chemicals classified as toxic or hazardous under U.S. federal laws. Chemicals in cleaning products can enter our bodies by absorption through the skin or through ingestion of household dust and chemical residues left on dishes and cutlery. Not to mention that when chemical cleaning products are flushed down the drain, they can have a serious impact on aquatic ecosystems.
There are no regulatory requirements for ingredients to be listed on the label of cleaning products in a consistent format, so it can be hard to identify chemicals of concern. Pull any commercial cleaning product from your cupboard and see if you can find a full list of all the ingredients on the label…it’s unlikely you will be able to. Many labels list one or more “active ingredients” but that’s as far as it goes.
I don’t want to bore you to tears (or scare the wits out of you!) by listing hundreds of the known toxic chemicals in household cleaning products but let’s just briefly cover a few of the more common nasties…
Phthalates: found in many fragranced household products, such as air fresheners, dish soap, and even toilet paper, phthalates are to be avoided wherever possible. Phthalates have been linked to diabetes, obesity, liver and breast cancer, hormone disruption affecting fertility and development as well as linked to attention and behavioural disorders in children. Due to proprietary laws, companies don’t have to disclose what’s in their scents, so you won’t find phthalates on a label. If you see the word “fragrance” on a label, there’s a good chance phthalates are present. Phthalates are known endocrine (hormonal system) disruptors. Men with higher phthalate compounds in their blood had correspondingly reduced sperm counts, according to a 2003 study conducted by researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Harvard School of Public Health. Research has confirmed that the leaching of phthalates and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals into our waterways is altering the biology of fish, making male fish more female…yikes!
Although exposure to phthalates mainly occurs through inhalation, it can also happen through skin contact which is a significant problem, warns Alicia Stanton, MD, coauthor of Hormone Harmony (Healthy Life Library, 2009). Unlike the digestive system, the skin has no safeguards against toxins and thus absorbed chemicals go straight to our organs. You can read more about phthalates and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals here and here.
Triclosan: found in most commercial liquid dishwashing detergents and products labeled “antibacterial” such as hand soaps and hand gels. Triclosan is an aggressive anti-microbial agent and there is concern that its extensive use in consumer products is contributing to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, thus limiting treatment options for microbial infections. The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is currently investigating whether triclosan may also disrupt endocrine (hormonal) function. Recent research also suggests that triclosan is a probable carcinogen. The Canadian Medical Association has called for a ban on antibacterial consumer products. The European Union classifies triclosan as irritating to the skin and eyes, and as very toxic to aquatic organisms, noting that it may cause long-term adverse effects in the aquatic environment. You can read more about the dangers of triclosan here. Read about how antibacterial soaps containing triclosan are no more effective at eliminating bacteria than regular soap here.
Coal Tar Dyes: found in most household cleaning products, coal tar dyes are derived from petrochemicals, and may be contaminated with trace amounts of heavy metals like arsenic, cadmium and lead. There is concern that these synthetic dyes may cause cancer and heavy metals can harm the nervous system and cause other adverse health effects. Dyes in cleaning products can be absorbed through the skin or ingested in the case of soap residue on dishes. Absurdly, they are completely unnecessary to the cleaning function of the product and only used to make the product more visually appealing.
Okaaaay. So after all that doom and gloom, the good news is that there are safer, natural and effective alternatives when it comes to cleaning your home! I make many of my own cleaning products using doTERRA’s essential oils – they are very effective, it saves me a lot of money and my house smells amazing! I’ve included a couple of my favourite natural cleaning recipes below. For lots more recipes, check out my post on Chemical-Free Cleaning. To set up your own wholesale account and purchase doTERRA’s essential oils and other products at 25% (or more) below retail prices, click here.
All Purpose Spray – I like to substitute the borax for a squirt of a natural dishwashing liquid like this one. I like to use citrus oils for my kitchen spray (they smell fantastic and have great grease cutting capability), and I use doTERRA’s On Guard protective blend in my bathroom/toilet cleaner spray.
