Don’t you love when you walk into a room and it smells fresh and clean?! What exactly does that smell like? Lemons? Cinnamon? BLEACH?!
Well, what if you walk into a room and it smells like absolutely NOTHING? Can it, possibly, be clean?
We live in a society convinced that our homes must smell like vanilla, flowers, pine, lavender, mountain breeze or some crazy combination of these and others FAKE scents. Fake? Yes, I said FAKE!! Each of these, in their natural forms may be well and good…but in most cleaners it is far from natural.
As much as we might enjoy those scents…the fake versions may be doing us more harm than good. The smell is not the ingredient that cleans. The smell is often the chemical that harms. Another part of the problem with this is that the more you smell that particular scent, the more used to it you will become. Pretty soon you won’t even notice it…which usually causes us to use more of the product. It’s a vicious circle. Or downward spiral…
As a Mom of three young children, I am constantly conscious of what chemicals may be entering our house. They come in so many sneaky forms…candles, air fresheners, all-purpose and window cleaners, oven cleaners, laundry detergents, etc. Thinking about the air my family is breathing or clothes that are on their skin or their head on that pillowcase all night long…I want to provide the safest environment for them.
But often times our “safe” place is more polluted than we realize! The air inside our home can be 5 times more toxic than the air outside our home.
I challenge you…take a peek at the labels on the household cleaners you have, right now, in your home. Do they say “WARNING, DANGER, TOXIC?” And those are just the ingredients that are actually listed! Do you want those types of things touching your family or being breathed in by your family?
To look more closely at specific ingredients and/or health effects, check out these two websites:
Environmental Protection Agency
I have to tell you…this is all very new to me! I have always thought that the house wasn’t clean unless it SMELLED clean. All you have to do is walk in any store that sells household cleaners or laundry detergents and you can smell them several aisles away. But that is the way things have ALWAYS been and everyone else is using them, so that’s what we do!
It often takes a major life event to make even a small change in our lives. Otherwise, most of us just keep on doing what we’re doing cause that’s they way we’ve always done it! I will share my major life event in an upcoming post.
Change doesn’t have to be huge and doesn’t have to be all at once. Little by little and lesson by lesson, we can make a difference. This new series for 2013 is all about those, little by little, changes. As I learn and experiment throughout this New Year, I will share with you; let’s make a safe place for our families together!
I’ve become more and more aware of this issue lately. As much as I love the “clean” smell I’m realizing it may not be as clean as I thought.
That aisle in some stores makes me wheeze sometimes. I like cleaning with Basic H from Shaklee. It doesn’t have much of a smell, it does a good job and the bottle lasts a long. long time.
I have been doing some research on green products and looking into making my own cleaning products with everyday items such as vinegar etc. with all the allergies these days I am thinking we need to get away from commercial products for our own good….thanks for sharing…found you through Snap…
I still like those smells in my home but not from household chemicals because I can smell the chemicals underneath. I recently wrote a similar post, The Dangers of Household Chemicals. http://angsays.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/the-dangers-of-household-chemicals/
Using natural products like baking soda, vinegar or soap work just as well if not better to clean your home and they’re safer too.
This is a really interesting thought. I definitely associate a certain smell with “clean”. I typically use Dr. Watkins lemon products so I guess lemon is my “clean” scent.
I have never thought about the “clean smell” before, but that’s exactly right. Interesting! This is great information – I try to keep chemicals out of my house as much as I can.
I host a link party each Thursday and would love for you to share this.
Thanks for the great post!
-Angie
www.easylivingmom.com
Stopping by from Deep Roots at Home – Nice post and I agree 100% – that is why we use all Natural Shaklee (www.srkindred.myshaklee.com) cleaning, and personal care products at our house. After using them for a few months, I will now get a headache just walking close to the cleaning isles in stores or walking by a bath and body store. www.srkindredspirits.blogspot.com
I grew up in a house of a candle maker, a messy, messy candle maker. So I never adapted to the idea that a great smelling house meant a clean house.
And I’ve never liked the smell of traditional cleaners. I think a lot of it is how we are raised. Like if you wanted in the house and smelled the lemony Pine Sol, then you knew your Mom just mopped, and that you better than your shoes off!
I had a coworker many years ago, when I worked in a job where we were required to clean, and he would not clean. Instead he would sprinkle bleach around to give the appearance of clean. My boss would often yell at us that the house wasn’t as cleaned when we (my friend and I) worked as it was when this guy worked…yeah, a bleach-y smell does not mean clean…
Thanks for the links, I will definitly check out the products in my home. Thank you so much for sharing this at SHOW-licious Craft Showcase!
Marti
You’re so right about this – and once you break the habit you really notice how strong and artificial they are. Thank you so much for linking up at Empty Your Archive, Alice x