Home Detox Action Plan
What are some of the simple things you can do to remove most modern toxins from entering your home?
Take your shoes off
Filter your water, see EWG.org/tapwater
Buy organic (Food AND clothes)
Buy second hand (clothes and furniture)
When painting, use Non-VOC paint
When buying furniture or flooring, try to go with real wood, not engineered wood
NEVER buy anything labeled with “fragrance” or “perfume/parfum”
Don’t install plastic playgrounds or fake turf (plastic sitting in sun)
No microwaving plastic - heat accelerates leaching, glass only
Ditch nonstick cookware - PFAS forever chemicals, cast iron alternative
Open windows daily - indoor air worse than outdoor, free solution
Proper dusting - damp cloth, sealed HEPA vacuum, wet mopping
NEVER use dryer sheets (use wool dryer balls instead)
By law—both in the United States and in Europe—manufacturers do not have to disclose what's actually in "fragrance."
They can write one word on the label—"fragrance"—and that word can contain dozens, sometimes hundreds, of different chemicals. And they don't have to tell you what any of them are.
Why? Because fragrance formulations are considered "trade secrets." Like the Coca-Cola recipe, right? Proprietary. Confidential.
Except here's the difference: Coca-Cola goes in your stomach, where your liver can process it and filter out toxins. Your liver is literally designed to be your body's chemical defense system.
But fragrance? Fragrance goes on your skin. And your skin absorbs it directly into your bloodstream. It bypasses your liver entirely. No filtering. No processing. Straight into your body.
So these companies get to keep their "secret formulas," and you get chemicals delivered directly to your bloodstream without ever knowing what they are.
Now let me tell you what's actually hiding under that one little word.
What's Really in "Fragrance"
A 2010 study found that fragrance products contained an average of 14 hormone-disrupting ingredients in each product. Fourteen. Chemicals associated with reproductive abnormalities, sperm damage, thyroid disruption. And 84% of these chemicals weren't even listed on the label because they were protected under that "fragrance" umbrella.
So what are we actually talking about? What's hiding in there?
Phthalates. These are the chemicals from that breast cancer study. They're endocrine disruptors, which is a fancy way of saying they mess with your hormones. They mimic estrogen. They interfere with testosterone. They're linked to breast cancer gene expression—as we just saw—and they're also associated with reproductive problems, particularly dangerous during pregnancy and childhood development.
Synthetic musks. These accumulate in your body fat and even show up in breast milk. They don't break down in the environment. They just build up, year after year, in your tissues.
Parabens. They mimic estrogen too. Researchers have found them concentrated in breast tumor tissue. They disrupt hormonal balance throughout your body.
Formaldehyde releasers. Yes, formaldehyde. The same chemical used to preserve dead bodies. It's a known carcinogen. It causes respiratory irritation. And it's in your lotion, slowly releasing formaldehyde onto your skin.
Benzene derivatives. Linked to cancer, toxic to bone marrow, affects blood cell production.
And this is just what we know about. There are dozens more chemicals we haven't even studied yet because nobody's required to test them before putting them in products that millions of people use every single day.
The Double Standard
You want to know what's really crazy about all this?
If you wanted to create a new pharmaceutical drug and test it on humans, you'd need years of safety testing. FDA approval. Clinical trials. You'd need informed consent from every single person who participated. You'd have to prove, beyond any doubt, that it doesn't cause harm.
But if you want to create a new fragrance chemical, mix it with 50 other untested chemicals, and have millions of women rub it on their skin every single day for decades?
No testing required. No approval needed. No disclosure necessary.
We test drugs that you might take for two weeks. We don't test chemicals you'll use for 30 years straight.
How does that make any sense? It doesn't. But it's legal. And it's happening right now, in your bathroom, probably in 12 different bottles.
It's Not Just Cancer
The breast cancer study is damning enough. But it's not just cancer we should be worried about.