**Note: when using citrus essential oils, it’s important to use glass bottles to store your homemade products as citrus essential oils break down plastics over time and you don’t really want to be spraying plastic particles on your home surfaces. I use the 450ml amber glass bottles from Glass Bottles Direct for my cleaning sprays. They are a great local company (located at Yandina on the Sunshine Coast in QLD) with excellent customer service and fantastic prices.**
For an even easier All Purpose Spray option, you can purchase doTERRA’s On Guard Cleaner Concentrate and then dilute the concentrate with filtered water and store in a glass spray bottle. You can set up your own wholesale account and purchase this product here.
Soft Scrub for Bath, Tile & Toilet – this is the perfect natural Jif alternative and in my opinion it actually works better. I scrub all my bathroom surfaces with this first and then I spray and wipe a layer of my On Guard All Purpose Spray (the On Guard blend contains Clove oil essential oil which is great for combating mould) .
ARTIFICIAL FRAGRANCES
I’ve given artificial fragrances their own section because there is a lot of current research highlighting the very detrimental impacts that they have on our health and I believe they are a huge contributor to many of our modern health issues. This article is a fantastic comprehensive account of the impact that artificial fragrances are having on our health. Some of the following information has been obtained from this excellent article. This concerning issue even managed to make into mainstream media recently which I was pleased to see – here’s a good article from the Daily Mail. You’ll find a shorter scientific article outlining a study on the health concerns of artificial fragrances here.
We are surrounded by artificial fragrances everywhere we turn these days from the automatic air fresheners in public toilets to perfumes and scented candles, and in household cleaning product. Artificial fragrances are made up of literally hundreds of synthetic chemicals, none of which have to be disclosed to the consumer or have been tested for safety. According to an Environmental Working Group (EWG) study, 72% of products with the ingredient “fragrance” contained phthalates (see above for info on phthalates).
Up to 95% of these synthetic chemicals used to make fragrance recipes are derived from petrochemicals (more info on this here). These particular ingredients are known (according to a 1991 EPA analysis) to cause cancer, birth defects, nervous system disorders, asthma, and allergies. To make matters even worse for the unsuspecting public, many products labeled as “unscented” are actually the fragranced product with the addition of another masking fragrance.
Since eliminating anything with an artificial fragrance from our home several years ago, I find I am even more sensitive to them than I was previously. I can now experience almost instant headache and nausea when exposed to strong artificial fragrances such as those smelly toilet fresheners that stick to the inner bowl of the toilet or the air fresheners in public toilets.
Thankfully, we have a much safer alternative that smells far better and can actually positively impact our health rather than harming it! doTERRA’s Certified Pure Therapeutic Grade (CPTG) essential oils are 100% pure and rigorously tested to ensure that they do not contain, pesticides, synthetics, fillers or anything else that can be harmful to our health. What’s more they are sourced indigenously from each plant’s natural habitat in an ethical/sustainable model that supports Australian farmers and farmers globally. This sourcing model means that the end product is not only pure but also potent (i.e. has powerful therapeutic value). You can read more about why I love doTERRA here. You can find out more about purchasing the oils wholesale or retail here.
I use doTERRA’s essential oils to naturally fragrance our home by diffusing the oils in an ultrasonic diffuser. Aromatic use of doTERRA’s essential oils can provide many positive physical and emotional health benefits. I diffuse essential oils based on my needs in either one or both of these areas. For example, I diffuse Easy Air respiratory blend (called Breathe in the U.S.) when myself or a family member is in need of respiratory support, On Guard protective blend for immune support, Citrus Bliss invigorating blend first thing in the morning to promote a positive mood and give me an energy boost, or Serenity calming blend at bedtime for a restful night’s sleep. It’s important not to heat essential oils (like in a traditional oil burner), as heating will destroy the therapeutic properties of the oils. doTERRA’s essential oils have such powerful therapeutic value that it would be a shame to lose the therapeutic benefits of these oils by heating them!
