A good site to research household products

[Curmudgeoness]

The Environmental Working Group's Guide to Healthy Cleaning lists many of the products we use in our homes, and rates them as to their toxicity. You can do a search for a product or brand. There is a list of products in different categories with grade from A to F. It also has a label decoder to help you understand what is in products.

http://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners

I spent a lot of time looking around and I am impressed so I wanted to share this.

[mkultra321]

1. Excellent site!

I have spent hours on this and am in the process of detoxing my household of hazardous cleansers and beauty products. It's a voyage of discovery let me tell you. There is a movie out there called "Chemerical" you also might want to check out. That's how I first heard of EWG's Skin Deep database. The movie may have shaky production values but it has excellent content.

Are you going to make your own cleansers or are you going to use eco friendly store brands? I would love to chat with others who are going through this change, too.

[Curmudgeoness]

2. I was shocked by some of the products that I use.

I will not just throw things away, but I will replace when they are used with more eco-friendly products. Most of my regular cleaning products are rated D or F. Ugh. There is only one product that I will continue to use, even with the F rating---and I do have guilt about that, but it is the only product that I found to clean my old bathtub and I have tried just about everything over the years. I will just have to make up for it with all the other products.

I will not make many of my own cleansers, but I have used vinegar and baking soda for years. I will continue and will try it for other uses than I have in the past. But I will not go through too much effort to make special cleaners. Call me lazy.

Let me know if you come up with easy cleaning products to make from safe ingredients.

[mkultra321]

3. So far I have focused mostly on personal hygiene products

I figure if I'm using them directly on my skin I should know what they contain. I've also gone mostly organic with food this year.
For cleaning I've made the following changes:

Sulfate free dish soap and dishwasher detergent from Trader Joes with a little sugar-free lemonade in the wash cycle and a vinegar rinse cycle.

Charlie's Soap for the laundry with vinegar (again) in the rinse cycle instead of fabric softener. I use dryer balls in the dryer instead of fabric sheets. I have not had a problem at all with static. I make stain treatments with Baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and a dab of Bronners soap. For an oxyclean-like prewash I mix in Arm and Hammer washing soap with hydrogen peroxide and let laundry soak in it. For spray starch I put a tablespoon of corn starch in my spray bottle and fill it up with warm water--this works great!

I've cleaned the wood floors for years with vinegar and water and now clean the sink out with baking soda in a little shaker I keep by the sink. Like you, I'm also finishing up some old products but plan to come up with better solutions as they get used up. It's about convenience so I print out the "recipe" and label it onto reusable bottles.

Where are you finding the "scores" on the EWG website? I haven't seen those yet.

[Curmudgeoness]

5. The scores can be found

by clicking on a category. Also, if you do a search of a product, you will get the ratings.

Example for "all purpose"

http://www.ewg.org/guides/categories/2-AllPurpose

I also use hydrogen peroxide for a lot of things. I have never used it for a pre-wash unless it is blood or something else that I know is organic. I will have to try it. I buy it in the big bottles because I use so much. I even use it as a drain cleaner.

When you say you clean the wood floors----are they wood or do they have a polyurethane finish on them? My wood floors are old and are not refinished, they still have a good finish of shellac on them, and I worry about what I use to wash them.

[mkultra321]

7. Hydrogen Peroxide for prewash

Yep, I started using that recently. It seems to work well with the washing soda. I worry though that it might be too diluted in the water. My floors are all hard wood. I use a solution of about 1-2 cups vinegar in a wash bucket of warm water. Then I mop the floor with a Libby wonder mop--later I can throw the mop head in the washing machine to clean it up with my dirty towels.

[mkultra321]

4. Disregard my final question

Your handy link showed me the way!

Now I get to see that my Charlie's Soap ranked a D and my Trader Joe's brand was not so hot, either. Darn-it-all-anyway!

[Curmudgeoness]

6. This has been my experience too.

I thought I was making wise choices, and what I was using is not as bad as some, but.....it wasn't good either. However, you might want to read why some of your products are rated low---some of the reasons were not issues to me and I thought that they were going a little too far.

[mkultra321]

8. Charlie's Soap Laundry Detergent

I can't figure out why they ranked it so low. It seems like they ranked it low because the manufacturers are keeping some ingredients secret.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. That seems to be the case with several products.

I am not sure how to feel about the ratings on those ones. Oh well, the site is still a good resource even if I don't worry as much as they do about some of the things.

I also wonder about some of the A rated products, since they are all just a few brands.....call me too suspicious, but I often wonder if there is a preference for some brands.

[peterbobby]

10. Spam deleted by hlthe2b (MIR Team)