Clean Products For A Healthier Home

By Jessica Campbell, MS, FNTP

Detox is not just about what food you eat or don’t eat. When I started to look at my daily routine, I realized that I was interacting with chemicals and toxins almost constantly! For example, the average woman uses 12 different beauty products every day. How many do you use? How about cleaning and home products?


Toxins come in all shapes and sizes. In the same way that we talk about wanting our diet to be full of real food, we also want our beauty, cleaning, and home products to contain ingredients that you can recognize and pronounce.


I like to use the Environmental Working Group (EWG) website to stay up to date on current research associated with popular products. They even have an app that allows you to scan products and see their rating on an A-F scale of healthy or not healthy!


This was super helpful when I found out the expensive “natural” cleaner I was using had a D rating. You can be sure I went back and found a new one so I wasn’t wasting money on marketing instead of clean products. I now prefer ECOS Dishmate or Trader Joe's liquid dish soap in lavender since they both have an A+ rating.


Remember, expensive does not always mean better products, sometimes expensive just means better marketing!


I’m always researching new products and try to use them myself before recommending them, so here are a few of my favorite clean resources and products:

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Clean Beauty Products


I think the first step when it comes to beauty products is to simplify. Are you using all these lotions and potions because they actually benefit you, or just because you think that’s what you're supposed to do? 


After you have weeded out the unnecessary steps, it’s time to look at the ingredients and consider finding alternative, cleaner, products.


I love the clean beauty products from Neal’s Yard Remedies (NYR). You do need to order through a consultant, so I’m sending you to my mom’s homepage, someone I know I can trust. This is where I personally get all of my organic essential oils as well as clean bath and body products.


If you are looking for a more DIY spa option with inexpensive ingredients, you can try my recipe for a homemade sugar scrub. This is also a great way to use up all that sugar that you hopefully are not eating.


Homemade Sugar Scrub

  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 4 Tbsp sweet almond oil or jojoba oil
  • 3 Tbsp Cinnamon
  • * optional 1 tsp Vitamin E oil
  1. Mix the sugar and cinnamon
  2. Add in the sweet almond oil
  3. If you like add vitamin E oil, it is great for skin
  4. The vitamin E will also prolong the shelf life
  5. Place scrub in an airtight container
  6. Scrub all over body in the shower or bath
  7. Enjoy!


Clean Cleaning Products


Similar to beauty products, we want cleaning products that we interact with on counters and glasses to be clean, natural, and non-toxic. We aren’t ingesting these products directly but that doesn’t mean they don’t impact our health. We often inhale them, touch them and absorption through the skin can be very similar to ingestion.


Finding affordable, clean, and effective home products can be confusing. I like to use EWG but you can also check out Grove Collaborative. Grove guarantees that everything on their site is non-toxic and plant-based. They carry a lot of brands and have a lot of great information about the ingredients of each product. Grove has some great deals if you want to order off their site, but if a subscription or online service isn’t for you, many of the products can be found at other stores like Target.


Another brand I use in my home uses enzyme science to break down grimy toxins without creating more of them. I use Branch Basics, it’s clean, smells nice, and allows me to reuse the plastic bottles so I’m not tossing them into the garbage each month. 


Just like homemade beauty products, making homemade cleaning products is also very easy. My mom uses the essential oils from her  NYR products and I have seen similar recipes from doTERRA, Young Living and other excellent essential oil companies. Essential oils like lemon, clove, and rosemary have anti-bacterial, anti-microbial and anti-fungal compounds that often work better than commercial cleaners and smell amazing in the home.


When it comes to washing clothes, I’ve made my own soap, since my daughter developed very sensitive skin. Brands that claimed they were for a baby such as Dreft would create massive rashes and eczema patches on her poor little body. Like any parent, I was eager to make her feel better and solve the problem without a ton of medication. After a lot of research into the traditional ingredients used in detergents, I realized that this easy DIY homemade laundry soap was so much safer and she has had beautiful skin ever since I made the change.


Homemade Laundry Soap

  • 1 cup washing soda
  • 1 cup Borax
  • 1 bar soap (grated)

Mix together and store in an airtight container


Other Clean Home Products


Going through a real detox is about becoming more aware of what we are putting into our bodies, on our bodies, and what we interact with in our daily environment. It’s about listening to the cues our bodies are sending us. Once you’ve taken a look at your beauty products and cleaning products, it’s time to take a wider look at your home.


Have you thought about what’s in those candles you are burning? How about the contents of your sheets? How about the carpet? Now, I know replacing these things can be expensive, but maybe consider doing a deep clean or cleaning out items that are not safe. If it’s time to make an updated purchase, consider the health benefits that come from choosing a product with more natural ingredients, and see if the health benefits, in the long run, can balance the cost.


I think your health is worth it and I have experienced the differences in my own family. Sure we can’t replace everything, but every little change matters. A great resource to see how we can make little steps is to follow the Zero-Waste Chef, Anne-Marie Bonneau. Whether you can make your own soap, use cloth bags instead of plastic, or change your entire oven to a less toxic gas-producing model, I hope you find a way to live a little more toxic-free!

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