I make our own safe and effective air freshener spray with two simple ingredients – doTERRA essential oils and water! I use 100ml blue glass bottles for these room sprays and I buy them from Glass Bottles Direct. I like to use Purify cleansing blend for our toilet air freshener and Miss 4 loves her “sleepy spray” at bedtime which contains Lavender, Roman Chamomile and Juniper Berry (which is fantastic for warding off nightmares). The beautiful Joey from Essentially Me has created a divine room spray for her little girl, you can get the recipe here.
Some other super simple non-toxic air freshener ideas:
- Fill a small glass jar 2/3 of the way to the top with bi-carbonate of soda and then add 10-15 drops of essential oils and punch some holes in the top to release the aroma. Give the jar a little shake every now and then to release the fragrance. These little jars are great for the bathroom, toilet or linen cupboard.
- Place 1-2 drops of essential oil on the inner cardboard roll of your toilet roll. The aroma will remain for the life of the toilet roll and each time the roll spins around the aroma will be released into the area. I love to use doTERRA’s Purify cleansing blend for this, as it has powerful odour eliminating properties and other popular choices are Lavender, Lemon, Lemongrass or Melaleuca (Tea Tree).
Get started making your own divine, natural and safe air fresheners by purchasing doTERRA essential oils here.
NATURAL BODY CARE
The average person is exposed to more than a hundred chemicals from cosmetics, soaps, and other personal care products before leaving the house in the morning! While people may assume these products are safe, their chemical ingredients are mostly untested and largely unregulated, with known carcinogenic and endocrine disrupting chemicals still found in some formulations. What’s more, ingredient labels can be misleading, leaving even the savviest consumers in the dark about the safety of the products they use every day.
There is very little regulation around the ingredients that are allowed to be included in personal care products. Even known offenders such as formaldehyde, triclosan, and phthalates are still legally permissible in product formulations. Companies are allowed to label their products organic, natural, or hospital-approved based on their own interpretation of the terms. They can also hide problematic ingredients in proprietary formulations by listing them as “fragrance” on a label.
When we use body care products (soaps, haircare products, skincare products, toothpaste, deoderant and cosmetics), we swallow, breathe in, and absorb all the ingredients into our bodies and these toxins can have serious short-term and long-term effects on our health. Chemical exposure from personal care products has been linked to rising rates in breast cancer, asthma, reproductive problems, and other health issues. Many chemicals in personal care products have never been tested for safety, and may also accumulate and interact in potentially harmful ways.
You can find more information on the toxic ingredients to look out for in your personal care products here, here, here. The Skin Deep Database set up by the U.S. Environmental Working Group (EWG) is a fantastic resource if you want to find more information about the safety of each of the specific ingredients in your personal care products.
Now for the good news! There are heaps of fantastic natural and effective personal care products on the market these days, though it’s important to do your research to find the ones that are truly toxin-free. You can also choose to take matters into our own hands and make your own natural and effective products at a fraction of the price. Here’s the ones that I swear by:
Deoderant: We make our own delicious smelling and effective deoderant using the following recipe:
15 drops Purify essential oil
5 drops Arborvitae essential oil
5 drops Frankincense essential oil
5 drops Lemon essential oil
5 drops Lavender essential oil
5 drops Patchouli essential oil
Fill the remaining space with doTERRA Fractionated Coconut Oil.
This blend has a lovely unisex scent which Mr Purely Thriving and I both love, and it works so well for both of us. The beauty of using doTERRA’s Fractionated Coconut Oil is that it is far less greasy than regular coconut oil, it’s more rapidly absorbed and it doesn’t stain your clothes like regular coconut oil. I use 50ml glass roller bottles that are about the same size as a normal deoderant roller which I purchased at the doTERRA Australia Convention last year, however, I have been unable to find more of these to purchase. You can find 50ml plastic roller bottles that you could use for this recipe here or if you’d prefer to use glass rollers you could purchase their 10ml rollers and adjust the recipe accordingly. Alternatively, you could make this recipe in a small glass jar and dip clean fingers into the bottle to apply.
