Baby steps to a healthier home – Hf #121

This is a topic that I am very passionate about and have been for the past 6 or 7 years. I think in our world today, it’s very important to know what’s in our food, our cleaners, and our beauty supplies. 

This is obviously a huge topic, but I’ve been wanting to do a talk on this for a while. We’ve been chatting a lot lately about healthier eating, so I wanted to switch gears a bit and talk about the other areas of having a healthy home. Listen in here: 

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I started getting interested in more natural things before we got pregnant with our first set of twins. I was starting to see more articles and things about toxins and began doing a little research. 

Then when I got pregnant with our first baby (which turned out to be twins), I really started investigating things. Suddenly, I wasn’t just eating for one, I was eating for three!! Suddenly, the things I was ingesting and putting near my body were more important. 

Then of course the babies came and I wanted to know even more: What about laundry detergent? Do they need baby lotion? What’s a healthy way to deal with stomach pain and spitting up? And the list goes on and my healthy living journey began…

Of course it’s been a long journey and I’ve learned a lot along the way! So today I wanted to share some of what I’ve learned. And my favorite resources for healthy living (PLEASE leave your favorites in the comments below)! 

Start off Slooooooow

 When working on our health, or switching to natural cleaners, it can easy to want to jump in with both feet! When I first started realizing how dangerous all of my go-to cleaning products were, my temptation was to throw it all out and go out and buy everything new. 

The problem? I didn’t have the time to research all those new products and most importantly, I didn’t have the money!! So as I would run out of one item, I would replace it with a natural option and so on. 

So start out slow, don’t get overwhelmed! Pick one product, or one item at a time and slowly start replacing things. 

HELPFUL HINT: Use EWG’s Skin Deep database (for cosmetics) and their healthy living database (for cleaning supplies) or download their app to make it easy! You can look up all your household products and get an individual safety rating for each! Our family personally tries to stay at about 3 or 4 and under depending on the reason for the rating. 

It doesn’t have to cost a ton to switch to healthier options! 

I used to think that “healthy” and “natural” was synonymous with “expensive” and “costs too much”! But that’s simply not true. 

YES, there are some overly expensive items and companies out there. And YES, I think it is worth it sometimes to spend more on quality items (deodorant has often fallen into this category for me). But many other items tend to be a lot less expensive than the alternatives! 

For example, I’ve been using Grove’s concentrated kit which is simple, easy, and very cost effective! They sell a 3 pack of their concentrates for $7.95!!! You get their glass cleaner, all-purpose cleaner, and tub and tile cleaner. You just have to add the concentrate to water and for less than $8 you have three fabulous natural cleaners that replace a ton! 

They also sell each concentrate on it’s own and glass bottles with colors that match. So I got their complete kit which contains all three concentrates, three glass bottles in the three colors, AND three microfiber clothes in the matching colors as well. This is currently sold out on Grove’s website because one of the colored glass spray bottles is out, but I’m hoping it’s coming back soon! You can get started with the concentrates and two glass bottles though, or use your own bottles! 

In fact, it’s often easier! 

Like I just shared, switching to natural options often is much simpler. Instead of 12 different cleaners, you can switch to 3 very good natural cleaners that serve many purposes! It’s been great to simplify! 

A good example: If you are used to buying box after box of dryer sheets, you can replace these with a one time purchase of wool dryer balls. Not only are these a natural dryer sheet, they also cut down on drying time, AND you can put essential oils on the balls and then throw them in the wash for a natural scent on your clothes! 

HINT: Our favorite scent for cutting out icky mold smell, is Plant Therapy’s deodorizing blend essential oil(works great and smells great)! I put a few drops of this on my wool dryer balls. And because I always get asked this: Grove has a GREAT set of 3 wool dryer balls for only $15.95 (remember, you basically re-use these for life so it’s a great one time investment). 

Where I Shop Online: 

I pretty much exclusively shop for natural cleaning and household products online, it’s just so much cheaper! But it’s so nice now that you can often find healthier brands at your local stores in a pinch! This was not the case even 7-10 years ago! Here are my three favorite stores:

VitaCost -Vitamins & Supplements

Vitacost is a great and affordable source for good vitamins and supplements. They carry EVERYTHING so you definitely have to sift through to find the actual healthy items. 

Some of my favorite items include:

•  Strawberry Cod Liver oil pills that my kids LOVE! 
• Probiotic powder for the kids
• Natural sea salt (our favorite brand!!)
• My personal favorite toothpaste
• Our very favorite liquid stevia

Honest Company 

Honest company is a brand I love, but more and more I’ve found replacement items from places like Grove. So I don’t do orders with Honest very often anymore but my favorite items include: 

• Bubble bath
• Sunscreen spray
• Laundry Detergent

You can order individual items from Honest but it’s much more expensive. Or sign up for one of their “bundles” and get 5 items for $35 ($7 each)! Last summer I did a bundle order and got 5 of the spray sunscreens to last me the summer Your browser does not support the audio element.