UPDATED: September 2016 As a family of four, we go through a lot of dish soap, and my kids love to "help" wash dishes. As with many products, natural dish soap often is as effective as the ones that are a startling orange color and full of magical chemicals that make your dishes sparkle. The trouble with being tough on grease is that this usually also means tough on the health of whoever
Non-Toxic Cleaning Products
Non-toxic Air Freshener Guide
1. Aura Cacia / 2. Eco-Me / 3. Moso / 4. Christina Maser When I started dating Daylon, I loved that his bachelor pad always smelled so nice, thanks to a prominent Glade plug-in in his entryway. Once I learned about what was in that air freshener, I promptly unplugged it. This meant that our apartment began smelling like whatever we’d last cooked—wonderful on the rare occasion when I baked
What’s Wrong with Sodium Lauryl & Sodium Laureth Sulfate?
This is Gimme the Good Stuff's simple primer on sodium lauryl sulfate and its nefarious cousin, sodium laureth sulfate. Sodium lauryl sulfate, or SLS, is a surfactant (for simplicity’s sake, think of a surfactant as something that creates bubbles in dish soap, toothpaste, shampoo, shower gel, etc.). There is conflicting evidence, but my research has made me believe that SLS is not a
Biokleen & Seventh Generation: Sneaky Stuff
I'm sure many of you have seen that the Environmental Working Group has at last launched their Guide to Healthy Cleaning; it's awesome! EWG's Skin Deep Database is a wonderful (if overwhelming) tool for determining the safety of cosmetics, and the Healthy Cleaning site makes finding safe household cleaning products less confusing, although it's still overwhelming. I was happy to see that
What’s Wrong With Dreft?
This blog entry is part of our “What’s Wrong With” series, each installment of which profiles a different product and gives you the bottom line on its safety. Think of these as cheat sheets for our more comprehensive Safety Reviews (which we publish less frequently). Any laundry detergent you use will leave a residue on clothing and linens, which is then inhaled and absorbed (via skin) by the
Citra-Solv & Citra-Suds Is Sneaky Stuff!
Last year, when I researched Citra-Solv (they make household cleaners, dish soaps, and laundry detergents), I was assured that their products do not contain sodium laureth sulfate (also known as SLES--check our glossary for some compelling reasons to avoid products containing this foaming agent.). I also was told that their Valencia orange detergents and soaps were scented with orange