If making your own deoderant is in the “too hard basket” for you right now (which is totally OK!), my previous favourite deoderant before making my own was Black Chicken Remedies deoderant paste. Many health food stores stock this amazing product now and if your favourite local store doesn’t have it then just ask them if they can order it in for you.
Handwash: We make our own handwash using Organic Liquid Castile Soap and various essential oils. I choose to use ceramic soap dispensers to store this hand wash and use different essential oils for different purposes. Our bathroom handwash contains On Guard protective blend or you may prefer to buy doTERRA’s On Guard Foaming Handwash. Essential oils like Lavender and Geranium have excellent skin nourishing properties, so they make a great addition to your homemade handwash.
Body wash/Shower Gel: As above, combine essential oils with Organic Liquid Castile Soap for a gorgeous natural and effective body wash. Citrus Bliss invigorating blend is a beautiful essential oil blend to use for a body wash to awaken and energise you in the morning, and Serenity calming blend (Lavender Peace in Aus) makes for a relaxing and soothing addition to your nighttime bath routine. I also love Lemongrass and Peppermint essential oils in liquid castile soap as a morning body wash.
Toothpaste: I have tried so many natural toothpastes and I never found one that I was 100% happy with until I tried doTERRA’s On Guard Natural Whitening Toothpaste. This amazing formula ticks all the boxes for me – free of all nasties, great consistency, great flavour, and awesome results.
Hair Care: There’s so many “natural” hair care products on the market these days and let me tell you I have tried LOTS of them. It has cost me literally hundreds of dollars to find one that is actually toxin-free AND effective. I use the doTERRA Shampoo & Conditioner. These products smell divine, they don’t weigh down my fine hair and a little goes a long way so they are very cost effective.
Sunscreen: There are concerns about the health effects of chemicals in sunscreens, including the dangers of nano-particles. This is quite a complex topic and not one I’m going to get into but if you’d like to learn more Sarah Wilson does a great job of summarising the current issues in this blog post. Some brands of natural sunscreen that we like to use are Soleo and Wotnot. You can search the EWG’s Skin Deep Database for the ingredients in your sunscreen to check their safety, though this site does list mostly U.S. sunscreens if you are searching the brand rather than each individual ingredient.
Natural Antibacterial Hand Gel: The nasties in those antibacterial hand gels that everyone seems obsessed with these days make for a whole blog post on it’s own. There are some very concerning ingredients in these products, many of which I’ve mentioned in this post. Think about it…you are putting these toxic chemicals on your hands (and your children’s hands) often before eating food, so not only are these toxins entering the body via absorption through your skin, you are also ingesting them when you eat your food. We make our own antibacterial hand gel by combining natural aloe vera gel (be sure to check the ingredients for added nasties) with the addition of On Guard protective blend and I carry this in my handbag in a Press Pump Dropper Bottle from Glass Bottles Direct.
Natural Pest Control: If a chemical repels or kills insects, it’s likely that it’s not going to do your body a whole lot of good either…makes sense right? For an awesome effective insect repellent recipe, check out my blog post here. A few years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about having our home “treated for pests” but since learning about the health effects of the chemicals used in domestic pest control, I’ve taken on the task myself with excellent results. Firstly, I’ve noticed that since I’ve started using my own homemade cleaning products with essential oils, we’ve rarely had to deal with pest like ants, spiders, and cockroaches. On the rare occasion that we’ve had these kinds of critters in our home, I’ve had great success with using doTERRA’s essential oils to deter them. Some of the oils that we’ve had success with are Peppermint, Thyme, Cedarwood and Rosemary.
Click here to get started using doTERRA’s essential oils to make some of the above recipes.