Think about what phthalates do to our bodies. To adults, they disrupt thyroid function—your thyroid controls your metabolism, your energy, your mood. They interfere with testosterone and estrogen. They contribute to insulin resistance and diabetes risk. They're even called "obesogens" because they're literally linked to obesity. These chemicals can make you gain weight.
But it's worse for children. Kids exposed to phthalates show lower IQ scores, behavioral problems, earlier puberty in girls, genital abnormalities in boys, increased allergies and asthma.
And during pregnancy? They cross the placenta freely. They show up in amniotic fluid. They're associated with preterm birth, low birth weight, neurodevelopmental issues. Your baby is marinating in these chemicals before they're even born.
And remember: this isn't a one-time exposure. You're not using these products once.
If you're like most people, you're exposed every single day through shampoo and conditioner, body wash and soap, lotion and moisturizer, deodorant, perfume or cologne, hair products—gel, mousse, hairspray—makeup, shaving cream, even some sunscreens.
The average woman uses 12 products every day. Men use 5 to 6. Teens use more than anyone. That's 168 unique chemicals before breakfast. Every single morning.
And the greatest danger? The additive effect during critical windows: pregnancy, infancy, and puberty. When our bodies are most vulnerable and developing rapidly.
And That's Just What We've Studied
Phthalates aren't even the worst offenders. They're just the ones we happen to have research on because somebody finally got the funding to look.
There are synthetic musks called Galaxolide and Tonalide that accumulate in body fat, show up in breast milk, build up over decades in your tissues, and don't break down in the environment. Ever.
There's styrene—a possible human carcinogen, neurotoxin, and reproductive toxin—commonly used in fragrance synthesis.
There's methyl eugenol—carcinogenic in animal studies, commonly used in perfumes, often completely unlabeled.
The list goes on. And on. And on.
And we're just discovering these now, decades after millions of people have been using them daily. We're running a massive human experiment, and we're all the unwitting participants.
How Did We Get Here?
You might be wondering: How did this happen? How did we get to a place where it's legal to hide carcinogens in shampoo?
Let me take you back. Because this story matters.
For thousands of years—literally thousands—if you wanted something to smell nice, you used what nature provided. Essential oils from plants. Rose, lavender, mint. Resins and balsams like frankincense and myrrh. Natural musks from animals, which were ethically problematic but at least you knew what they were.
These were expensive. Precious. A vial of rose oil might cost a month's wages. So most people? They just smelled like... people. Maybe with a hint of whatever herbs were in their soap. And that was fine. That was normal.
Then came World War II. And with it came the chemical revolution that changed everything.
The same chemical companies that made explosives, nerve gas, and synthetic rubber suddenly had massive production capacity and no war to supply. They had factories. They had chemicals. They had workers. What they didn't have was customers.
So they found peacetime markets.
They discovered they could make chemicals that smell like roses, like vanilla, like lavender—for pennies. Not extracted from plants. Not natural in any way. Made from petroleum. From oil refineries.
And the marketing pitch was brilliant: "Now everyone can afford luxury scents! Science has made perfume democratic! This is progress!"
What they didn't mention was that these chemicals were untested on humans long-term. That many were byproducts of other industrial processes. That they don't break down in the environment. That they accumulate in body tissue. That we had absolutely no idea what would happen when you mixed hundreds of them together and had people rub them on their skin every single day for decades.
But it was cheap. It was new. It was "modern." And modern meant better, right?
By the 1960s, synthetic fragrance was everywhere. Every shampoo. Every soap. Every lotion. Every cleaning product. Every laundry detergent. Every air freshener. Everywhere.
And here's the genius of the marketing: they made "unscented" seem weird. Abnormal. Like something was wrong with you if you didn't want your shampoo to smell like a tropical vacation.
The message became: Clean smells like synthetic lemon. Fresh smells like synthetic spring breeze. Soft smells like synthetic lavender. Pure smells like synthetic baby powder.
We forgot something important: Clean doesn't smell like anything.
Real clean—actual clean—has no scent. It's just... clean. But they convinced us that without their chemicals, we weren't really clean at all.
