Don’t Just Have
a Clean Home
Have a Healthy Home by
Cleaning with Essential Oils

Stop cleaning with toxins and overloading your self, your family, your pets, your home and the environment with the toxins in over-the-counter home products, learn how to use essential oils in your home.

Do you hate to clean your home? Do you get in a bad mood when you do? Maybe it is because you have been inhaling all those toxic chemicals all day. Most of the home care products available to you over-the-counter are full of toxic chemicals (even if they smell wonderful), but you don’t need all those toxic chemicals to have a sparkling home.

Pollutants come into our home and pollute our indoor air from combustion sources we use to heat our homes with like oil, gas, kerosene, and wood. Even our central heating and cooling systems and humidification devices we use. They are in some of our homes building material, furnishings and insulation. Some of the carpets, cabinetry and furniture we put in our homes. The products we use for keeping our homes clean and maintenance of our homes and yards. They even come from the personal care products we use and products we use in our hobbies.

Some things release pollutants continuously while others release pollutants intermittently. The importance of any single source depends on the given pollutant that is emitted and its source. The age of some things determine this (older items can contain toxins not allowed any more or maybe the item is wet or deteriorating) or whether the item is working properly (maybe your gas heater just needs to be adjusted or your furnace is malfunctioning). Have you been using a solvent in a hobby, or a paint stripper in redecorating, using cleaners or pesticides.

Even after you have fixed the problem causing the pollutants or have finished the activity that was being done using these types of items, high pollutant concentrations can remain in the air of your home for long periods. If too little outdoor air enters your home the pollutants can accumulate to levels that pose health and comfort problems. Our new homes are built to not be drafty and be energy efficient keeping the outside air outside and the pollutants inside. Plus weather conditions can reduce the amount of outside air coming inside. Even homes that are considered leaky can have a build up of pollutants in its indoor air.

Many products you use to disinfect your home have a secret of their own, they are toxic and can potentially cause a multitude of problems for you and your family. Research suggests that many of these chemicals can cause everything from an increase in breast cancer, to asthma, to planning a role in disrupting our hormones. Many different chemicals can play a part in making Home Sweet Home a toxic dump. One of the great concerns is phenol-caustic compounds. They are often found in disinfectants. Even the Environmental Protection Agency lists disinfectants that contain phenols as “corrosive and toxic” and according to the National Institutes of Health, phenol is toxic and people who are hypersensitive to it could experience death or serious side effects at very low exposure.

How is it that these chemicals and compounds are even allowed in home care products that we use in our homes to “clean them,” around our children and pets? We want sparkly homes without causing harm to our families.

Here is a partial list of name brand cleaners that contain
Phenol-Caustic:

Household detergents
Lysol
Pine-Sol
Spic-n-Span
Acne Medications
Baking Powder
Mouthwash
Sugar Substites

Begin thinking of your home as a toxic waste dump. The average home today contains 62 toxic chemicals – more than a chemistry lab at the turn of the century. More than 72,000 synthetic chemicals have been produced since WWW 1. Less than 2% of synthetic chemicals have been tested for toxicity, mutagenic and carcinogenic effects, or birth defects. The majority of chemicals have never been tested for long-term effects. As you can see we are exposed to pollutants from a number of sources and using those toxic cleaners to clean your home increases the pollutants in the air in your home. We can’t control all the sources of toxins entering our homes and lives, but we can get rid of some of the sources and cut down on our exposure, and switching to non-toxic cleaners and/or cleaning with essential oils is one way we can.

Click here to learn more about some of the harmful ingredients in our personal care and home care products or Click here to find out about some great non-toxic "green" cleaners you can buy if you don’t want to make your own.
We can also use toxic free personal care products to reduce the toxins we take into our body, click here to find about some great personal care and skin care products you can buy, You can also make some of your own skin and personal care products.

Now let’s get into the ways to clean with essential oils plus give you a few recipes:

Be sure and use natural tools and not plastic (like sponges, clothes, etc.) Also be sure and shake your solutions before each use. Be sure and keep your essential oils away from children and pets.

Here is a list of a few oils that are good to use around your home:

Orange – Orange is great to use for wood and also add to your laundry detergant, it smells wonderful and helps with stains. Its properties are: antiseptic and insecticidal

Pine - Pine is great to use, that is why you see it so often in the products on the shelves at the store . Its properties are: antibacterial, anti fungal, anti microbial, antiseptic, deodorant and disinfectant. It is great to clean your kitchen and bathroom, add it to the warm water in the mop bucket or add to baking soda for carpet.

Tea Tree - Tea tree has some very powerful properties: antibacterial, anti fungal, and anti microbial. It can be added to anything you use for a sprrkling kitchen and bathroom. Add some drops to your general purpose water/vinegar spray, and to a spray bottle of water for offensive smells. Boost the antiseptic quality of your dish washing soap by adding tea tree (you can also choose to add lavender and lemon or bergamot and orange or a combination of your liking), you will also have a nice fragrance while washing the dishes.

Lemon - We can’t leave out lemon, it smells great and its properties are: antibacterial, anti fungal, antiseptic and disinfectant. Like orange oil it is great for furniture, mix with a little jojoba or olive oil and apply to furniture then buff with a cloth.

Eucalyptus - Eucalyptus properties are: antibacterial, anti fungal, antiseptic and antiviral. Add to any general purpose cleaner. Leaves a nice scent and is great in the winter when colds are around.

Lavender - Lavender’s properties are: antibacterial, anti fungal, antibacterial and insecticide for just a few, it is a wonderful all purpose essential oil with a nice gentle scent. Use a few drops on a cloth in your linen closets for moths, or in your clothing drawers. Add to the spray bottle of your linen water and shake before using. Use it in the mop water for your wood floor.

Click here for some recipes you might like to try for some household cleaning products

Click here to find out more about Harmful and Toxic Ingredients

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