The Best Clean Household Cleaning Products & Brands (And Ingredients to Avoid)

Safe Household Cleaning Products For Your Family!

I’ve been transitioning my beauty routine to cleaner, safer products. If you’ve missed my past clean beauty posts, you can find them all here. Clean beauty is one thing, but clean household products are probably something you haven’t even thought about! Making that transition seems like a big deal, but there are actually tons of safer options out there that you can find at your favorite stores like Target, Walmart, and even Amazon!

Why Clean Household Products?

I’ve answered the question of why you should transition to clean beauty products in these posts. But why clean household products too? The reasons are similar to the ones you should avoid certain beauty products. Some household products have chemicals that are linked to cancer, asthma, and developmental harm. In an EWG test, they tried 21 cleaning products and found that they emitted over 450 chemicals into the air. These chemicals are even worse for your kids, who are more vulnerable to the effects. You can find more information on the health and environmental concerns here. If your household products are something you can switch out to save yourself and your kids, then why not!?

Ingredients To Avoid

According to the EWG guidelines, these are some of the ingredients to avoid. If you’re familiar or follow EGW guidelines, they have a Home Guide to make finding home cleaning products easier! You can search for products and cleaning categories here. These are their top ingredients to avoid…

• Avoid ammonia and chlorine bleach. And especially mixed together because they create chloramine gas.
• Hydrochloric acid, phosphoric acid, sodium or potassium hydroxide, or ethanolamines can cause blindness, lung irritation, and skin burns.
• Fragrance is a big ingredient to avoid because we don’t know what’s actually in it. Fragrance can cause allergies and can contain known endocrine disruptors.
• Quaternary ammonium compounds (quats) can cause birth defects and reduce fertility in animals. They’re also associated with asthma.
• Ticlosan is linked to allergies and disruption of thyroid function.

How Do You Know They’re Clean?

The best way to know if something is clean is to learn to read the label. But there’s no way to know every single ingredient. So you should look for products certified by Green Seal or Ecologo. These certification programs have intense screening processes and standards so you know those products are safe! Since sanitizing and disinfecting products will have more harmful ingredients, you should choose one with the EPA’s Safer Choice label. You can see all three of the seals to look for above.

Clean Brands & Products

Now onto what you should actually be replacing. The answer is anything and everything that’s not safe… Hand soap, body soap, toothpaste, laundry detergent, all-purpose cleaners, disinfectants, etc. I know that can be expensive so just start with the things you use the most.

You probably do laundry pretty often! Find some safe laundry detergent. An EWG verified option is AspenClean Laundry Detergent in Lavender Lemongrass. Another safe option you can find at Target is Everspring Laundry Detergent in Free & Clear. That’s what our blog editor, Kaitlyn uses.

You can find a clean, safer household product for pretty much anything! It just takes a little more work and research. Which is worth it for a healthier life! Here are a few brands that have products that score well on EWG’s site. Remember that just because a brand is clean/natural does not mean that every single product is clean. You still have to do your research!

Popular Clean Household Product Brands

Mrs. Meyer’s, Aunt Fannie’s, Seventh Generation, Everspring, Better Life, The Honest Company, Dr. Bronner’s, AspenClean

Special Note

Since we’re all worried about disinfecting and making sure everything is extra clean, these are the best disinfecting products ranked by EWG!

Best Disinfectant on EWG: LYSOL Power & Free Multi-Purpose Cleaner, Citrus Sparkle Zest, and Seventh Generation Disinfecting Multi-Surface Cleaner, Lemongrass Citrus.
Find more disinfectants scores on EWG here.

Best Bleach Cleaners on EWG: biokleen Oxygen Bleach Plus, Earth Friendly Products ECOS OxoBrite Multi-Purpose Stain Remover in Free & Clear, Ecover Non-Chlorine Bleach Liquid, and Seventh Generation Chlorine-Free Bleach in Free & Clear

What are your favorite CLEAN household products? Please share in the comments below. To get my blog posts delivered directly to your inbox, along with some awesome freebies, be sure to sign up for my newsletter here. 

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