The Regulatory Failure
Then came 1976, and the Toxic Substances Control Act—which sounds protective, right? Like finally someone was going to regulate all these chemicals.
Except there was a fatal flaw in the law.
It grandfathered in tens of thousands of chemicals that were already in use. No testing required. If it was already on the market, it was automatically deemed "safe."
So all those fragrance chemicals that were introduced in the 1950s and 60s—the ones that came from wartime chemical production, the ones that had never been tested on humans long-term—they were all automatically given a pass. They were already being used, so they must be fine, right?
It's completely circular logic. But it's the law.
And the fragrance industry got something even better: their own special exemption. Trade secret protection.
They argued, "If we have to disclose our formulas, competitors will steal them!"
And the regulators said, "Okay, you can hide everything under the word 'fragrance.'"
Nobody asked the obvious question: "But what if those secret formulas contain carcinogens? What if they're hormone disruptors? What if people have a right to know what they're putting on their bodies?"
Nobody asked because nobody wanted to know the answer.
Let's Come Back to That Study
Because the implications are staggering when you really think about it.
Twenty-eight days without these chemicals. Breast cancer gene expression dropped.
Just sit with that for a moment.
If changes happen in four weeks—just four weeks—what happens after four years? What about 14 years? What about 40 years of daily use?
Think about this: the average woman starts using fragranced products in her teens. Deodorant, body spray, perfume, scented lotions. She might use them every single day for 50 years. Maybe more.
How many times does she activate those cancer genes over the course of her life? How much does that gene expression increase, year after year, decade after decade? At what point does expression become actual tumor formation?
And here's what makes me angriest about all of this: We're running this experiment in real-time. On millions of women. Without their informed consent.
Because nobody told them.
Nobody told them that "fragrance" means "endocrine disruptors." Nobody told them their shampoo could affect cancer gene expression. Nobody told them there was even a question about safety.
They were just told it would make their hair smell like coconuts.
What About Hair Products?
Speaking of hair—let's talk about what we put on our heads every single day. Because hair products are particularly problematic.
Your scalp has lots of blood vessels close to the surface. Most people wash their hair three to seven times per week. Conditioner sits on your hair for three to five minutes. Hot water and blow dryers increase absorption dramatically. And if you have any scalp irritation—dandruff, eczema, whatever—absorption increases even more.
So what's in conventional shampoo?
Sodium Lauryl Sulfate or Sodium Laureth Sulfate—SLS or SLES. This was first used as an engine degreaser in World War II. It strips all oils from your hair and scalp. It creates the foam we've been trained to think means "clean." It costs pennies to manufacture and makes up about 30% of the product.
Silicones like Dimethicone and Cyclomethicone. These are plastic polymers that coat your hair shaft. They make your hair feel smooth and shiny temporarily, but they block moisture from penetrating. They build up over time, making your hair dull and limp. And they require harsh sulfates to remove, which creates this perfect cycle of dependency.
Then there's "fragrance"—we already covered this nightmare. In hair products, it often contains extra phthalates because they help the scent last longer, and it goes straight onto your scalp.
Parabens as preservatives. Formaldehyde releasers. Synthetic colors. All unnecessary. All potentially harmful.
The Dependency Cycle
Here's the brilliant—diabolical—business model of conventional hair care:
First, they strip your scalp with harsh sulfate detergents. This removes all your natural sebum, which is your hair's natural protection and conditioner. Your scalp goes into panic mode.
Then your sebaceous glands overproduce oil to compensate. Your hair gets greasy within 24 hours. You feel like you need to wash it daily.
So they coat your hair with silicones to make it feel smooth again. Your hair feels soft, but it's just plastic coating. Moisture can't penetrate. Your hair becomes dry and damaged underneath.
Then the silicones build up over time. Your hair looks dull and lifeless. Feels heavy and limp. Won't hold styles.
So they sell you "clarifying" shampoo with even harsher sulfates to strip the silicone buildup. Which also strips even more natural oils. The cycle intensifies.
