Many years ago now, more than I care to admit, I started realizing that I was inherently uncomfortable with the chemicals involved in my life. I like to blame it partially on reading too much, laziness, and the fact I was broke. In reading too much, I started to see all of the nasty things that exist in everything we touch as well as the impact these things have on us, both physically and the environment. The amount of trash produced by the Standard American Way of Life was bothering me and the amount of chemicals released into the environment from everything, farming to cleaning, was disturbing to me on a fundamental level. At the same time, I started looking into homemade and reusable products as much as possible. Part of this was laziness, I had most of these supplies lying around my house! I wouldn’t have to go to the store as much! It was awesome. Also, it was cheaper. At the time, I was a college student full time. I didn’t have much money on hand. Now that I’m a social worker with two kids in the house, I still don’t really have a lot of money, but I digress. In my reading at the time, I discovered two areas that I could make “more green” and it would have the biggest impact on my life. The first of these was cleaning products.
The first thing I eliminated from my life was bleach. This wasn’t particularly hard because well, I didn’t use a lot of bleach to begin with. It smells bad and I’m clumsy so it just seems stupid to use it. Since I started my greener lifestyle, I got into a relationship (and then married) a man who happens to be allergic to bleach. But it seemed that every cleaning product on the planet included bleach except rather expensive “greener” products. Then I discovered what is now my favorite substance on the planet: vinegar. As it turns out, vinegar is kind of like bleach in that it kills pretty much everything. You can use it for almost everything. A 50/50 solution is constantly present in my house to clean everything from countertops to highchairs to windows. Apparently there are about a thousand uses for vinegar (http://www.vinegartips.com/
Speaking of hair care, my next order of business was my body/hair care. I eliminated the use of shampoo and conditioner with the No Poo Hair Care routine. I love it. There’s several ways to do this, but the one I use is I dilute 1 Tbsp of baking soda in a cup of water and use that like shampoo (pour it on, scrub, rinse). Then when that’s rinsed out I dilute a Tbsp of Apple Cider Vinegar in a cup of water and use it as a conditioning rinse to return my hair to a neutral pH. My hair went through a “detox” period where it was oiler than usual for about a month but gradually I could go longer and longer between washes. This detox period is the result of the fact that standard shampoos contain chemicals which strip your hair completely of natural oils. This is why you need conditioner. As a result, most people’s scalps will overproduce natural oils to compensate. When you stop doing that, it takes some time for your scalp to adjust its oil production. It took me roughly a month to get to where I am now but your experience may be different. I wash between once and twice a week right now. (Note: I do shower more frequently than that, promise). I also switched from traditional soap to Dr. Bronner’s. Again, talk about an all-purpose cleaner. It’s also great to mop floors. I buy it by the gallon and just refill my smaller container when it’s empty. Dr. Bronner’s is also good for kids. I use it on my nephew all the time, who will be 4 soon. I currently just use water for my almost 3 month old, but I expect when he gets into things I will start to use the unscented mild Dr. Bronner’s for him. I also have gotten locally made natural soaps that contain all natural ingredients that have worked great. The best place to find these is Farmer’s Markets. That way you get to talk to the people who make them and find out exactly what is in the soap you’re buying. Plus they smell pretty, and who doesn’t like that?
The next thing I did was look at laundry soap. This has actually gone back and forth for a few years as my financial status has changed. Greener laundry soap is actually more expensive unless you make it yourself, and I’ve never gotten it together enough to make it myself. I now use Sun and Earth laundry soap as it works wonders with cloth diapers, which I started using when my son was born 2 ½ months ago. Ruby Moon Laundry Soap is also wonderful with cloth diapers. It’s also locally-to-me produced (the company is located in King of Prussia, PA and I live in New Castle County, DE) so I find it pretty reliably. Though it is slightly more expensive than standard detergents, like Tide, I offset it by the fact I don’t have to use as much and that I’m using cloth diapers and don’t need to buy diapers. Also with laundry, White distilled vinegar makes a wonderful fabric softener if added to a rinse cycle and is great at getting rid of ammonias from urine (both human and animal, by the way. I would use it as a cleaner for small animal cages when I had them and use it to clean the litter box when it needs a scrubbing). If you have one of those Downy balls, you can add it in there just like you would any other fabric softener. Don’t use more than ½ a cup, though, or the smell will linger a bit. Cloth diaper users: do not use vinegar on covers or pocket shells as it can cause the waterproof layer to delaminate and stop working. I use three cycles per diaper load and dry pail: a cycle that includes a soak in cold water at the start, a hot water wash cycle with detergent, and a final rinse. I just remove shells and covers before the final rinse and add about ½ a cup of white vinegar to this cycle. If you miss one once in a while it’s not going to instantly delaminate, but it will after a while.
My friends call me a hippie, which is a label I whole-heartedly embrace. I don’t think green living is an all-or-nothing kind of thing. It’s a gradual thing. As you start to make some change, you’ll see other ways to change your life to be “more green”. So when people ask me where I think they should get started, I tell them to start with cleaning products. Almost everyone uses them and it affects pretty much all aspects of your life. So if you’re thinking about “greening up” your cleaning routine, look into some of these methods and read a bit on your own. You’d be amazed!
--Jenn
