It is human nature to become familiar with the products you use on a daily basis, whether they are in your kitchen, your bathroom or your cleaning closet. While you mean well, your loyalty to familiar products could be harming yourself and your family. It is worth the time to take a closer look at the products found around your home and discover the dirty truth found in the ingredients of common household detergents.
1) Liquid dish detergent:
While it may come in pleasant odors and pretty colors, the dish detergent that all your kitchenware gets smothered in is really just a combination of harmful chemicals. While most of the products do not even include a list of ingredients, they do commonly share these main components: surfactants, stabilizers, fragrance and dyes, and preservatives, all of which are chemicals combined into more chemicals. Do you even know what dimethyl amine oxide, polyethylene glycol and tocopheryl sulfate are? If not, why pay to use them? When all you want is to get your dishes clean from the food you just ate, are all of those extra chemicals which you can’t pronounce really necessary?
2) Laundry detergent:
Chances are pretty good that you’ve never heard of nonylphenol ethoxylate, often known as NPE. Chances are just as good that while you have never heard of it, your body has come into plenty of contact with the compound. This is the chemical that is used in laundry detergent to “clean” your clothes. However, many health reports reveal that NPE is a harmful chemical that mimics estrogen hormones, disrupts the endocrine system and ultimately alters your health in some drastic ways. While the use of NPE is prohibited in Europe and Canada, it is still widely used throughout the United States. Just imagine: the fibers of the clothes you wear everyday are soaked with this harmful chemical. Is there really nothing else that can get your clothes clean without the use of dangerous substances?
3) Dishwasher detergent:
The average home employs the use of a dishwasher as an easy way to get piles of dishes cleaned quickly. While it does make the chores of the kitchen more tolerable, the dishwasher also serves as a veritable poison dispensing machine. Most washers leave behind some residue or trace of the product, meaning that the chemicals used to clean actually remain on your cups, flatware and dishes. Would you drink drain cleaner? Of course not. But when you use the most common dishwasher detergents, it is likely that you wind up ingesting leftover sodium hydroxide. This degreasing agent also unclogs drains and burns through your skin. There are better things to have with your glass of milk than the leftover poisonous chemicals of store-bought dishwasher detergent.
4) Air-freshener:
You want your home smelling clean and pleasant, even if you do let your dog in the house or still need to take out the garbage. The market for air-freshening products proves this to be true. Whether in the form of an aerosol spray, a reed diffuser or a powder you sprinkle on your carpet, the truth is you are loading your air full of toxins that you ultimately inhale. The majority of air freshening products contain harmful phthalates, which have been proven to cause development and reproductive problems. They also include a chemical that reacts with naturally occurring ozone and produces the human carcinogen, formaldehyde. Even if it does smell like the tropical breeze, do you really want to breathe in that?
The reality is that for each one of those products there is a natural and safe alternative. While the alternatives may not produce as many bubbles or smell like fresh cut lilacs, you can be guaranteed that they will never run the risk of burning your skin, damaging your lungs or exposing you to cancer-causing agents. Research how you can use common household ingredients like vinegar, baking soda and corn starch to effectively clean your home and keep your family safe at the same time.
