10 Reasons To Switch To A Non-Toxic Home Cleaner

Cleaning your home with something that isn’t good for your health doesn’t make much sense. Just think about that for a moment. Isn’t the whole reason you’re cleaning is to keep your home and family healthy? Cleaning should be about removing toxins that are bad for your health, not adding toxins that harm your health.

In this blog you’ll find 4 valuable tools:

Our podcast on how we create a harmonious home.
The top 10 reasons to switch to a non-toxic cleaner.
Our top pick for cleaning our home and a discount code.
A DIY recipe to make your own cleaning products.

Podcast: How To Create A Harmonious Home:

Is your home a sanctuary or a prison right now? Maybe it is somewhere in between? Let The EmPOWERment Couple inspire you to improve your home life experience. Whether your home functions as your office, is constantly packed with kids, pets, and company, or you live alone, you deserve to live in a happy, healthy, and beautiful space. This won’t require a total makeover, but rather inspire some easy and inexpensive ways to improve your home using the five senses as your guide. Your sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and extrasensory perception know what it needs to be happy. So, get your “does it spark joy,” feelings ready, and maybe a couple of loads of laundry to fold. This episode reminds us to, “get it done with fun!”

First, let’s review why we should care about switching to a non-toxic cleaner in the first place. Here are the top ten reasons to swap it out. You can skim these here or skip to the one you need more information on.

Protect your immune health
Better for the environment
Safe for babies & children
Safe for pets
Safe for your health
Clean up indoor air
Make cleaning easier
Cheaper
Know what you’re using
Vote with your cleaning dollars

Best Non-Toxic Cleaning Product:

Our top pick for cleaning our home is Branch Basics. We use their products to clean every single surface and item in our home from countertops, to dishes to laundry. You can get 10% of any Branch Basics starter kit using this link and code “Zuri” at checkout. With a starter kit, you can clean your whole house, do your laundry, wash your dishes, clean your mirrors, floors, and windows for several months for less than $50.

Branch Basics is a cleaner option because you just replace the concentrate and refill the starter kit bottles when needed. We like to use a few drops of essential oils in each bottle and we change up the scent to fit the job. But, if you’re sensitive to any smells, Branch Basics is odorless. The best part about this product is that you aren’t using toxic ingredients. You are also not wasting money on some name-brand product that doesn’t work as well as Branch Basics. The second best thing is you don’t have to waste more plastic bottles because you’ll only be using the concentrate to refill existing bottles. They even have fancy glass bottles that can be reused if you want to skip plastic entirely. You can get 10% off with this link, just be sure to use code “Zuri” at checkout to get that discount.

Let’s take a deeper dive into the top 10 reasons to switch!

The Top 10 Reasons To Switch To A Non-toxic Cleaner:

1. Protect Your Immune Health

Somewhere along the way, the chemical industry convinced us that we have to purchase toxic chemicals to battle “germs.” It became a competition of which product was stronger and in essence, this meant more toxic. This advertising scam has harmed us because as it turns out being “clean” is not good for your health. We need to be exposed to harmful microbes so our bodies will be able to develop the proper antibodies to fight them off. By using all these harsh cleansers we are essentially minimizing foreign pathogens which in turn minimizes the development of the immune system.

2. Safe For Babies and Children

To break this concept down even further, think about how many things a child puts into their mouths over the course of their childhood. How many times have you wondered how they made it through eating that entire mud pie without getting sick? There is magic in the dirt, and it’s called microbes. So, if your front yard doesn’t contain animal feces, chemicals, or toxicants then let them eat dirt. Yes, your own dirt is safe to consume and can contain more than one billion bacterial cells per gram. When children eat dirt it can create a microbial boost that every healthy child needs to train their immune systems to respond to real threats. In fact, a study in Pediatrics found that children who suck their thumbs and bite their nails are significantly less likely than their peers to suffer from dog, cat, mold, dust, or grass allergies.

3. Non-Toxic Cleaners Are Cheaper:

I know this will shock you but we did some price comparisons to show you that non-toxic cleaners are actually cheaper.

We also did a three-month review of a product called Branch Basics where we used one bottle of concentration for our entire (large) house and our family of three. We used one bottle of concentration for the entire house. The price of the starter kit we purchased was $59.00 and it cleaned all of our dishes, laundry, floors, bathrooms, toilets, and I was even able to get stains out white things that I never could before because I refused to use bleach. When I witnessed the change, I contacted them to be a partner.