Then they sell you deep conditioning treatments to "repair" the damage caused by all the previous steps. These usually contain more silicones, which temporarily mask the problem.
Repeat forever. Congratulations: you're a lifetime customer.
Think about the money. The average woman spends somewhere between $56 and $140 per month on hair care. That's $672 to $1,680 per year. Over 40 years—from age 20 to 60—that's $26,880 to $67,200.
For products that strip your hair's natural protection, coat it with plastic, expose you to carcinogens, disrupt your hormones, and activate cancer genes.
What Traditional Cultures Knew
Let's talk about what hair actually is and what it actually needs.
Your hair shaft is dead protein—keratin. You can't "feed" it from the outside. You can't "repair" split ends, despite what bottles promise. But what you can do is protect the cuticle layer, keep it moisturized with compatible oils, not strip it with harsh detergents, and support the scalp where new hair grows.
Your scalp is alive. It has sebaceous glands producing sebum, which is natural oil and natural conditioner. It has hair follicles growing new hair. It has blood vessels delivering nutrients. And it has skin that absorbs whatever you put on it.
Before synthetic shampoos were invented around 1930, humans washed their hair with natural methods:
Ancient Egyptians used castor oil, almond oil, clay, and fine-toothed combs to distribute natural oils.
In India, they practiced Ayurvedic oil massage called champi—which is where we get the word "shampoo"—using coconut oil, shikakai powder for gentle cleansing, amla oil, and henna.
Native Americans used yucca root for its natural saponins, bear grease or other animal fats, herbal infusions, and minimal washing.
In Morocco and North Africa, they used Rhassoul clay for over 1,400 years, along with argan oil, black soap, and washed maybe twice monthly.
Ancient Romans used olive oil, washed infrequently, and combed to distribute oils.
Notice anything? Lots of oil. Minimal washing. No foam. No stripping.
Their hair wasn't constantly greasy because their scalps weren't in panic mode from daily stripping.
For thousands of years, this worked. Beautifully.
The "Hair Detox" Reality
When people talk about "hair detox," they usually mean removing product buildup and allowing your scalp to rebalance its oil production.
After years of silicones, waxes, and styling products, your hair has layers of buildup preventing moisture from penetrating. First, you need to strip that buildup—one time, harsh—using something like apple cider vinegar or a clay mask. This is the "rip off the bandaid" moment.
Then comes the hard part: the adjustment period.
After you stop stripping your scalp with sulfates, your sebaceous glands don't get the memo immediately. They're still in overdrive, thinking they need to compensate for daily oil-stripping.
Week one and two are often the worst. Your hair may feel greasy by the end of the day. Your scalp might overproduce oil. This is normal—your glands are recalibrating. You'll be tempted to go back to your old products. Don't.
Week three and four, things start to shift. Oil production begins normalizing. You might notice you can go longer between washes. Hair texture may change, often getting better.
Month two and three, you have the breakthrough. Scalp oil production stabilizes. Natural sebum distributes properly down the hair shaft. Hair often becomes shinier, healthier, stronger. You wash less frequently—two to three times a week instead of daily.
Month four and beyond, this is your new normal. Your scalp is balanced. Your hair is healthier than it's been in years. Natural oils protect and condition. You need minimal products.
Most people give up during week two. That's when hair feels greasy and they think "this isn't working." They go back to their old shampoo, and the cycle starts over.
The shampoo companies are counting on you giving up. Because if you make it past week four, you might never need their products again.
What Actually Works
So what do you use instead?
For cleansing, you can use natural soap bars—real soap, not synthetic detergent bars. Rhassoul clay or other cleansing clays mixed with water. Shikakai powder, which contains natural saponins that gently cleanse. Apple cider vinegar rinse, diluted one part vinegar to four parts water, used occasionally. Or even just water with thorough massage.
For conditioning, jojoba oil is most similar to human sebum. Argan oil is light and absorbs well. Coconut oil works for heavier, dry hair. Tallow—yes, beef fat—is incredibly similar to sebum. Apricot kernel oil. Shea butter for very dry or curly hair.