PURE DRINKING WATER
This is one toxin-free step that I prioritised highly when we were taking steps to eliminate the toxins in our home. It may be one of the more expensive toxin-free choices when it comes to purchasing a good quality water filter but in my opinion, it is worth every cent. 50- 75% of our body weight is made up of water, so it’s not surprising that drinking purified water that is free of chemicals and other contaminants can have a dramatically positive effect on our health. Water from our taps contains a range of contaminants including pesticides, hormones and even trace amounts of prescriptions drugs…aarghh! Plus it’s disinfected with potential carcinogens like chlorine, ammonia and or chloramines, then “fortified” with fluoride. You can read more about this here and here, and in this article even Choice admits some of the dangers of drinking tap water.
I recommend avoiding using bottled water where possible due to the enormous detrimental impact on the environment of all those plastic bottles in landfill as well as the energy used to produce this single use product, and the energy used to recycle the small amount of bottles that make it to recycling plants. The quality of bottled water is also questionable at times.
If you do want to start drinking pure water but need time to save for a water filter, I recommend buying the Pureau casks of water. Their water is guaranteed to be completely free of chlorine, bacteria, fluoride, sodium and other impurities that are prevalent in both tap and bottled water, and the cask is a far safer and more environmentally friendly storage choice. Plus you will save quite a lot of money (and reduce environmental impact) by purchasing a Pureau cask and re-filling a stainless steel or glass water bottle rather than buying cartons of plastic bottled water.
As far as water filters go, I use and recommend Zazen water filters. Learn more about them here. You can also purchase one of these fantastic filters here and please contact me if you’d like to chat more about them.
JUST EAT REAL FOOD
This is fairly self-explanatory but I’d like to emphasise the words REAL FOOD. We need to nourish our bodies with good food for optimum physical and mental health. Yes, what you eat not only affects your physical health, it directly affects your mental health and there is lots of current research to support this, read more here. There is a lot of disagreement these days about what we should all be eating. I don’t subscribe to the theory that there is one diet that is best for everyone…we are all different and people respond differently to different foods. Listen to your body – it will tell you which foods work best for you.
We can certainly all benefit from minimising processed foods in our diets though, and focusing on eating a large amount of fresh vegetables and a moderate amount of fruit, and good quality protein and good fats from natural sources. If you can afford to buy organic fruit, vegetables and animal products (if you choose to eat these), this can also greatly reduce your exposure to toxins and maximise your nutrient intake. Buying less convenience foods that are highly processed can also save you quite a lot of money. For example, consider how much you could save each week by buying a 1kg tub of natural unsweetened organic yoghurt and sweetening it with raw honey and vanilla powder or paste, and then filling Sinchies for school/kindy lunches rather than buying packs of little tubs of yoghurt. Much less plastic for landfill, less processed sugar for little bodies and significant savings for you – it’s win-win all round!
Lastly, eating real food most of the time requires a bit of extra planning and organisation. A weekly meal plan is a fantastic way to keep on track, and it’s helpful to regularly cook large batches of meals and freeze portions for occasions when you are time-poor or don’t feel like cooking. Also, if it’s not in the cupboard or the fridge, then you can’t eat it. So try and resist the urge to throw those not-so-real foods in your trolley and then you can’t be tempted to eat them. Some of the blogs I love to follow for delicious recipe inspiration are Well Nourished, Wholefood Simply, Pinkfarm, Mummy Made. It, Alexx Stuart, Pete Evans and Quirky Cooking (you don’t need a thermomix to make most of Jo’s recipes).
So let’s “draw the line” there for now. There are lots of other topics that I toyed with the idea of including in this post but there’s just too much information for one post….plastics, microwaves, wi-fi, the list is almost endless! It really is a bit like falling down a rabbit hole when you start learning about toxin-free living.
I hope that you have found some of the information in this post useful for your own learning and that you’ve been inspired to make some new choices to reduce the toxins in your own life. Remember…be kind to yourself and know that small steps add up to a long distance over time!
Blessings,
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