How To Make The Swap Without Breaking The Bank

“Staying healthy” means more than just taking vitamins and eating greens. It means paying attention to the quality of the air we breathe, reducing the toxins in our environment, and guarding ourselves and our family against exposure to harmful chemicals. As Household CEO, you are empowered to provide the healthiest, non-toxic home environment possible for your family.

But organic products are too expensive, right?  

Nope.

But that would take too much research, you don’t have time for that right? 

Nope, I did it for you. 

But what I’m using isn’t bothering me, it’s fine, right?

Nope. Keep reading.

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I’ve been on a slow-paced mission to change over every product in our house – from the “regular” products made by typical store brands like Suave, Dove, Tide, Lysol, and Cascade that do have chemicals in them over to non-toxic, natural, safe, and even organic products that are completely healthy. 

Health IS wealth, and while I’ve swapped out some products and did a little research here or there last year (there’s only so much we can handle sometimes, you know?), I knew I needed to really dive in. 

So, today you’re invited to hang out and learn why you would want to switch to more natural products in the first place, what chemicals and false claims on labels to watch out for, about a couple really helpful apps that make this whole thing so much easier, and my method you’re totally going to want to steal so you too can slowly switch the whole household to organic products without breaking the budget. 

Why Make The Switch

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Right?

Nope, again. 

The average home has 62 toxic chemicals in it and besides the chemicals that are already in the wood, the carpet, fabrics, the foam inside your furniture, and the paint on your walls, you CAN and should control the chemicals you allow to enter your home in the form of cleaners, disinfectants, and products. 

Aside from the typical dangers of having chemicals under the sink and in the home like poisonings and chemical burns, studies show that long-term continuous exposure to many of these chemicals are what may cause cancer, asthma, reproductive issues, and other inflammatory responses in our tissues everywhere inside our bodies. I sure as hell don’t want any of that for my kids and I know you don’t either. 

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Most products and (shocker here) even the ones that are marketed as “clean” or “free and clear” contain mystery fragrances, dyes, preservatives, formaldehyde, and even carcinogens.

Ridding the home of chemicals will cut down on allergies, asthma, and respiratory issues, reduce exposure to irritants to your eyes, nose, and skin, and will even reduce the likelihood of developmental and reproductive issues in all family members. 

Where And How To Start

Before you go gathering armfuls of cleaners from under the sink and freaking out, it’s important to logically think about what you use daily or weekly and begin there. Think about products that you or your family come in direct contact with – like laundry detergent – it’s on all the clothes that get washed, and then everybody in the family puts on those clothes and our skin absorbs a tiny  bit of chemicals from each outfit. Consider what you use to wipe off the table each meal and the dishwashing liquid or dishwasher pods. Those chemicals are on the dishes you eat off of and the table you eat at, not to mention the mystery lemon scent or whatever fills the air with each after-dinner wipe down and load of dishes ran.

If you generally feel like you’ve tried to be conscious of the chemical content in your household cleaning products because you’ve been reading labels and buying the “free and clear” or the “green” products off the shelf in the cleaning aisle. I hate to tell you this, but it’s likely you’ve been duped. 

There’s something called Greenwashing you need to know about. This is where the manufacturers redesign labels to include catchy words and clever phrases that are misleading and irrelevant just to make you think you’re buying something safer. This includes terms like green, natural, biodegradable, free, and clear.

There’s nothing they have to qualify for or submit to print these greenwashed labels and market them as a safer alternative. It can literally be the same formula and contain the same toxic ingredients as the original product, and they just changed the packaging and added these fancy trigger words to help you feel better as you’re buying it. 

Pretty dang scammy if you ask me.

Exploring Products and Their Ratings

You need to check out ewg.org. They rate household products by their ingredients, asthma/respiratory concern, skin allergy concern, developmental and reproductive toxicity, cancer concerns, and environmental concerns. Every product, especially the big boys like Tide, Cascade, Glade, Lysol, and other familiar names are given a rating A-F. Annnd, I’ll just warn you, most products from those brands have ratings of D’s and F’s. Not good.

When you scan a cleaner’s barcode using the app or when you type in, for example, Lysol All Purpose cleaner on the website, in addition to the rating for that product, the ingredients. and all the risks, there’s a little link that says “search for a better alternative.” 

This little magic link is what you and I can use to find products that are healthier, filled with less or no chemicals at all, and shop for products that can replace these old toxic ones we’ve been conditioned to buy.

All Tide products, have D ratings or worse and the shocking result?  Tide Free & Gentle or Tide Pure Essentials have F ratings! How scammy! Again, we’re tricked with clever marketing lingo that means nothing, but convinces us that buying something that says pure essentials is safe when it’s really chock-full of chemicals – bad enough to receive an F rating. 

Cascade dishwashing pods are the same way – D’s across the board, may as well be an F to me. 

I did my comparison shopping right here on my computer. I pulled up ewg.org in one window and the Amazon website in the other window. I typed in the products I have that I now want to replace and proceeded to be horrified at what I’d been using. 

Soon, the little link that says search for a better alternative led me to a chart where 2 products are Verified, which is EWG’s way of saying they’re the absolute safest products you can buy, and then there are 64 with an A rating, 54 with a B rating, and on down the scale. 

I clicked on the A rating to see those products and soon was comparing products (all with an A rating) by companies like ECOS, Seventh Generation, Biokleen, Grab Green, Puracy, and Whole Foods. 

Comparison Shopping

It’s easy to think organic products are more expensive because I too noticed that they seem to come in smaller quantities. But, instead of looking at the price per ounce of laundry liquid, for example, compare the number of loads of laundry those ounces provide.

Whip out your calculator and see what the cost per load is. 

Product Cost / Loads of Laundry promised = Cost Per load 

Do this for a few products and then put the one with the lowest cost per load into your cart for purchase. 

Another common mistake that leads people to believe organic is unaffordable is that the amount of product used per load (we’re still talking laundry) is much smaller. Triple check you use the correct amount of detergent. Tide requires a big cup of detergent per load, but Puracy requires about two tablespoons.

I wound up buying Biokleen laundry detergent that promises 300 loads of laundry for about $23 bucks – pretty happy with that. 

Dishwasher pods were a little easier to comparison shop because you use 1 pod per dishwasher load. I easily found a healthy alternative brand called Grab Green with an A Rating over the D rated Cascade I’d been using – blech!  This particular Grab Green 60 count of dishwasher pods was $17 dollars. 

I suggest you continue to replace your household cleaners one at a time as they run out. Each time, check the ratings on ewg.org to either confirm that what you’ve been using is well-rated or go through this process of being horrified at the terrible ratings and promptly find a healthier alternative on Amazon. 

This way, you don’t have to allocate additional budget money toward a massive overhaul of your products, and before you know it, you’ll be operating a fully safe, organic household environment!

You can use EWG’s Healthy Living app to scan the barcodes on products. This will be so helpful whether you’re doing research on the go in the grocery aisle or if you’re standing at your kitchen sink.

Helpful Apps

EWG’s Healthy Living that you can use to scan the barcodes on products. This will be so helpful whether you’re doing research on the go in the grocery aisle or if you’re standing at your kitchen sink.

Think Dirty and the ewg.org/skindeep website are great for researching personal and body products like hand soap, lotion, deodorant, and cosmetics. 

Cheers to you approaching abundance from a holistic perspective and considering all facets of creating confidence, health, fulfillment, and peace. May you find confidence and peace in the products you use and may your health outlast your financial freedom journey.