That's it. One or two products do what took five to eight bottles before.
The Bigger Picture
Hair care doesn't exist in isolation. It's part of a larger system.
The same companies making synthetic shampoo often make synthetic fragrances in laundry detergent, endocrine disruptors in plastics, pesticides for food production, and pharmaceutical drugs for the diseases caused by all of the above.
The pattern repeats: create a problem by stripping natural function, sell the solution as a product to compensate, create new problems from side effects and buildup, sell more solutions, never actually solve the root issue.
Hair care is just one example of how we've been systematically disconnected from our bodies' wisdom and sold synthetic "solutions" to problems that didn't exist until the products were introduced.
What "Clean" Actually Means
We've been conditioned to think clean equals foam, clean equals stripped, clean equals synthetic fragrance, clean equals daily washing.
But actually, clean means a healthy scalp, balanced oil production, absence of product buildup, and hair's natural protective barrier intact.
The squeaky-clean feeling from sulfate shampoo? That's not clean. That's stripped. That's your hair shaft's cuticle roughed up, oils completely removed, natural protection gone.
Real clean feels different. Smooth naturally, not from silicone. Soft from your own sebum, not synthetic conditioner. Manageable without products. Healthy, not damaged.
The Revival
Just like with tallow for skin, natural hair care is having a revival.
For thousands of years, humans used plant and animal oils, washed infrequently, employed clays and herbs, and had healthy hair.
Then for 80 years—from 1940 to 2020—we stripped with synthetic detergents, coated with plastics, washed daily, accumulated chemical exposure, and had damaged, dependent hair.
Now people are remembering. Trying the old ways. And discovering: they work better.
This isn't a fad. It's a return to what always worked. The fad was thinking industrial degreasers were appropriate for your head.
Why This All Matters
This isn't just about having pretty hair or clear skin, though those are nice side effects.
This is about reducing daily chemical exposure. Every time you wash your hair with conventional products, you're exposing yourself to phthalates, parabens, synthetic fragrances, formaldehyde releasers, and carcinogens.
This is about teaching your body you can be trusted. When you stop the strip-and-compensate cycle, your body learns it doesn't need to panic-produce oil anymore. You're working with it, not against it.
This is about breaking dependency cycles and economic freedom. When you're not spending $50 to $100 per month on products you don't actually need, that's money for real food, experiences with family, building a life you love, financial security.
This is about environmental impact. Conventional products come in plastic bottles, contain non-biodegradable ingredients, wash synthetic chemicals into waterways, and harm aquatic life. Natural methods use minimal packaging, biodegradable ingredients, don't pollute water systems, and are actually sustainable—not greenwashed "sustainable."
And this is about modeling for your children. If you have kids, what are you teaching them? That their bodies are broken and need products to be acceptable? That synthetic chemicals are normal and safe? That companies can be trusted to prioritize health over profit?
Or that their bodies are wise and capable? That natural methods work? That we can question mainstream narratives? That we have choices and agency?
This is generational healing work.
The 10 Best Ways to Detox Your Home (That Actually Work)
Okay, so we've talked about skincare and hair care. Now let's talk about your home. Because what's the point of cleaning up what you put on your body if your house is still a chemical soup?
These are the most practical, highest-impact changes you can make. Most of them are free or nearly free. And they work immediately.
1. Shoes Off at the Door (Non-Negotiable)
This is the easiest, cheapest, most effective thing you can do today. Right now. This minute.
One study found that 96% of shoes had fecal matter on them. But it's not just that. Your shoes are tracking in pesticides from every lawn you've walked across, lead dust from old paint on buildings and sidewalks, heavy metals from parking lots, chemicals from public bathrooms, everything from everywhere you've been all day.
And then you walk that through your house. Your kids crawl on those floors. They put their hands on those floors and then in their mouths.
Just... take your shoes off. Buy a shoe rack. Make it a house rule. It reduces toxic dust in your home by over 70% instantly.
