5 Easy Ways to Clean Up Your Everyday in the New Year

As some of you know, I worked in the fashion industry for many years. First as a fashion model and then as a model agent and scout. During that time, I thought a lot about the food I put in my mouth, how it affected my body, how it made me feel, how it was grown and under what conditions, but I spent very little time thinking about my home environment. 

I didn’t consider for a minute what was happening in my home or what I was slathering on my body. It wasn’t until my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2018 that I did a deep dive into some of the external conditions that could affect our health and wellness. 

The fact is, our home can be filled with 500+ different chemicals. Experts say that in many cases our homes are 2-5 times more polluted than outdoor air. Many of these chemicals can have a devastating effect on our nervous and immune systems, on our reproductive systems, and on our endocrine, cardiovascular and respiratory systems.

Thankfully awareness is growing and there are many steps you can take to “clean up” your home. I’m including five quick and easy steps below.

• Remove Your Shoes at the Door. Reduce your home to a variety of toxic chemicals such as lead, dust from contaminated soil, lawn and garden pesticides, fecal matter from public restrooms and animal waste, industrial toxins, dust mites, allergens, and mold. This becomes even more important if you have little ones crawling around the floor.
• Ditch Nonstick Cookware. Overheating nonstick pans causes their coating to break down which can result in the release of surface chemicals and/or toxic gases. This is because nonstick cookware is made up of a carcinogenic compound called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. These chemicals become airborne when heated. The Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) discovered that roughly 98% of Americans have traces of PFA’s, PFC’s, or PFOA’s in their bodies.
• Raise A Glass Vinyl releases some of the most toxic chemicals such as phthalates, lead, and cadmium. Phthalates are endocrine disruptors that have been linked to cancer, birth defects, and other serious chronic issues. Phthalates are also hormone disruptors that can interfere with the production of testosterone.
• Avoid Fragrance  Going fragrance-free is the absolute easiest way to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals. This would include your personal care products, your household products, and your laundry detergent. Though companies are required by law to list their ingredients, fragrance is considered proprietary information, a trade secret. This enables companies via the “fragrance loophole” to hide dozens of toxic chemicals without any legal requirement to disclose what makes up their “trade secret”. Fragrance is considered one of the top five allergens that can cause and trigger asthma attacks.
• Surround Yourself with Plants  Indoor greenery doesn’t just look good - it comes with clean benefits too. In 1989 NASA found that plants could scrub the air of potentially cancer-causing organic compounds such as formaldehyde and benzene. Try a spider plant, pathos, or my personal favorite, a rubber tree. 

Interested in ditching fragrance? Check out our blog post How to Make Your Own Natural Perfume with Essential Oils and our Gemstone Diffuser Collection for pretty little baubles to support you on your clean living journey. 

Now back to you: What are your favorite ways for "cleaning up" your home? Let me know in the comments!