What I Use Now: Non-toxic Household Cleaners & Personal Products

Knowing my propensity to over-research consumer products, sometimes a friend or family member will call me to ask my advice about a particular non-toxic cleaner, lawn treatment, or mattress. But recently my neighbor decided to completely overhaul all her household cleaners and personal products and asked me to share with her what I use. And as I pulled up some old blog posts to share with her on these topics, I noticed that while much of the information and reasoning behind my choices was still up-to-date, many of the products were not. Some products have been discontinued. Some have been replaced with less toxic or more effective ones.

So I decided to make an exhaustive online list of our household cleaners and personal products to share with her and others that I intend to continually update. This list shares what I am actually using now in my own home and with my own family, 10+ years into the eco-friendly journey. The page also includes links to posts on the category (laundry, kitchen, teeth, hair, etc.) and where to find more information about your own cleaners or my cleaners

I would also like to note that there are a lot of great green cleaners out there now (or you could make your own non-toxic cleaners, although I never have), but for certain categories, it took a lot of trial-and-error to find something that worked for us: in particular, dishwasher detergent and hair products (our family has thick curly hair). I hope my painful experiences will spare you some.


You will find the continually updated list here:
What I Use Now: Eco-friendly Household Cleaners & Personal Products

Did I leave something off that you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments below. 

You May Also Like

• 6 Tips for a Non-toxic Summer
• 6 Strategies for Choosing Non-toxic Personal Care Products 
• Natural Deodorant that Works for My Husband
• How Green Is Your Hair? Non-toxic Hair Care for the Entire Family
• Green Cleaning - How to Identify a Green Cleaner
• All posts on Personal Products
• All posts on Cleaning

Would you like more ideas and tips about Going Green Gradually? Sign up for my free email subscription to get each of my posts delivered to your inbox (I usually post one or two times a week). You can also follow me on Facebook, Google Plus, Pinterest, Twitter, or with your favorite RSS Reader. I hope to see you again soon!

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. Your purchase via these links helps support my blog. Thank you for your support. Read my full disclosure policy here.

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Avoiding Toxins in the Backyard

School's out and that means that my kids are spending a lot more time in our backyard. I am a big fan of outdoor play for kids and adults. Unfortunately, there are several ways that we adults inadvertently make our backyards less of an ideal play location for our children by introducing toxic chemicals. Here are some ways you can make sure that your backyard stays safe and eco-friendly this summer.

Pesticide-free Bug Control

In my area, hot weather means bugs. They sneak in your home looking for moisture, shelter from the heat, and, of course, some morsels to eat. Just the other day the Pesticide Salesman stopped by my door to let me know that two of my neighbors were spraying for ants and spiders and did I want to sign up too (at a discount, of course!) so that they didn't all run into my house when he, "flushed them out" of the neighbors' yards and crawl spaces. Turns out I'm much more worried about the neurotoxins in pesticides than ants and spiders, so I turned him down. But I'm not a huge fan of bugs in my house. I've had ant, fruit fly, and cockroach invasions and lived to tell the tale, without the use of toxic pesticides! This is my tried-and-true ant bait/ trap (keep away from little hands and animals), and a non-toxic spray we use around the perimeter of our house to discourage cockroaches. House spiders are generally welcome at my home! Check out Beyond Pesticides for safe alternatives to toxic pest control.

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Two Things to Do Before You Spring Clean

Get Rid of Stuff

Before spring cleaning is the perfect time to ruthlessly eliminate clutter, since deep cleaning often involves moving lots of stuff around. And by clutter I mean stuff you own that you don't use, don't need, and maybe don't even want. I've seen a lot of spring cleaning checklists that include tossing clutter while cleaning out this or that. This would never work for me. If I were taking everything out of a drawer to wipe it out, and I stopped to consider whether I should keep or get rid of each item, I would never finish cleaning anything. Take the week before beginning spring cleaning to purge the contents of one room each day and get rid of as much as you can before you ever spray a cleaner or wipe down a surface.

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Use Bar Soap {Easy Eco-tip Tuesday}

Today's Easy Eco-tip: 

Use bar soap instead of liquid soap.

Give bars a chance.

For several years now, body wash has outstripped bar soap in sales. I think it's safe to say most Americans are using liquid hand soap rather than bar soap as well. But before 1980, liquid soaps were virtually non-existent. One of the things I love about our 1960s bathrooms is that the sinks have little indentations on each side of the faucet for bar soap. Imagine that! Instead of a built in stainless-steel soap dispenser, the latest and greatest in 1960 was a built-in place to store your bar soap. There are many reasons to give good old-fashioned bar soap a second look.

Compared to liquid soaps and body washes, bar soaps:

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Six Simple Steps to a Paperless Kitchen

1. Switch to cloth napkins.

Not ready to commit to a paperless kitchen? Still in love with paper towels? Just try switching to cloth napkins. You'll feel like you are eating in a fancy high-end restaurant every night! We use a mish-mash of cloth napkins at my house. I like cotton napkins that are somewhat absorbent best, because then they can soak up a spill in a pinch. We use our cloth napkins for a full day (sometimes longer) before washing. We just leave them on the table between meals. You can get different napkin rings if you want to make sure each family member reuses the same napkin.

