You are eating healthy, exercising, taking time for yourself, ensuring your home is clean and organized. But how clean is your home, really?
Many of us (with young kids) would most likely say ‘not very’ or ‘it only lasts for 5 minutes’… but Im talking about how CLEAN it is – not how organized it is ;)
If you asked me 3 years ago I would say my home is very clean because I use this cleaner and that cleaner… those cleaners were what “clean” smelled to me.
Anytime my kids were sick, I would pull out the cans of spray to disinfect, the wipes to wipe down the hard surfaces and the over the counter medication for the kids to help them feel better. It was the ‘norm’, what I would honestly say is the norm for many of us. Especially parents with young kids. This was how I grew up and absolutely no knocks to my parents, this was the norm for them too. In fact, when we were younger, after one of my siblings had a gastro virus, a major fear tactic was used on my mom that bleach was the one and only way to “properly” clean to prevent or control these viruses from spreading…
Guess what… there IS a more natural way to clean your home and with Spring here now is the time to take an all natural approach! I know it will feel odd… will it really work? I can tell you from my personal experience – it does and its quite effective!
Why is it worth it to take the all natural approach?
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 is no parallel requirement in Canada for manufacturers to warn consumers about the health and environmental hazards associated with chronic, or long-term, exposure to chemical ingredients in household cleaning products. Most of us are exposed to cleaning products and their residues at low levels on a daily basis.
When we use these chemicals to clean our home, they linger in the air 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 also enter our bodies by absorption through the skin or through ingestion of household dust and chemical residues left on dishes and cutlery. And when cleaning products are flushed down the drain, they can have a serious impact on aquatic ecosystems.
There is no regulatory requirement for ingredients to be listed on the label in a consistent format, so it can be hard to identify chemicals of concern.
Source – The Dirt On Toxic Chemicals In Household Cleaning Products; David Suzuki Foundation
Many of these chemicals are found in glass cleaners, laundry stain removers, carpet cleaners, automobile cleaners, windshield wiper fluid, degreasers, oven cleaners, liquid laundry detergent, floor cleaners, dish soap, all purpose cleaners and rust removers. One chemical in many we would be familiar with is Fragrance chemicals… to make the product smell nice! Even those products that say they contain “essential oils”, but also warn not for topical use or do not ingest… they unfortunately are not all natural!
So if all of these chemical products are actually really bad for our health… what should we be using?
In our active household we have 2 adults, 2 kids, 1 dog, 1 cat and 1 bird so ensuring our home is “clean” is key – being organized, well that’s being tackled as we renovated literally from the bottom up ;)
We have now been using completely all natural products in our home for over 2 years! A few months ago, I did the “final” clean under our kitchen sink and ditched the rest of those cleaners I had been keeping “just in case”… I hadn’t used them in over 2 years!!!
Our doTERRA On Guard Cleaning Concentrate is one of my ultimate FAV’s!!! This bottle below costs approx $20 and makes 18 bottles of cleaner!!!
The cloths that we now use in our home are Norwex! Again I was a bit of skeptic however I LOVE them! Top quality cloths and they can easily be rinsed and dried keeping that “dirty cloth smell” at bay! We use our cloths with our essential oil cleaners to add a beautiful fresh scent to our home and as a cleaning boost as well!
As a once skeptic of DIY recipes I am now a full blown Cleaning DIY Lover! I used to think, its easier to just buy a bottle and its done, no mixing or wondering if it will work… I will let you in on a not so secret-secret – they work and they work extremely effectively!
Here are a variety of Cleaning DIY Recipes for you to give a try!
Personally in our home, in the winter we use the doTERRA On Guard Cleaning Concentrate. With the variety of germs, bacteria and viruses floating around in the winter I want to ensure we are using a powerful recipe. Plus the smell of the On Guard blend in the cleaner is a fall/winter smell with a spicy, warm citrus smell!
For the spring I mix it up and use water, vinegar and citrus oils for the beautiful fresh citrus scent!
When bugs and germs are making their way around we run the diffuser to cleanse the air as well as using our cleaners – which are completely safe around kids and animals – to clean surfaces! When anyone in our house is sick – yes we do still get sick even with using essential oils (its just a LOT less now) – we apply oils regularly and diffuse! Thankfully since we’ve been using oils if any of us get sick, our bodies repair much quicker now!
Check out these recipes below…