2. Embrace Hand-Me-Downs and Thrift Shopping (Especially for Kids)
When you're pregnant or have a new baby, people will tell you that you need all new everything. New clothes, new furniture, new nursery set, all matching and perfect and fresh from the store.
Don't listen to them.
Here's what they're not telling you: New clothes are soaked in flame retardant chemicals. New furniture off-gasses formaldehyde for years. That "new baby smell" of fresh fabric and wood? That's literally chemicals evaporating into your baby's lungs.
You know what doesn't have flame retardants anymore? Clothes that have been washed 6-7 times. Hand-me-downs. Thrift store finds.
One company that manufactures flame retardant fabrics states that the chemicals are usually certified for one year and dissipate significantly with washing. So by the time clothes have been worn by one or two kids and washed dozens of times, those chemicals are mostly gone.
Be excited about hand-me-downs. They're not just saving you money—they're protecting your baby's developing brain and lungs.
Same with furniture. Secondhand furniture has already done most of its off-gassing. That IKEA dresser someone's selling on Facebook Marketplace? It's been off-gassing formaldehyde in their house for three years, not yours.
3. Think Hard About That New Mattress
Speaking of off-gassing, let's talk about mattresses.
Mattresses are legally required to be soaked in flame retardant chemicals. Not just a little bit—completely saturated. You're sleeping on a chemical sponge for 8 hours every night. Your baby is sleeping on one for 12-16 hours a day.
Those chemicals? PBDEs and other flame retardants that are known endocrine disruptors, neurotoxins, and developmental toxins.
If you can afford it, buy an organic mattress with no flame retardants. Brands like Naturepedic, Avocado, and My Green Mattress make them. Yes, they're expensive—$1,000 to $2,000 for a crib mattress. But your baby spends half their life on it for the first few years.
If you can't afford that, look for a secondhand mattress that's already done most of its off-gassing. Or get a doctor's prescription for a flame-retardant-free mattress—some manufacturers will make them with a prescription.
And if you're buying new conventional furniture, air it out outside for as long as you can before bringing it in the house. Even a few weeks in the garage or on the porch helps.
4. Be Strategic About Playgrounds
Modern playgrounds seem so safe, right? Soft rubber surfaces instead of concrete. Plastic equipment that won't give you splinters.
Except here's what they did: They removed all the trees for "safety" and "visibility." They covered the ground with recycled tire rubber that's full of toxic chemicals. They installed plastic play equipment that off-gasses in the sun. And they took away all the shade, so now all those plastics and rubbers are baking in direct sunlight, releasing chemicals even faster.
There's no such thing as safe plastic in the sun. Heat accelerates chemical leaching exponentially.
So what do you do? You can't avoid playgrounds entirely—kids need to play.
Go early in the morning before the equipment has been baking in the sun all day. Choose playgrounds with natural wood equipment if you can find them. Look for ones with mature trees providing shade. Pack a picnic blanket so your kids aren't sitting directly on the rubber surface while they eat snacks.
And wash their hands before they eat anything. Those colorful plastic slides and climbing structures? Your kid has been touching them, getting chemicals on their hands, and then putting their hands in their mouth.
5. Close Your Windows During Construction
You know that smell when they're pouring concrete? Or when there's road work? Or when someone's getting their house painted or their roof replaced?
That smell is volatile organic compounds—VOCs—and you don't want to breathe them, and you definitely don't want them settling as dust all over your house.
When there's construction happening near you—road work, new building going up, someone's driveway being poured, roofing, painting—close your windows. Turn on your air conditioning if you have it. Wait until they're done and the smell is gone before opening up again.
I know that seems inconvenient. But you're protecting your family from breathing industrial chemicals and from having chemical dust settle on every surface in your house.
6. Deal With Dust the Right Way
Most people dust by taking a dry cloth and wiping surfaces. You know what that does? It just moves the dust around and puts it in the air for you to breathe.
House dust isn't innocent. It contains lead, flame retardants from furniture and clothing, pesticides tracked in from outside, plastics breaking down, everything.
