Choosing Products for Your Home
Do you take the time to check the labels on the different products you buy?
This isn't me shaming you into doing so, trust me, I NEVER checked the labels until a couple years ago. I just want to share some tools I use to check what is in the products that come into my home.
First of all, there is no one perfect app or website, so please keep that in mind when you check these out. These are resources that are available to us to help us understand what ingredients are in the products we buy each day.
If you're like me, you want to use clean, safe, and natural products that are okay for your kids to touch or ingest if they accidentally get into a cabinet they weren't supposed to. Which we ALL know is going to happen at some point or another!!
Environmental Working Group (EWG Skin Deep)
This website has a large database of different products you can purchase at your local pharmacy or online. They rate each product on a scale of 1-10 and indicate how much data they have to back up that rating. They also list the ingredients and give a score for each one.
There is also an area called ''Ingredient Concerns'' where they show how toxic the product is in different categories. If you scroll further you will see the ''Product's Animal Testing Policies'' as well as the ''Product's Label Information''.
This is a valuable tool when researching different skin products or household products that you are comfortable bringing into your home.
Think Dirty App
The next one was actually the first thing I was introduced to when I started being more conscious about what I was buying. This app is very similar to the EWG website, but it is an app.
Once again, keep in mind, these are not perfect. They are resources that we can use. I like to check more than one and compare my findings. I also like to google ingredients to see what comes up and compare that as well!
UPDATE: The Environmental Working Group, which created the Think Dirty App have been bought out! They are rating Lysol as an A, which if you look at the ingredients, it is not. Therefore, I no longer recommend using these sources. When looking at a product, check the ingredient label and look up each one! Especially the ones you can't pronounce.
PubMed
This website has a lot of good studies and articles surrounding certain types of ingredients. For example, if you search ''fragrance'' in PubMed, thousands of different articles will come up.
People create studies to see if fragrance is linked to things like allergies, for example, and then their findings get published on a website like PubMed. Also note, there are ways to refine your search, so you don't have to read thousands of articles. Don't worry that would be absurd!!
Companies
Another thing I have recently started doing is looking up a company and even reaching out to them and asking questions. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure you are buying something you are comfortable with your family using!
All-in-all, I want you to know that you have the right to ask questions. This is for your health and your family's health. That's important and not to be taken lightly!!
Do you have other tools you use to choose your everyday products? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below!
This isn't me shaming you into doing so, trust me, I NEVER checked the labels until a couple years ago. I just want to share some tools I use to check what is in the products that come into my home.
First of all, there is no one perfect app or website, so please keep that in mind when you check these out. These are resources that are available to us to help us understand what ingredients are in the products we buy each day.
If you're like me, you want to use clean, safe, and natural products that are okay for your kids to touch or ingest if they accidentally get into a cabinet they weren't supposed to. Which we ALL know is going to happen at some point or another!!
Environmental Working Group (EWG Skin Deep)
This website has a large database of different products you can purchase at your local pharmacy or online. They rate each product on a scale of 1-10 and indicate how much data they have to back up that rating. They also list the ingredients and give a score for each one.
There is also an area called ''Ingredient Concerns'' where they show how toxic the product is in different categories. If you scroll further you will see the ''Product's Animal Testing Policies'' as well as the ''Product's Label Information''.
This is a valuable tool when researching different skin products or household products that you are comfortable bringing into your home.Think Dirty App
The next one was actually the first thing I was introduced to when I started being more conscious about what I was buying. This app is very similar to the EWG website, but it is an app.
Once again, keep in mind, these are not perfect. They are resources that we can use. I like to check more than one and compare my findings. I also like to google ingredients to see what comes up and compare that as well!
UPDATE: The Environmental Working Group, which created the Think Dirty App have been bought out! They are rating Lysol as an A, which if you look at the ingredients, it is not. Therefore, I no longer recommend using these sources. When looking at a product, check the ingredient label and look up each one! Especially the ones you can't pronounce.
PubMed
This website has a lot of good studies and articles surrounding certain types of ingredients. For example, if you search ''fragrance'' in PubMed, thousands of different articles will come up.
People create studies to see if fragrance is linked to things like allergies, for example, and then their findings get published on a website like PubMed. Also note, there are ways to refine your search, so you don't have to read thousands of articles. Don't worry that would be absurd!!
Another thing I have recently started doing is looking up a company and even reaching out to them and asking questions. There is nothing wrong with wanting to make sure you are buying something you are comfortable with your family using!
All-in-all, I want you to know that you have the right to ask questions. This is for your health and your family's health. That's important and not to be taken lightly!!
Do you have other tools you use to choose your everyday products? I'd love to hear about them in the comments below!
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