Tag Archives: green

About Those Fragrance-Free Laundry Products

Some of us have gone to great lengths to encourage others to use fragrance-free products, especially for laundry, as many of the chemicals in fragrances cause such  disabling effects for us.

Not only that, but fragranced laundry products pollute entire neighbourhoods with hazardous chemicals when pumped out of dryer vents (which were designed to emit moisture, not toxic chemicals), meaning that we (and others with asthma, migraines, COPD, etc) can’t sit or work outside in our gardens, open our windows for fresh air, or go for walks safely when other people are doing laundry with regular commercial  products (and when are they not?), because we could be felled at any time from the emissions.

Much to our chagrin, many of us have discovered that some fragrance-free products can also make us dizzy, cause breathing difficulties like asthma, create cognitive confusion and memory problems, give us headaches, chemical hangovers, and more.

This has caused all kinds of difficulties, not just for us, but for the people who switched products only to discover that their efforts were not “good enough” for us.

“Can’t they EVER be happy?  Why are they still complaining?”

Anne Steinemann’s recently published research regarding VOCs emitted from regular personal care, cleaning, and laundry products, (the popular ones used by most people in the “developed” world) sheds some much needed light on the problems.

So what did she find?

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Being a Caring “Consumer”, Giver, and Receiver of Gifts

‘Tis the season when we are encouraged or expected to participate in mad shopping frenzies, buying products that are mostly toxic and usually generate vast quantities of waste to boot. On some level, I believe most people know that this isn’t working out so well for anyone, but it’s hard to know why it’s so hard for people to show love in ways that don’t involve disposable packaging and toxic materials that are advertised as being cool or trendy. Or maybe it’s the advertising that has something to do with it?

Thankfully, we do have available a plethora of alternative ways to show our love to friends and families, and the trendiness factor is growing. There are ways that are kinder, gentler, more personal, and usually much more appreciated

more love

I’d like to share some ideas and resources that I have found helpful. Some are newer while others have been around for years but are still very relevant now, if not more so.

I hope you find something that not only inspires you, but also makes your life easier and allows you to become more attuned to your own gifts and needs, as well as those of others.

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