2 Reasons to Use Essential Oils for House Cleaning ⋆ Earth and Water

Using essential oils for house cleaning is a wonderful alternative to commercial products. Many essential oils have properties that are perfect for disinfecting surfaces, dissolving stains and cutting through grease and grime. This makes them just as good as (and often times better than) any chemical laden product you could buy at the store.

Commercial products come with a hefty price tag and I don’t only mean more money (because they are in fact more pricey than using essential oils for house cleaning).

If you’re here, you may already know what these other non monetary price tags are but if you don’t, allow me to be the one to tell you that a lot of chemicals used in cleaning products are not at all good for you and your family. They carry toxins that contribute to all sorts of health concerns in life and I don’t only mean cancer.

These toxins soak into your skin while you’re using the products if you’re not careful (No one ALWAYS wears gloves when cleaning) and can catch you later too as they lie in wait on your surfaces for you to touch them.

With all of their plastic waste, they also clog up landfills and make their way into our water ways, bringing all of their toxins with them. They carry price tags that don’t only effect the health of individuals but the health of all life on the planet and the Earth herself.

Essential Oils for House Cleaning is Nontoxic

I hear people tell me all of the time, “If it were that bad for us, the government wouldn’t allow it on the shelves.” Unfortunately, that’s not at all the case.

You see, we have the FDA to regulate our food (although, in my opinion, they do a really crappy job at it but that’s a whole different blog post). There isn’t anyone regulating what chemicals are allowed and what is safe to be used in our products.

The only thing regulating chemicals is a weak law written in 1976 called the TSCA or Toxic Substance Control Act. It lists 62,000 chemicals that were “presumed safe” to use but were never thoroughly tested on their effects on people. It has never been updated and even stood in the way of Obama banning asbestos during his presidency.

The rate of cancer these days is 1 in every 3 people. ONE IN EVERY THREE. That’s staggering. I also have people argue with me that “That’s always been the rate of cancer. We just didn’t have the technology to diagnose it until recent years.”

To that, I disagree heavily. Nature doesn’t evolve to be flawed like that. It discards that which doesn’t benefit the organism and passes on the beneficial traits. Sure there are flukes but never on a grand scale such as this. It’s simple biology.

In a world that is growing increasingly toxic, we should all be taking responsibility for our own health and wellness and stacking the cards in our favor. I also have people argue with me that “Everything causes cancer” in an excuse for them to write it off and not worry about it anymore.

It’s true that leading a nontoxic life is one of difficulties these days. The vast majority of food and products at our disposal ARE toxic and that sucks.

If we hope to ever change that, though, we HAVE to take responsibility for our own lives, the lives of those we love and make some changes. It doesn’t have to be hard or overwhelming, though. It just takes one little change at a time and you have everything at stake to do so.

Using Essential Oils for House Cleaning is Eco Friendly

Using essential oils to clean your home is a more sustainable alternative to using commercial products. The cleaning supplies you buy at the store (mostly) all have one major common factor. They’re all wrapped in plastic.

This plastic takes 1000 years to decompose. ONE THOUSAND YEARS. Leaving it to clog landfills and find it’s way into our waterways.

1500 plastic bottles are thrown away every second in the U.S. alone. 380 billion plastic bags and wrappers a year. Where do you think we will put it all once the landfills are full? These numbers are staggering.

Look at them again and really let them sink in.

Our ways as a society are unsustainable and will lead to our own demise if we don’t take responsibility for the damage we’ve done by making conscious changes. There are whole lifestyle waves dedicated to making things better for us all such as zero waste and minimalism.

These are designed to help us make a more positive impact on our lives and the worlds we live in. They also improve our standards of living on an individual scale by default.

Even making one switch can make a difference. That one switch takes X amount of plastic out of the cycle. Make another and another and it stems out, growing and influencing those around you. Touching the companies that produce these things and telling them what they should be improving.

It creates a sustainable wave that makes a difference. A single person can cause 1000s of plastic products to either add to the mountains of trash or become nonexistent. The choice is yours.

Switching to essential oils to clean your home with is just one of the tons of things you can do to make a positive impact on your world. It’s a simple category that will make you feel better about your impact on life as we know it and give you a sense of peace in your home.

Peace of Mind

Especially as a parent of children who like to lick things, using essential oils to clean my home makes me feel a lot safer. I also have eczema and crazy sensitive skin. I’m talking seasonal allergies cause me to break out in itchy bumps.

Anything non natural I touch gives me immediate adverse side effects. Essential oils gives me one less thing to worry about on a daily basis.

It also helps me to feel better about the state of the world. Whereas there’s not a ton I can do about law making or anything, I can actively vote on my preferences through the purchases I make.

I can also raise my children to know how to be resourceful and mindful of their impact via the small choices they make on a daily basis and I can share it all with you along the way. These things make a difference and are in my power.

If you want to get started on making nontoxic cleaning choices, I have a directory full of essential oil cleaning recipes for you! They’re all super simple and the same 3-4 oils can be used to clean mostly anything you like so you don’t have to worry about buying a ton of different things.

It’s called Essential Elements and you can learn more about it here.