Picture this: It’s a chilly, rainy day. It’s overcast & dark outside, the perfect day for staying cuddled under the blanket in your cozy sweats. The baby spit up on your favorite sweatshirt this morning, but luckily, it’s in the dryer almost ready to be worn again. You pull the sweater, still warm, from the dryer. Ahhh….bliss. Anyone else love that feeling? Then it comes out all fresh and beautiful smelling from the laundry detergent and dryer sheet scents…
But what if I told you that while you’re enjoying your cocoon of warm bliss, that the scents & chemicals from your detergent were actually detrimental to your health? Crazy, right?
The Hunt Begins…
When I was pregnant, I was gifted with “baby” laundry detergents. I thought nothing of it until I opened the bottle and could smell it. Because I knew I was sensitive to scents from candles, wax melts, and even deodorant, I knew this wasn’t going to fly. Long story short, this led me to search for a baby safe detergent that wouldn’t cause my head to poudn. What I got from this journey was much more than baby detergent.
I noticed that the detergent only had this listed as their ingredients:
Ingredients include biodegradable surfactants (anionic and nonionic) and enzymes
WTF? Where’s the full list? Apparently this doesn’t have to be disclosed on the label. If you use a conventional detergent, flip it over just to see if they have it listed. I’m huge fan of label reading, my mom refuses to go to museums with me because I read every little thing printed there. Why hadn’t I ever flipped over my detergent to read THOSE ingredients!?
Protect Your Skin
So let’s back up for a minute & think about your skin. It’s the largest organ of your body, although you may not have thought about it that way until now. If you’re washing your laundry with toxic ingredients, these chemicals are in your clothes and sit on your skin all day & night (because even if you sleep in your birthday suit your sheets have been washed with this detergent). Then, when your skin absorbs these chemicals, they go into the blood stream.
Although I don’t have exact percentages (there are going to be a variety of factors that affect this), we know the skin does absorb things because we have topical medications, such as creams & patches. If it touches your mucous membranes (i.e. genitals), they can be absorb at a higher rate and in a way they’re not intended to be. Then, when chemicals get into your bloodstream, they are taken on a journey around your entire body until they end up at whichever organ filters them out, be it the kidneys or liver.
Harmful Chemical Ingredients in Laundry Detergent
Most detergents, fabric softeners, & even dryer sheets are loaded with chemicals. This is why it’s important to find natural, non-greenwashed ones. Some ingredients to be on the look out for (and keep in mind you may have to go to their website, which for me is another red flag) are:
- SLS & SLES are two chemicals that can cause skin and eye irritation, act as an endocrine disruptor, and cause toxicity in multiple human organs. I’ve spoken about them before because they also contaminate the water.
- Phosphates can cause hormone disruption, heart disease, and bone loss. If you want to see some names it goes by, you can click here and look at the chart.
- 1,4 Dioxane is a contaminate of petroleum based products (mineral oils, petroleum, etc). It causes cancer and can damage most organs in your body, plus put your liver and kidneys in overdrive. It’s not require to be on the label since it is a contaminate.
- Fragrance/Parfum is one of my pet peeves! You can hide all sorts of ingredients in here since they aren’t required to be disclosed. I have personally felt the effects of fragrance (headaches, dizziness, nausea).
- Endocrine Disruptors can go by many names. To check out ingredients in your products OR the product itself, head over to ewg.org/skindeep/ to see if anything pops up as an endocrine disruptor. Your endocrine system affects your fertility, acne, cancers,
Safer Alternatives
Instead of fabric softeners or dry sheets, try using wool dryer balls with essential oils, hanging your clothes outside for that fresh air smell, or a vinegar rinse (no, your clothes won’t smell like it!)
Instead of bleach, try using the sun (add some lemon if it’s white!), diluted hydrogen peroxide, or Molly’s Suds oxygen whitener.
For our detergent we love using Molly’s Suds too. We personally use this one and you’ll see the ingredients spelled out right there for you too.
You wanna know something super exciting? I’m hosting a GIVEAWAY with Molly’s Suds. To win everything in the photo below, make sure to run over to Instagram and enter. The giveaway ends TOMORROW (June 4 @ midnight) so be sure to go quick. <3
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