I have several friends who washed their baby’s clothes separately in baby-friendly detergent. So when I was pregnant with Monkey, I started researching what was the “right” laundry detergent to use for baby clothes, and if it was really necessary to wash her clothes separately. I soon realized there is all sorts of toxic chemicals in laundry soap – chemicals which are especially bad for a for a little baby to be absorbing through her skin. That made me think, “if I’m holding the baby or she’s or laying in my bed, shouldn’t I also wash my clothes and sheets in baby-safe detergent?” My other question was, “if laundry soap is too toxic for baby’s clothes and skin, do I really want it on my clothes and skin?”
Duane once broke out in hives when we stayed at a hotel, and my face gets itchy the first night sleeping on a clean pillow case. So it made sense to stop using the toxic laundry soap and I completely switched to using a supposedly safe laundry soap, for all of our laundry.
Along with changing laundry soap, I started researching other household items. I’ve gotten mouth sores from tooth paste, broken out in hives from lotions, and get itchy hands from dish soaps. A friend explained that when bathing/showering, our pores are open and our bodies absorbs whatever bad stuff is in our soaps and shampoo, so I switched those too.
Then I found the Environmental Working Group website – which rates products on how safe/toxic they are – either with A-F ratings or on a scale of 0-10 (0 is good, 10 is really toxic) I quickly discovered my “non-toxic”, “all natural” and even “organic” products were still rather toxic, although maybe not quite as bad as some others. Grrrr.
Here’s some of the products our family used to use, and a links to their ratings on the EWG website:
Duane & I both used Burt’s Bees shampoo.
Johnson’s (not-so) natural Baby wash
Fortunately I found this information before I ever started using use biokleen on Monkey’s diapers, so I threw out a brand new bottle of this stuff (but they do have a newer, safer version out now).
We were using Eccos laundry soap for our clothes
And the worst thing we were using was for Monkey’s diaper laundry: All Free & Clear laundry detergent
Now we use products from Go Beyond Natural (GBN), which really are toxic-free. Here are GBN / Chae Organics ratings on EWG
What products are you using in your home? How do they rate on the EWG website? Are they really as safe as they advertise to be?
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