10 Simple Swaps For Toxic Free Living

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If you’re looking to live a more toxic free lifestyle, these simple swaps in your household will make a big impact.

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Simple Swaps For Toxic Free Living

I really, truly try my hardest to make our home and lifestyle as a whole as close to toxic free as possible. But that’s the thing: it’s not always possible. As much as I would love to be chemical free and waste free one hundred percent of the time, it’s not always easy. I think that being a parent is hard enough that adding anything that causes extra stress to my life is something that I don’t have space for and I’m sure that you don’t either. Back when we lived in New York City, I really got into essential oils and started applying those to many different areas of my life and they have been a tremendous asset. Then over the last year during our stay in Pittsburgh, I researched and taught myself to make a lot of different products and promised myself that I would carry that over into our new home.

My favorite toxic free living swaps

Like I always say: I’m far from perfect. But I think whenever we are choosing products that our family uses on a daily basis, there are simple things that can be both made at home and bought at the store that can make a big impact, without it turning into a huge, tedious DIY project that disrupts your whole family. And this way of thinking is also incredibly sustainable.

1. Fragrance

Fragrance was one of the first things that I dropped and switched to essential oils. You can really easily make your own perfume (full post here) to rid your body of SO many toxins that come from perfumes. The thing is that companies only really need to put the word “fragrance” on labels, without defining what it actually is or where it comes from. No Bueno. My post with the citrus lavender perfume recipe goes into more detail about why you should kick toxic fragrances to the curb and also shares a brand that I love to purchase from if you don’t feel like making your own perfume.

2. Toothpaste

Here’s the scoop: most store bough toothpastes have chemicals added to them to foam up, which makes us think is what is getting our teeth clean. This is not good for us, as well as so many of the other chemicals found in store bough toothpastes. I actually just had a conversation about this with my dentist and found out that we don’t actually need toothpaste, it’s really just the motion of the brush with water that keeps our teeth clean. Interesting, huh? I, like many others, still feel like they need to use a paste of some sort, whether it’s mental or not at this point, and I love my friends from Clean Green Being’s recipe. Full video below, but go subscribe to their channel – they are SUPER informative on everything toxic free beauty.

3. Toy Cleaner

I started making my own toy cleaner recipe for cleaning up Blake’s toys instead of using store bought alternatives. You can use my recipe as either a spray or a soak and the recipes differ slightly. The soak is great to use in a big bucket outside during warm months and they both work great!

4. Allergy Medicine

Both our kids suffer with seasonal allergies at the turn of each season. Instead of spoon feeding them over the counter medicine every morning, I found it so much easier (seriously, easy is the word of my life) to make a toxic free allergy balm that they put under their nose each morning. Bam!

5. Sunscreen

I don’t make my own sunscreen, though I’m sure you could google endless recipes and find a wonderful one. I wrote a post here, rounding up our favorite toxic free sunscreens for the whole family and they work wonderfully. Since we really need to be wearing sunscreen on a daily basis and so many of the over the counter ones are being found to do more harm than good, you gotta really read those labels!

6. Household cleaning products – when you can’t make your own

Whenever I’m unable to make my own toxic free cleaning products, there are two different brands that I turn to and our home is stocked to the brim with them right now because I just didn’t have time to mix cleaners before we moved. They are Aunt Fannies and the new Love Planet Home collection. From Aunt Fannie’s I ordered this cleaning bundle + some extra cleaning wipes. I try to keep our home eco-friendly by using this mop and love their mop fluid! From Love Planet Home, I’m obsessed with their liquid laundry detergent and dryer sheets.

7. Play Dough!

There is absolutely no need to buy icky, chemical laden play dough at the store whenever you can make your own at home for super cheap! I created this recipe here, that is so easy, lasts a long time if stored properly and is considered a calm down dough because I add calming essential oils to it. As a bonus, if you have a child with ADHD, like Branden, it really helps for those extra fidgety moments.

8. Body oil instead of store bough lotion

If you read the labels on your body lotion that you buy at the store, the list is long and kinda scary. I swapped buying body lotion about 6 months ago for this easy body oil recipe that takes 5 minutes to make. It goes well beyond using it as just a body oil, too. Just to rattle a few things off, I use it on Blake’s hair, as an eye makeup remover, bath oil – the list goes on and on!

9. Beauty Products

About a year ago, I put together this really comprehensive list of all the terms that you need to watch out for in beauty products for pregnant women, but it really goes well beyond pregnancy, too. This is a great guide to learn whenever you are spending time at the beauty counter. I try to choose products for myself that get the Sephora Clean Beauty label seal of approval, as I don’t really make my own makeup. Replace things as you, not all at once and go from there!

10. Soap.

Hands down, my favorite soap to use is Dr. Bronners! It’s a little bit more expensive than regular bar soap, but we all use it at this point, it’s toxic free and gives me peace of mind. My favorite is the lavender, and if you buy it in bulk from Amazon, you save lots of money compared to buying one at a time at Target.