No Muck Monday: How To Detoxify Your Home - Week 1

Welcome to our new series for this month, How To Detoxify Your Home!

So let’s face it, our home is our sanctuary. It is our sacred place to come to after a long day of work or running around all day… It is where we want to find peace and rest–unless of course, you’re a mom of young kiddies where peace and rest might be harder to find. Of all places though, home is where we want to feel safe in every way. The last thing we want to think about is that our own safe haven could be making us sick or causing our migraines, allergies, asthma attacks or other issues.

Believe it or not, our homes actually can be contributing to our health problems! It is super important to detoxify your living space. We cannot always control our outside environment but we can control (for the most part) what is actually in our home. We get many questions about how to “greenify” our own house, so we thought we would start a home detox series for the next several weeks on NoMuck Mondays. We’ll try to keep suggestions simple, easy, and budget friendly.

So for week one, we are going to consider air pollution. Yes, air pollution! How many of us want yummy smelling houses–ones that remind us of Grandma baking oatmeal raisin cookies, or ones that smell as though we are frolicking through flowery fields, or sitting on a breezy beach? Or better yet, the latest scent craze in recent years is the smell of clean–like clean cotton, or luscious laundry. I guess it just gives the illusion of a clean house and clothes even though you may be lingering in the loveliness of grub and filth.

Jordan recently did some extra Hazardous Materials training at his fire department and found this information amazing. It stated:

“Most air fresheners interfere with your ability to smell by coating your nasal passages with an oil film, or by releasing a nerve agent. The following chemicals can be found in air fresheners: Formaldehyde, a known carcinogen, and Phenol, which causes the skin to swell, burn, peel, and break out in hives.”

Well instead of giving the illusion of the flowery fields, why not have out some real flowers or plants (more on that for another post) or considering diffusing some essential oils like lavender, sweet orange, or eucalyptus? Or even mix the oils for a wonderful blend?! You can purchase essential oil diffusers, oil burners, or electric wall warmers (like plug ins) at almost any health food store or herb shop, or online. I would recommend purchasing only organic or high quality oils. You want to make sure that what you are burning is pure and not laced with chemicals. The better the quality, the stronger the scents so you’ll use way less oil which in turn, will help make up for the extra cost of the oil. I used to buy only the cheaper brands to diffuse and found that it’s actually more cost effective to use the organic, more concentrated ones since it only takes a couple of drops to make a whole room smell lovely.

I’ve also found that what you eat at home is a natural air freshener. I’ve not noticed this, but friends often comment on how our house always smells like veggies–just from juicing them all the time! It guess it definitely does freshen up the air. Who knew raw greens and carrots could be so potent?! Sy’s soup on the other hand, definitely has a pungent odor that I’m not crazy about (cooked celery is not my fav) but it does remind me of yummy, homemade soup simmering on a cold winter day. Funny considering that we live in Florida. Ha! Still, it smells warm and cozy and I do like that aspect. You can also simmer a pot of cinnamon sticks or lemon to bring some happy flavor to the air.

So the bottom line is to give some thought as to what you are breathing in when you’re relaxing at home (and your car). I’ll bet you’ll be surprised that in getting rid of little things like air fresheners, you may see some real health improvements and even enjoy your home having the aroma of a relaxing spa or that flowery field naturally, without the harmful chemicals. So please tell us what you’re going to throw out this week and what you plan on replacing it with–if anything. We want this to be a forum where we all help each other stay groovy, green and gunk-free! No Muck!

Love,

Heather*