Many (potentially) harmful chemicals that are regulated or outright banned in other countries are unregulated in the US. and they end up in our homes. It’s difficult enough to read a label on a supplement or beauty product and sort out what’s safe and what’s not. But harmful chemicals hiding in furniture, mattresses, and other home products may be even harder to catch. Even when brands claim their products are made with healthier materials, it’s difficult to verify whether those claims can be trusted. Terms like “natural,” “green,” and “clean” aren’t regulated, so you can’t rely on those labels to tell you whether a product is safe. Instead, you should look for third-party certifications that can guarantee a product lives up to its claims.
We’re not suggesting throwing out everything you own. But when an opportunity comes along to make a healthier choice, consider taking it. Replace conventional cleaning products as you go through them, swap out your old candles for ones made with a transparent ingredient list, and toss your nonstick pans when they start to get scratched up. Appliances that remove toxicants from your home environment—like air purifiers and water filters—make a big difference, too. Read on for some of our top swap suggestions and products!
Bedroom
Considering how much time you spend in contact with your bed—sleeping, sex, spending a long morning with a latte and a book—a mattress made with safe materials is critical. Any mattress brand that claims it is nontoxic, natural, or organic should provide legitimate third-party certifications that ensure that your mattress contains no petroleum-based polyurethane foams, flame retardants, or any other potentially harmful chemicals that could off-gas into your home and pollute the air. Look for: Made Safe to confirm a mattress is nontoxic; Greenguard Gold to confirm it’s low-emissions; and GOTS, GOLS, and USDA Organic to confirm its materials are organic.
For your nightstand: an air purifier to remove indoor pollutants that might affect your sleep quality and your health.
A single-occupancy sauna that stashes under the bed is the detox tool we didn’t know we needed. Wrap yourself up in it, let the infrared heat do its thing, and emerge feeling brand-new.
Bathroom
The process used to bleach paper products, including toilet paper, creates chemicals called dioxins and furans, which can irritate the skin. Which is why we recommend switching to bamboo toilet paper, which is free of chlorine bleach, fragrance, dyes, and BPA plastic packaging! And because bamboo doesn’t require nearly as much water, space, or time to grow as wood does, it’s also much less taxing on the environment than conventional TP, which is responsible for between 10-15% of deforestation worldwide, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.
If you would prefer to avoid fluoride toothpastes, choose something made with nano-hydroxyapatite (n-Ha) instead. N-Ha is a compound that works to remove plaque and desensitize and remineralize teeth. It’s been the gold-standard ingredient in Japan for decades. We like the toothpastes from BOKA and Bite.
Consider switching out your floss, too: Certain dental flosses are reported to be made from Teflon and have been found to contain PFAS, a compound that is considered a “forever chemical” because it never naturally breaks down. Cocofloss, a cleaner alternative, has a cult following for how pleasant it is to use—and it feels like it does a better job, anyway.
Kitchen
Skip conventional nonstick—it’s made with synthetic plastic coatings like Teflon that might leech PFOAs into your food if the coating gets damaged. Instead, choose cookware made with stainless steel, cast-iron, and nontoxic ceramic.
Plastic baggies are typically made from polyethylene or polypropylene and often get tossed after a single use. Stasher’s silicone bags contain none of that nonsense and last about 3,000 uses—after which you can return them to Stasher, which will repurpose the silicone into playground pebbles. So cool!
Living Room
Conventional candles, air fresheners, and room sprays use any number of endocrine disruptors, skin and lung irritants, and potentially toxic compounds as fragrance. Which is why we opt for clean, soy-based candles and well-made essential oils from companies that are transparent about their ingredient lists. vitruvi makes some of our all-time most-loved essential oils.
Laundry Room
Conventionally-fragranced laundry detergents contain hormone-disrupting phthalates, which are used to make fragrances stick. Dropps laundry tablets are made without phthalates, parabens, or ammonia, and they’re made without plastic, either! (The water-soluble plastic used for conventional detergent pods may seem to disappear in the wash, but about 75 percent of it does not biodegrade and ends up in the environment as microplastics.)
Fabric softeners and dryer sheets don’t actually soften the fibers in your clothes and linens—they work by depositing a coating of positively charged particles onto your laundry, which reduces static between layers of fabric. They may also come loaded with preservatives, colorants, quaternary ammonium compounds (which can trigger asthma and disrupt reproductive health), and fragrance. The Environmental Working Group recommends trading in-wash fabric softener for distilled white vinegar and dryer sheets for wool dryer balls.