The average woman uses 20 fragranced products in her daily life. This is not just beauty products, but also the fragrance and cleaning products you use in your home. It is perfectly understandable that you want to smell good in your home - everyone wants that. But do you have any idea how many toxic chemicals they might contain? In this article, we do a bit of research to find out what you use daily and how they can be damaging your own health. Of course, we do not leave you on your own, we also give you tips on natural alternatives!
"What we call a rose, by any name, is just as fragrant"
... says Shakespeare but let us look at it a little more the other way round: it makes a difference what your home smells of. 4,000 different chemicals are used as fragrances in beauty and cleaning products sold in conventional shops. But since the list of these is a trade secret, you will not find their exact names on the label, just 'fragrance'.
Do you know what your fragrance contains ?
Would you believe us if we told you that even the world famous Chanel perfumes may contain harmful substances? We are not saying it, the documentary "Stink!" is saying it. In fact, it is even more absurd than that, because some of the ingredients in the legendary Chanel 5 perfume are the same as those found in toilet cleaners.
Even more frightening, many of the chemicals, known as 'endocrine disruptor chemicals' (CDEs), disrupt the endocrine system. These chemicals, which are also found in conventional cleaning products and are responsible for fragrance, can disrupt the endocrine system, causing serious health damage. And according to the research cited in the film, the average woman has more than 280 chemicals in her blood, and even Newborn babies have as many.
In our country, we may be better off than this, as the European Union applies much stricter standards - for example, it bans more than a thousand carcinogens and reproductive toxins in product development.
How many chemicals can there be in your home?
Even if you do not use perfumes, lotions, and the like daily, we would bet you have store-bought products at home that are fragranced. Somehow, the concepts of a clean home and a scented home are linked in our minds - if you have a clean home, you expect a pleasant smell.
So, you are not alone if you prefer to choose a cleaning product based on its scent. Why wouldn't you? Because that is the smell you will smell at home after a job well done... Except that you might be choosing toxic substances. Think about what makes the smell so long-lasting. We tend to see it as an advantage if, for example, a mop leaves a fresh smell in the house for a long time. But in many cases, the ingredient responsible for durability is called phthalates, which carry several health risks.
"A closer look at beauty and cleaning products reveals that there are many ingredients of concern behind the fragrance label." - explains Janet Nudelman, founder of the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics.
Spot cleaner, toilet cleaning gel, all-purpose cleaners - all conventional cleaning products have fragrance in them. But as we wrote above, you may not know exactly what they are.
So keep an eye on these when cleaning to protect your health!
In our previous article, we have already listed some important rules to follow for your health. We have already covered how inhaling traditional cleaning products can damage your lungs. If you missed it, catch up now, click here.
So the best advice is always to try to follow the chemical-free principle and make a conscious effort to use natural cleaning products!
So what is a good fragrance in every way?
... in other words, what is it that is good for both your home and your health? If you listen to us, you will get rid of chemical-laden, fragranced cleaning products one by one and switch to nature-friendly alternatives instead.
If you are thinking of the strong smell of vinegar that comes with cleaning with vinegar, forget it - it is not that at all! Store-bought natural cleaning products can smell just as good as the conventional versions - because these green solutions contain 100% natural essential oils. Imagine your home smelling like lemon or lavender. Now that sounds better, doesn't it?
And natural essential oils have other super benefits besides just scenting. Lavender oil, for example, has long been used in aromatherapy for its calming and stress-relieving properties, its ability to promote quality sleep and its effectiveness in the treatment of respiratory problems.
Similarly, lemon oil is often used to treat upper respiratory diseases, but its mood-boosting and concentration-enhancing properties can also be useful in everyday life. So, with natural essential oils, not only do you get a pleasant scent, but you are also doing your health a lot of good.
In CYCLE cleaning products, it is these two essential oils that are responsible for the heavenly fragrance that will fill your home after cleaning. Or is fragrance not so important to you and you would prefer to use fragrance-free natural cleaning products? Let us know what you think! The next step in our product development is the production of fragrance-free cleaning products with optional essential oils.
