Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Going Green One Step at a Time

A suggestion - take baby steps. Find one minor thing you can change and stick to it. If you're not recycling already, start. Turn lights off when you leave a room and unplug items you aren't using.

If you're doing these things, the next thing I recommend is to start buying fragrance-free products whenever you can. Not 'unscented', but 'fragrance-free'. Insanely enough, unscented often means that fragrances have been used to cover up the scent. Fragrance can be derived from thousands of different toxins. Replace these fragrance sprays with essential oil blends. You can buy essential oils at a local health store (or even in the natural foods section of your grocery store) and dilute it with water for a safe alternative. Unfortunately, these products are sometimes tough to find - so just do what you can.

You can download the 'Safety Guide to Children’s Personal Care Products', on the EWG's website on the cosmeticdatabase.com website. This is a great guide that tells you what ingredients to avoid when buying skin care products for your family. On top of these ingredients , I recommend that you always avoid anything containing 'parabens' (i.e. methylparabens). Check out a few different bottles when shopping for these products and you'll start to notice new brands made with more natural ingredients that actually say 'paraben-free'.