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Question: How Do You Compost? (Please Comment!)

Dear Readers,

Help me out. I really want to compost. I feel guilt every time I toss watermelon rinds and carrot peelings in the trash. But I'm having trouble jumping in and trying it. Here are my issues:

• There are multiple methods. Which one is the best for me? Note that I have actually ruled out worms because a couple of my friends tried that method and it seemed like a lot of work.
• If it takes too much time, I will fail. I know, because I watched two tomato plants die over the summer simply because I didn't water them. (In case you are concerned, my husband is in charge of watering our new tree.)
• I have a toddler. A crazy, gets-into-everything, I-cannot-control-her toddler. I need to be able to let her roam somewhat unsupervised in the backyard or I will lose my mind. We are also hoping to get a dog. I cannot have an amorphous pile of compost that my toddler or future dog will get into.
• I'm scared of attracting vermin. I've had ants, cockroaches, fruit flies, and rats. There are also plenty of stray cats and dogs in my neighborhood that I would like to stay off my property.
• I am completely willing to drop $100 to $200 on a compost bin if it will solve all my problems and make all my composting dreams come true. But I'm scared I'll buy a bin, and it won't work all that well, or won't make composting easy-peasy enough, and then I won't use it, and then I'll have a big hunk of plastic in my backyard and a lot of eco-guilt.

Click here to continue reading (and to comment!) at The Green Phone Booth.

If you are a composter, I want to hear from you! Please click over and share your wisdom.

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Easy Eco-tip Tuesday: Unjunk Your Mail Box

We purchased a home a little over a year ago. And with that home I inherited yet another batch of junk mail. Some days the mail box was jammed so full with the grocery circular as well as magazines and catalogs from the former resident that I could barely get my mail out. Luckily for me, I cleverly documented the unjunking process for myself on this blog about two years ago.

If your junk mail is clogging up your mail box and hogging your recycling bin, follow these four simple and free steps to an unjunked mail box. You'll be happy you did!

How to Unjunk Your Mail Box

Step 1: Save Your Junk

Step 2: Opt Out of Credit Card Offers

Step 3: Cancel Your Weekly Shopping Flyer

Step 4: Cancel Catalogs

Series Reprise and Final Tips

Related Posts

Easy Eco-tip Tuesday: Clean with Vinegar
Easy Eco-tip Tuesday: Shop at Your Local Farmers Market
Easy Eco-tip Tuesday: Wait One Week to Make a Purchase

Are you interested in Going Green Gradually? Sign up for my free email subscription to get each of my posts delivered to your inbox (I usually post two or three times a week). You can also follow me on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, or with your favorite RSS Reader. I hope to see you again soon!

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Help Protect the Endangered City Forest: Plant a Tree!

Getting ready to plant a fruitless olive tree so I don't have to stare
at my backyard neighbor's second-floor balcony all day.

Several months ago I walked into my local library and saw some young people sitting at a table with a giant "Free Trees" sign. We had recently purchased a home and for the first time in many years were in a position to change our own landscaping. So I wandered over with my three little kids in tow and started asking questions. The table was set up by Our City Forest, an organization dedicated to increasing the number of trees in my metropolitan area.

Our Endangered City Forest

Through this organization, I learned some disheartening facts about trees in cities:

• Large American cities are losing trees four times as fast as they can be replanted.
• Between 90 million and 100 million trees must be planted each year over the next decade to develop and maintain America’s urban forest.
• The average life of a street tree in America is as little as 8 years, compared with 40 years or more for trees removed from urban stresses.
• The number of trees per person in the U.S. has declined by 13% during the past 9 years.
• One million acres of forest are lost to American city growth each year.
• California's urban forests are becoming shorter because cities are planting more short-statured trees; as the urban forest is downsized, many of the ecological benefits that large trees provide will be diminished or lost. 

The Benefits of Trees

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Eco-novice's Advice and Rules for a Green Remodel

About a year ago, my husband and I purchased a home that needed some remodeling. I'm no green building expert. I'm just an eco-novice who needed to make some renovations to a home. But I'll share with you what I learned during my crash course in eco-remodeling. If I could give you one piece of advice, should you need to make renovations, it would be to hire a green contractor. Make sure you get a good one of course and still ask a whole lot of questions, but by doing this one thing you will probably save yourself countless hours of research and a lot of anguish and even the regret that comes with 20-20 hindsight.

I, however, couldn't afford a contractor, much less a green contractor for most of our renovations. The next best thing to using a green contractor, I believe, is to find a green building supply store, and then pick the employees' brains (and buy lots of materials from them too). Late in the game I found an incredibly helpful person at a green buildings supply store near me when I was shopping for paint. How I wish I had met her sooner (and had purchased more things from her)! During our renovations process, I also found information by searching the web and checking out books about green building from the library.

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