As perfect as your healthy lifestyle may seem with your top-notch diet, daily meditation practice and challenging exercise regime, it’s equally crucial to keep your home a pure environment that will support your health goals. Fortunately, with the help of health-conscious Aussies along with a few tips taken from American craftsmanship, you can make your home a toxin-free zone.
In order to make sure that you live in an eco-friendly home that boosts your wellbeing, let’s go through some of the most common toxins found in modern households, as well as some tips on how you can find a worthy replacement and detox your home for good!
Non-stick Cookware
While it may seem like a breeze to make food in your Teflon pan and then wash it with no effort at all, the long-term repercussions of using Teflon cookware can be truly daunting. They owe their non-stick properties to harmful chemicals such as fluoropolymers, and as practical as they might be, they are known carcinogens and overheating leads to slow degradation of the coating, and that increases your risk of exposure to the harmful substances.
Instead, you should consider opting for stainless steel or cast iron cookware, while oven-safe glass pots are perfect for baking, and all of these are eco-friendly, easy to use and although a bit more difficult to clean, their health benefits make them worth your while.
Cleaning Products
Some of the most popular home cleansers in the market use harsh chemicals which, in addition to removing dirt, stains and filth actually pollute your indoor air with toxins such as ammonia from glass cleaners, or sodium hydroxide from oven cleaners.
There are numerous DIY solutions, such as vinegar, baking soda and salt, all of which can be mixed with various oils to add a pleasant fragrance to your new health-friendly cleaning product.
Gardening Products
Although the Environmental Protection Agency and other institutions regulate and ban products with hazardous levels of harmful chemicals such as asbestos, the commonly used vermiculite in gardening can still contain trace elements of this toxic mineral, and prolonged exposure can indeed be harmful for your health.
With so many potential places it can hide in, like soil, cement or even insulation material, professional asbestos removal services in Melbourne and other large cities are becoming increasingly sought after, which is the first step towards cleansing your home. After that, you can make sure that all of your gardening products are safe, and switch to safer fireproof materials in gloves, ironing board covers and electric blankets.
Artificially Fragranced Products
From your regular air fresheners all the way to your fragranced dish soaps, vinyl flooring, plastic products and toilet paper, anything that has a label with “fragrance” on it potentially contains phthalates, as companies don’t have to disclose whether or not they contain these harmful chemicals. They pose various threats to your health, including fertility issues, breast cancer, hormonal imbalances, etc.
Strictly speaking, it’s practically mission impossible to completely remove them from your life, but the least you can do to lower your exposure to them via inhalation or skin contact is to use all-natural dish soaps, skip the air freshener and opt for low-maintenance plants and opening the window instead.
Antibacterial Products
It may feel counter intuitive at first, because we tend to trust a label that promises antibacterial properties, but products such as detergents for dishwashing, and hand soaps usually contain a chemical called triclosan, which is so harsh that it can promote the growth drug-resistant bacteria.
Substitute these dangerous chemicals with products that are all-natural, eco-friendly and that will not only help you satisfy your hygiene needs, but also improve your skin’s natural protective properties, as opposed to damaging them with aggressive ingredients.
While a single use of some of these products might not cause you any harm, prolonged exposure can only endanger your safety and wellbeing, and we all know that it’s better to be safe than sorry. All it takes is a bit of knowledge, a few steps in the right direction and you will be well on your way to a healthy, toxin-free home!
Author Bio
Chloe is an art historian, recreational ballet dancer and a young blogger. She is passionate about art, psychology, health and life in all its forms. Her biggest dream is to travel the world, take stunning photographs of beautiful places, meet amazing people and write down their stories. Chloe enjoys learning and writing about various aesthetics and health related topics. Sometimes she likes to leave her comfort zone and write about something totally different, personal and engaging.
