Pinners Beware!

It's really easy to just somewhat mindlessly click and add pins and I have the sneaking suspicion that a lot of people who say "pin now and read later" may be more likely to pin now and forget later.

We're all at least occasionally guilty on mindless pinning; unless of course your my husbands grandmother. When I tried to teach her to use Pintrest she was reading each pin on the opening page with such care I think she only read four or five pins (this included visiting the source websites.)

I say all of that to say this - take at least one minute longer before pinning to your boards with titles like "natural living", "chemical free", or "green." Some pins will have the basic ingredients for a recipe listed right there without your needing to visit a website and even more have pictures of the ingredients you can expect to use. While looking for chemical-free recipes I found a disturbing amount that included Suave shampoo or conditioner, Herbal Essences shampoo or conditioner, Dawn dish soap, and even on occasion ammonia!

If you're not sure why all of these ingredients (sans the ammonia) don't count as chemical-free I've looked up the ingredients of these products so I can show you a few of the most commonly used toxic chemicals you will find in these products.

Suave

Fragrance (Parfum), propylene glycol, methylchloroisothiazolinone, methylisothiazolinone, dmdm hydantoin

     According to LIVESTRONG:
              "All shampoos in the Suave lines include ammoninum lauryl sulfate, a surfactant that reduces surface tension in water so that it can lift dirt from your hair, and sound-alike ammonium laureth sulfate, another surfactant and a skin conditioner."

Herbal Essences

Fragrance (Parfum), PEGs, 


Dawn

Fragrance, sodium laureth sulfate

Although the overall health rating for these may not be off the charts terrible, the fact that these items contain these chemicals is enough for me to feel that using them in your "home-made" products isn't the greenest choice possible and not very chemical-free.

Learning at least a few of the more hazardous chemicals will make checking labels simpler than you may think. I can tell you from my own personal experience that there you will learn where in the list of ingredients to find some of these offenders while others jump off the label and you spot them almost immediately.

Just remember that DIY isn't interchangeable with "green" or "eco-friendly."

Chemical to Chemical-Free

My little girl has reached the point where I find her looking in all cabinets within reach so I really can't think of a better time to just jump in and replace all those dangerous chemicals.

First I collected 99% of our cleaners and toxic chemicals (I decided to go ahead and finish up the bottles of laundry detergent and children's laundry detergent. I may dispose of what's left of the cleaners or just finish using them. My end game plan is to reuse the containers.)

Then I went to the store and returned all of the unopened containers and exchanged them for greener options. It's not a perfect system putting those toxins right back out there but I don't really have too many pennies to spare.

Now to begin making at-home chemical-free cleaners.