Household Cleaners, Be GONE!

I first noticed how sick cleaning products made me using pet spray. Now, MOST home cleaners are actively and constantly making us sick. According to the EPA, 50% of all illness can be traced to indoor pollution, which can be directly related to the use of household cleaners. The air quality INSIDE our homes is far worse than the quality OUTSIDE our homes. For me, using pet cleaner gave me headaches, respiratory irritation (that feeling of ALLERGY HEAD), nausea and dizziness. Back when I could tolerate using it, I would have to immediately follow with some kind of allergy medicine and analgesic pain medicine. Which made my stomach upset and disrupted my GI system.

It got bad enough that I had to stop using pet cleaner myself, but then by wife would use it to clean a stain. Even 24 hours later, if I went into the room with pet cleaner, I would have a reaction. I didn't even connect the dots to ongoing feelings of allergies, illness, and stomach disease. Let me back up.

I grew up showing dogs (yes, kind of like Best in Show). My Mom had a professional kennel, and we used ALL KINDS of pet chemicals. My Mom was also persistently unwell, seemingly allergic to everything. I don't remember a time when she didn't take dayquil and ibuprofen every day. I had similar feelings of unwellness -- allergies, colds, flus, headaches, migraines - if my childhood had a defining feature in terms of health, it was that I had an almost constant headache.

I literally did not connect the dots between the cleaners and my feelings of unwellness until AFTER I stopped using them in our home and started using basic household cleaners that I make.

The REASON I stopped using cleaning products in my home wasn't even about MY health. It was because my wife had a series of medical conditions that had been linked to the use of the chemicals in home cleaners. The National Center for Health Sciences says “… perhaps the most serious exposure is to modern household cleaners, which may contain a number of proven and suspect causes of cancer.” Cleaning products with ingredients such as bleach, ammonia, chlorine, glycol ethers or formaldehyde can put pets at risk for cancer, anemia, liver and kidney damage. Even when the toxic cleaners are put away and closed, the vapors left behind can continue to harm both us and our pets.

But as soon as I replaced all of the chemical based cleaners and replaced them with cleaners I made myself with simple ingrediants -- baking soda, vinegar, rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, and essential oils -- I started feeling better.

Like a LOT better. I went from taking allergy medicine and analgesic pain killers multiple times daily to, well, almost never.

All those things I thought about my Mom's health made me realize that the almost constant exposure to chemicals in the air in my home was sending me down the same path as her, and adding MORE stress on my liver and body to de-tox.

But what about when my pets make a mess. Do I just live with it?

Oh, hell no!

When it's a minor stain, I use a spray made with the only natural cleaner I let in the house.

One bottle make 12 spray bottles of household cleaners. It removes stains beautifully.

But when I really need to get series, I reach for my scrub cleanser. Here's the recipe

1/2 cup baking soda

1 Tbs white vinegar

2 Tbs water

10 drops doTerra Lemon or Purify

Scrub it in, let it dry, and then wipe or vacuum off. You can even add a TBS of on guard cleaner. But you don't need to.

Scrub stores beautifully in a small mason jar for a few months. Add a few drops of water to refresh.

And take a deep breath. The air in your home is about to get SO. MUCH. BETTER.