10 Simple Steps To Reduce Chemical Load

Do you smell ‘fragrant smells’ wafting out of nooks and crannies in your home? Do you sense ‘perfumed scents’ emanating from your furnishings and belongings? It’s a common problem (especially when you try to cover up natural scents in closed up sustainable buildings any time of the year). Let’s solve this chemical load issue with a few troubleshooting tips.

Commonly, the chemical scent load is coming from what you bring into your home – this means anything before the air enters the front door, any door or window or crack between building materials. There are ten steps you can check to see if unwanted smells and scents, fragrances and perfumes are getting into your air and breathing space.

1. Be The Canary

In the 1800s miners carried a caged canary to their work site and if the bird stopped singing or died, the miners would vacate immediately. The bird was telling them the air quality was unsafe. Essentially become a canary and sense the safety in your environment, particularly your indoor environment.

2. Identify One Area

in your home you would like to start with. There is an endless list of personal and cleaning products, building and soft furnishing materials, things and stuff to look at to live more simpler, be happier, and improve your living space and health. Just thinking about all of these things can be overwhelming, so take one step at a time.

3. Commit To The Process

and know it takes time to transform effectively. Simplicity and more natural spaces are not all about decluttering, but getting rid of what doesn’t matter, what does not feed you, or support you, and helps you to discover what does.

4. Educate Yourself

on what specifically is in your current products and materials that you would like to reduce. Read labels, google product names, read Safety Data Sheets. I had a chance to do this when I first left home as a young adult and deciding what to buy for my new place I was moving into. That was a long time ago, and to this day, you will be surprised how many chemicals you learn about in every day products, soft furnishings and building materials.

5. Start With Your Social Network

Ask friends, chat with them if they have tried an alternative product or item. Do they use products and materials that naturally lift you up or items that make you feel down and unwell? Do they use products that make you feel more connected to yourself or less?

6. Try Different Suppliers’ Brands And See What Happens

Create space for health and happinessIf you’ve been holding on to things that make you feel unwell, like personal care products that make you smell like roses for longer than 1 minute, an aromatic cleaning product from marketing $$$ push, or soft furnishings from a previous home or just recently bought at a factory outlet that don’t lift your health, remove them, let them go. If they offer nothing but headaches, nausea, itchy skin or just feeling unwell, when you let them go, you’ll make room for clean air and joy.

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7. Source Either Locally Or Online

once you have found something you like. You can’t shop your way out of the chemical load of the past, or shop your way into a healthy future. Instead come back to right now. Do you have everything you need for today? Read the labels and Safety Data Sheets.

8. Choose Now

Bring a bag or two along, and choose to use up what you have, fill one with rubbish and the other to fill to give away, anything that doesn’t belong in the home.

9. Buy In Bulk

with family and friends. The bulk provides peace of mind knowing you won’t have to turn your life upside down when you run out of the product, you lose that name of the product you really like, or experience another Material Safety Data Sheet check back.

10. Spread The Word

Share your knowledge and experience. A simple, healthy room is the gateway to a healthy, happy life. Once you experience the benefits of simplicity, natural scents in your room you have chosen, breathing easy and living smart, you’ll want it everywhere.

You’re Ready To Be Your Own Chemical Clean Up Pro!

We don’t have to tell you what a misery it is to be all ready to relax only to find the room full of chemicals, and not have an open window to ventilate it.

Now that you know what you need to keep your home fresh, natural and healthy, you can make sure you have the right methods on hand so your home is always chemical free, ready, and waiting for you.

Towards healthier living Carol Parr ♥

As Building Biologists, we have acquired knowledge of adverse health effects and recommend effective strategies to reduce occupants’ exposure by eliminating and controlling as many sources of pollutants in order to create healthy indoor living environments that are as exposure-free and natural as practically possible.

Photo by Melissa Askew on Unsplash

Author

  • Carol Parr

    We’re glad you’re here. We’re Carol and Tony, founders of one of the longest running Healthy Home Blogs in the world, Mitey Fresh Australia. We’ve been on this journey for the last 25 years and are passionate about helping families sift through health hazards and triggers like allergens, mould, water damage, chemicals and EMFs, to get clarity about what’s toxic and what’s not so they can create a healthy and happy home for their family they love. Each month, people visit this blog seeking focus on the health and wellbeing of their loved ones, sustainable and effective practice tips and guides, to help create and manage healthier indoor spaces, improve the built environment that is pleasing to the senses and support healthy living and nature, every day. Starting this blog was to help change people’s lives, one family at a time, and we can’t wait to share how its allowed us to stand next to you and show you how interpreting these synergies between buildings and the environment they are built in will impact upon the health and well-being of those who occupy them. Find out more about Healthy Homes and what this blog can do for you!

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