So here's what you do instead:
Use a damp cloth. The moisture traps the dust instead of spreading it.
Vacuum with a sealed HEPA filter vacuum—not just any vacuum with a HEPA filter, but one where the entire system is sealed so dust can't leak back out. Miele and certain Shark models have this.
Wet mop your floors. No dry sweeping. Ever.
Do this at least twice a week if you have kids, especially if they're crawling or young enough to be playing on the floor.
7. Filter Your Water (This Is Big)
If you do nothing else on this list, filter your water.
Water is your biggest daily source of toxic exposure that you can actually control. Depending on where you live, your tap water might contain:
PFAS (forever chemicals)
Lead from old pipes
Chlorine and chlorination byproducts
Pesticide runoff
Pharmaceutical residues
Industrial chemicals
Arsenic (yes, really, in some areas)
You drink it. You cook with it. You wash your produce with it. You shower in it (and absorb it through your skin and inhale the steam).
Get a filter. Start with a pitcher filter if that's all you can afford—Clearly Filtered and Epic Water both remove PFAS. Work up to an under-sink filter or reverse osmosis system if you can.
Check your specific water quality at EWG.org/tapwater. Type in your ZIP code. It'll tell you what's in your water and what kind of filter you need.
This one change can cut your daily toxic exposure by 30-50% or more, depending on your water quality.
8. Stop Microwaving Plastic (Seriously, Stop)
I know those plastic containers say "microwave safe." They're lying.
"Microwave safe" means the plastic won't melt or warp in the microwave. It does NOT mean chemicals won't leach from the plastic into your food when you heat it.
Heat accelerates chemical leaching. When you microwave food in plastic, you're essentially creating a chemical extraction process—pulling plasticizers, BPA, BPS, phthalates, all of it, right into your food.
Glass only. Always. Transfer your leftovers to a glass container before heating. Yes, it's an extra dish to wash. Do it anyway.
Same with leaving plastic water bottles in your hot car. That water tastes weird after it's been sitting in the sun? That's plastic chemicals. Don't drink it.
9. Get Rid of Nonstick Cookware
Teflon is PFAS—those forever chemicals that never break down in the environment and accumulate in your body.
When you heat nonstick pans, they release toxic fumes. High heat can make them release enough to kill pet birds—that's how toxic the fumes are.
And the coating breaks down over time. Those little scratches in your pan? That's PFAS coating getting into your food with every meal.
Replace them with cast iron (you can get a Lodge skillet for $20-30), stainless steel, or ceramic. Learn to cook with fat so things don't stick—butter, tallow, avocado oil. That's how humans cooked for thousands of years before Teflon was invented in the 1940s.
10. Open Your Windows Every Single Day
Your indoor air quality is almost always worse than outdoor air quality. Sometimes 2-10 times worse.
Why? Because your house is full of off-gassing furniture, cleaning product residues, cooking fumes, body odors, dust, everything. And modern homes are sealed tight for energy efficiency, which means all those chemicals and particles just accumulate.
Open your windows every day, even if it's just for 10-15 minutes. Even in winter. Even if it messes up your heating or cooling.
Fresh air is free. And it's one of the most effective ways to reduce your family's exposure to indoor air pollutants.
If you live in a city with bad outdoor air quality, open windows early in the morning before traffic picks up, or late in the evening.
The Pattern You'll Start to Notice
Once you start paying attention, you'll see a pattern in all of this:
New things are usually more toxic than old things (because they're still off-gassing).
Heat makes everything worse (it accelerates chemical release).
What you can't see or smell is often more dangerous than what you can (VOCs, flame retardants, pesticides, lead dust).
The cheapest, easiest interventions often have the biggest impact (shoes off, open windows, damp dusting).
Your home isn't supposed to smell like anything in particular. If it smells strongly like something—cleaning products, air freshener, new furniture, fresh paint—that's chemicals in the air.
Convenience and "safety" features often come with hidden toxic costs (nonstick coating, flame retardants, stain resistance).
