One Minute Toxic Test
Between the cute kittens and baby pictures, there was one meme circulating in my social media this week that I couldn’t click away from: Have you taken the Toxic Test? And although I’m usually adverse to flashing messages promising to tell me something I don’t already know, I clicked on over to the Toxic Test to check it out. Believe me, I was surprised.
Mommy Greenest Approved: Meliora K Natural Laundry
There’s a great scene in the new biopic of Stephen Hawking in which he woos his soon-to-be wife with an analysis of why the men’s white shirts luminesce in the ultraviolet lights of a cocktail party. “Optical whiteners,” he says—and she swoons. I didn’t know that that meant, so I did a little research. Optical whiteners are synthetic chemicals that make laundry look brighter; they absorb ultraviolet light and re-emit it as blue light. (It’s basically the same reason why white-haired ladies use blue shampoo.) So since optical brighteners have nothing to do with getting your laundry actually clean, I wondered if there was a downside to these chemicals—and if you…
Seven Shortcuts to Healthy Cleaners
The EPA estimates that the air inside our homes can be as more polluted than the air outside, and some of that pollution comes from our cleaning products. In fact, in their Guide to Healthy Cleaning database, the Environmental Working Group* found that a full half of the cleaning products on the market contain ingredients known to harm our lungs. So what’s exactly in these products—and what can we do to make them safer?
Natural & Homemade Laundry 101
Think your laundry can’t make a difference? Think again: According to Seventh Generation,which pretty much established the natural cleaning products industry in the United States, if every American household replaced one bottle of petroleum-based detergent with a plant-based one, we could save 149,000 barrels of oil—enough to heat and cool 8,500 homes for a year. But do plant-based natural and homemade laundry products really work? Absolutely! In fact, once you wean yourself off synthetic soaps—laden with those petrochemically-derived scents that you used to associate with clean laundry—your clothes will be cleaner than ever. Plus, your family might notice less allergies and skin irritations, such as contact dermatitis and eczema. Here are…