Since I am now an affiliate for the company, you can get 10% off with this link, just be sure to use code “Zuri” at checkout to get that discount.

4. Make It Easier To Clean

Using toxic cleaners are sometimes not effective or carry side effects that can ruin the item you’re cleaning. Using a non-toxic healthy alternative like Branch Basics gets white things white and toilet stains out. The best part is you don’t have to air out the house or worry about the harsh chemicals damaging your house like bleach can for example.

5. Safe For Your Health

The chemicals of concern you’ll find in conventional products are listed below.

Chloroform
Ammonia
Chlorine
Quaternary ammonium compounds
Phthalates
Synthetic musks
Formaldehyde
Triclosan
Hydrochloric acid
Phosphoric acid
Sodium hydroxide
Potassium hydroxide
Ethanolamines

Health-Related Concerns:

Aside from harming your immune system by using toxic chemical cleaning agents, you may also develop other health problems such as asthma: ” Cleaning work and professional use of certain cleaning products have been associated with asthma, but respiratory effects of nonprofessional home cleaning have rarely been studied.” One study showed a connection to adult asthma here.

6. Safe For The Environment:

When you use toxic cleaners in your home they end up in the environment. Your use of a toxic toilet bowl cleaner doesn’t disappear and instead, it ends up in the waterways, the soil, the air and never goes away. Some chemicals used thirty years ago are still in our environment and will be there another thirty years. We need to consider this when we use products that contain toxic waste ingredients.

7. Voting With Your Cleaning Dollars:

What are you investing in when you purchase a toxic product? Let’s also remember when you spend your money on conventional products there are hidden costs to consider such as: environmental damage. For example, when you flush your toilet, wash your dishes, laundry, or floors the toxins end up in our environment. Once it’s used, it also ends up in the air. Nothing disappears once used in your home. The problem with this is that birds, pollinators, sea life, and farmland are harmed by these chemicals. Purchasing clean products and taking your dollars away from the toxic chemical companies you’re voting with your purchases.

8. Safe For Pets

Some cleaning products contain chemicals that can be harmful to pets if they are ingested, inhaled, or make contact with skin such as paws on a freshly bleached surface. In some cases, chemicals can enter the bloodstream and affect the major organs. Certain chemicals may be considered or labeled as “safe” for humans but can still harm your beautiful pets. Many ailments in pets these days are linked to toxic home cleaners.

9. Know What You’re Using:

Next, consider when a product uses the phrase antibacterial it actually means a pesticide is being used. Always, read the packaging and the label. If it sanitizes, disinfects, cuts grease, or kills mold and mildew, it usually contains a pesticide. Antibacterial soaps (sometimes called antimicrobial or antiseptic soaps) contain certain chemicals not found in plain soaps. Those ingredients are added to many consumer products with the intent of reducing or preventing bacterial infection. To date, the benefits of using antibacterial hand soap haven’t been proven. But, we have plenty of studies that show the ingredients used in conventional cleaning products are linked to diseases like cancer.

When you switch to a non-toxic cleaner you don’t have to worry about toxins creating havoc on your home and health.

10. Clean Up Indoor Air:

A lot of popular cleaning products can harm your health and impact your indoor air quality through a group of chemicals called volatile organic compounds – or VOCs.

Outdoor pollutants can easily get trapped indoors. The Environmental Protection agency rates air pollution as the number one environmental risk factor facing humans! To combat the risks of air pollution they recommend:

Eliminate the source of pollution
Dilute the air when possible
Clean the air with a high-quality portable air purifier

We’ve come up with eight science-backed reasons everyone needs an air purifier here along with our top pick, including the benefits that we’re experiencing after a three-month test. We provided you with a discount link and code (Zuri) making it easier for you to make your home a safe place to sit back relax and take a deep breath! Get an Intellipure here.

Let’s look at one of these chemicals that is linked to cancer. You’ll find triclosan in so many products across the grocery aisles. Toluene found in paint thinners, nail polish, glues, inks, and stain removers. The most common hazard associated with this chemical is inhalation. Products containing toluene can produce dangerous fumes, which can cause nausea, headaches, unconsciousness, and even death if inhaled. Studies have raised the possibility that triclosan contributes to making bacteria resistant to antibiotics. Some data shows this resistance may have a significant impact on the effectiveness of medical treatments, such as antibiotics.

DIY Cleaning Solution:

We use this DIY Recipe or Branch Basics in our home. If you’re looking to purchase something because DIY is not your thing, you can get 10% off all starter kits with discount code: “Zuri” using this link .