Enjoy Non-Toxic Spring Cleaning in Your Home
Have you struggled with how you can do non-toxic spring cleaning? Here are tons of resources for you and some easy ways to get started.
By Ann Timm
Spring is here and I’ve been ‘spring cleaning’ a lot lately! I spent all Saturday scrubbing every corner of each one my bathrooms. Normally the kids clean their own areas, but this is the perfect time to freshen up my home doing those once or twice a year tasks that nobody loves.
Opening up the windows and then scrubbing baseboards, washing walls, getting into those hard-to-reach places… and then there are the cabinets and blinds and all those other “cleanliness” tasks, but it’s also a great time to think about those unseen invaders lurking in our homes…dangerous toxins!
It’s a little overwhelming, don’t you think? There has been an overload of talk the last few years of the many beauty and skincare products, cleaners, foods, kitchen items, and even furniture, decor, and clothing in our homes that contain harmful chemicals that make their way into our bodies through our skin, mouths, and lungs.
They may be invisible to our naked eye, and they are often absorbed in minuscule amounts, but these toxins have very real and serious effects, and we are just beginning to learn the negative effects they are having on our bodies and on the environment. Do what you can to stay clear of them and remove them from your home.
Here are some of the best posts from our archives to help you clean your home from toxins. Browse through them and see if there is anything you can start doing differently today.
Cleaning:
- Two Recipes for Odor-Eliminating, Air-Freshening Sprays
- Back to the Basics: Frugal, Non-Toxic, Green Cleaning
- Forget the Bleach: How to Use the Sun to Whiten Your Whites
- Clean Your Shower or Bathtub Simply
- A Natural Stain Remover that Really Works
- The Stain Removal Trick that Saves Kids Clothes, Money and My Sanity
- How to Get Set in Stains Out of Almost Anything
- Non-Toxic Disinfectants
- Better, Cheaper, Safer 4-Way Soft Scrubber
- Non-Toxic Cleaners You Can Make at Home
- Natural and Eco-Friendly Laundry Soap Review: 5 Moms Test and Compare
Beauty, Skin Care, and Hygiene:
- How to Make Your Own Natural Skin Care Products
- Gentle, All Natural Deodorant Stick Recipe
- My Frugal Beauty Routine
- My Mama Cloth Adventure and Review of Four Sources
- Naturally Female
- Thoughts on Sunscreen Part 1 and Part 2
- Safe and All Natural Beauty Products You Can Make at Home
- Making My Own Shampoo and Conditioner (Using the No ‘Poo Method)
- How to Wash Your Face Using the Oil Cleansing Method
Gardening and Yard Care:
In Your Home:
- Harmful Handwashing: The Dangers of Antibacterial Soaps
- How to Protect Your Family from the Dangers of Formaldehyde
- How I Stock my Natural Medicine Cabinet
In Your Kitchen:
- My Simple Cast Iron Care Routine
- The Great Debate: Washing Our Fruits and Vegetables
- The Dirty Dozen: Making the Most of the Money You Spend on Organics
- Using Stoneware for Baking and Cooking
- 31 Ways to Use a Mason Jar in Your Kitchen
For Babies and Children:
- Safe and Natural Children’s Toys
- Healing Rashes While Cloth Diapering
- Children’s Sleepwear: Avoiding Flame Retardent Chemicals
General Ideas:
- 9 Toxins to Remove From Your Life
- Our ebook, Clean and Simple, which you can sign up for below:
Having trouble getting started?
Just pick one area that you’ve been thinking about making the change in.
Maybe you have an old teflon pan that is peeling and you need to throw it out and replace it. Don’t feel like you have to replace the whole set at once, you can replace them one at a time with cast iron or stoneware instead.
Do you have some concerns about antibacterial soap and you are considering whether you should stop buying it? You could make your own pretty easily.
Or, as you use up one conventional cleaner you might want to replace it with a more natural one, like a soft scrub or air freshener.
There are many choices, but all you have to do is start. Just start somewhere. Anywhere.
Where are you focusing on going non-toxic in your spring cleaning?