What we did for thousands of years usually works better and is safer than what we've invented in the last 80 years (cast iron, natural fibers, wood furniture, ventilation).
You Don't Have to Do Everything
I know this is a lot. It can feel overwhelming. But remember: every single change matters.
You don't have to throw out everything in your house tomorrow. You don't have to spend thousands of dollars replacing everything.
Just start. Pick one thing. Take your shoes off at the door. Open your windows. Stop microwaving plastic.
Then next week, pick another thing. Get wool dryer balls. Filter your water. Buy secondhand clothes for your kids instead of new.
These aren't all-or-nothing changes. This is about lowering your total toxic load, bit by bit, in ways that are actually sustainable for your life and your budget.
Progress, not perfection. Always.
Coming Full Circle: Why I Make What I Make
So that's why I started making tallow-based skincare. That's why I cold-infuse whole organic vanilla and coffee beans over six weeks—capturing 100% of the plant's medicinal compounds, not just the 25% found in typical extracts.
That's why we only use tallow from the purest sources: farms that raise animals on grass their whole lives, prioritizing both animal and soil health. Because fat stores toxins, and I want the cleanest possible ingredient base.
That's why this stuff is safe enough for children, wonderful for grown-ups, gentle for all skin types. This is what I put on my pregnant belly. This is what I use on my kids' faces. This is what people use on eczema-prone skin and see it calm down for the first time in years.
Because it works with your body instead of against it.
And that's what this whole chapter is about: working with your body, not fighting it. Trusting traditional wisdom that's been tested over millennia by millions of people. Questioning the 80-year experiment with synthetic chemicals that nobody asked us to participate in.
What You Can Do
You don't need my products. You don't need any products, really.
You just need to stop using products that hurt you and trust your body to do what it's been trying to do all along.
Start simple. Pick one thing. Replace your lip balm with tallow-based. Try oil cleansing once a week. Use a clay mask instead of a chemical exfoliant. Switch one synthetic product for a traditional alternative.
Be patient. Remember the adjustment period. Your body may need weeks or months to recalibrate if it's been strip-mined for years. Stick with it. The synthetic industry is counting on you giving up during week two.
Ask questions. When you see a product, ask: What are these ingredients? Where do they come from? What is their history of use? What do they actually do? Who profits from me buying this?
Question everything. Even question me. Do your own research. That's the point.
And when it works for you, share the knowledge. Not in a pushy way—just honestly. "I tried this thing. It worked. Here's what happened."
That's how revivals spread. Person to person. Truth to truth.
The Bottom Line
The breast cancer study proved something crucial: your body responds quickly when you remove harmful chemicals. Twenty-eight days. Gene expression dropped.
Imagine what happens after 28 months. Or 28 years of not exposing yourself to phthalates, parabens, and synthetic fragrances.
Imagine your daughters growing up never developing the dependency cycle you've lived with.
Imagine a world where "fragrance" has to be disclosed, where companies can't hide carcinogens, where women aren't guinea pigs in a decades-long uncontrolled experiment.
We can't change regulations overnight. But we can change what we buy. What we use. What we teach our children.
One person at a time. One jar of tallow at a time. One chemical-free soap bar at a time.
That's the revival. And it starts with you deciding: my health is worth more than convenient foam.
Every bottle of toxic shampoo you don't buy is one less stream of chemicals into waterways, one less monthly payment to mega corporations, one less day of allowing cancer to genetically express itself, one less example to your children that bodies need fixing.
And every natural alternative you do use is a vote for transparency, support for sustainable practices, proof that traditional wisdom works, and a small act of rebellion against a toxic system.
Multiply that by millions of people making similar choices, and we have a movement.
We're not just detoxing our hair or our skin.
We're detoxing from a system that profits from our poisoning.
And that, more than any single ingredient, is why this matters.
With love and rational urgency,
Victoria
Engineer, Herbalist, Mother
Rational Body
Bringing ancient wisdom to modern bodies, one uncomfortable truth at a time