I love to travel and explore with my family. At the same time I dread it—being out of my comfort zone, being away from my kitchen where I prepare meals that nourish our bodies with good food and our souls with tradition, and stepping into the unknown of chemicals and cleaners used at the place where we will rest our heads.
Since we’ve stopped using chemicals and have been eating real food, we notice it, even the kids do. Walking into a shoe or toy store makes our eyes water with all the off-gassing. It’s amazing what we can subject our bodies to, lack of nutrition, bombarding it with chemicals and disease, and our lovely bodies continue to function. Our family, thankfully, is more in tune so we can make better decisions knowing what’s good and not.
We realize this and are more accepting of the outside world when we travel but there is one thing we cannot tolerate. And you shouldn’t either. When you think about it, it’s an amazing invention that never existed and now has become a necessary element in making a house a home.
Sprays, plug-ins, plug-ins that self-spray, odor neutralizers, air sanitizers, and aromatherapy candles in just the right scent are all there, something for everyone. Air fresheners seem to work to help erase the smells in the room and clean the air, but actually they work on us. The chemicals coat our nasal passages with a film that deadens the nerve endings. They mask the problem and fool us into thinking the room is fresh, the smell we have learned to think of as clean.
The ingredients are toxic and may include things like formaldehyde, fragrance, benzyl alcohol, camphor, ethanol, and naphthalene, among others. Aside from causing asthma and allergies, many of these chemicals are known carcinogens that lead to cancer and birth defects. Many attack the central nervous system which can lead to Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, or SIDs in infants. Children are particularly susceptible to poor air quality which can lead to a host of diseases and premature death. Sound clean to you?
Air fresheners and room deodorizers actually create air pollution. When used in a confined area, like our homes, places of work, or cars, they create an intense amount of toxins in a small area. The EPA ranks poor indoor air quality among the top five environmental health risks to the public. Pollution indoors is often worse (up to 500 times worse!) than the pollution outdoors.
Sure, tobacco smoke indoors is a horrible contributor, but aside from that, indoor pollution is primarily the cause of all the things we use to clean our homes and make our homes smell good. In aerosol form the dangers are multiplied because of the micro-particles that are created of the chemicals that can then enter our bloodstream.
Many natural and health food stores sell aromatherapy candles. Traditional candles are made of paraffin wax, a by-product of the gasoline industry, a petrochemical. The fragrance is either artificial, once again a petrochemical and many not suited for combustion, or a pure essential oil which, when burned, no longer offers the therapeutic effect and actually converts into unhealthy byproducts.
Scented paraffin candles usually contain metal or lead core wicks creating unsafe lead concentrations when burned. 100% of the lead that is inhaled when the candle is burned ends up in the bloodstream which can be particularly damaging to—you guessed it—growing children. What is not inhaled immediately attaches to furniture and walls to be inhaled or ingested later. The black soot created from burning traditional, and especially scented, candles is toxic.
According to the American Lung Association— “scented, paraffin candles cause lead poisoning and using slow burning paraffin candles cause poor indoor air quality, and a serious health concern.” Once again, instead of freshening the air, they work to mask the odor while adding poisons to the air we breathe in the comfort of our own homes.
Unplug them, stop spraying them, stop buying them, save your money and instead, really freshen your air:
- clean instead of masking the odor, use nontoxic cleaners
- open the windows for real fresh air (if you’re not in a high rise with smokers on the patio above or below you, or up against a busy street, of course)
- empty the garbage frequently and get rid of rotting meats and vegetables
burn 100% pure UNSCENTED beeswax candles with 100% cotton wicks – not only is it the best alternative to traditional paraffin candles, but pure beeswax candles actually do purify and clean the air and add a warm golden glow- use the box of open baking soda trick from your fridge in closets and bathrooms or put a half a cup of vinegar in the smelly room to absorb the odor
- use a drop or two of pure essential oils in a mister filled with distilled water and spritz
- simmer spices such as cinnamon and cloves in a little water on the stovetop
- simmer 3 – 5 organic lemons cut in fourths in clean water for 30 minutes to an hour
- simmer crushed or cut fresh ginger in some water
- simmer herbs like rosemary or basil
- boil some water and then add a drop or two of your favorite pure essential oil(s)
- dab pure organic cotton balls with orange, vanilla, lavender, or lemon extracts or essential oils and place them around the house
- use organic herbal sachets and potpourri or run your fingers through pots of fresh herbs that you keep in the house to release their scent
- add potted plants to your room to clear carbon dioxide and other toxins naturally
- use volcanic rocks to absorb the odors
- get freshly cut fragrant organic flowers
- cook or bake, toast up dried spices in a pan, put something in the oven – create a delicious meal and you’ll make the house smell good and fill tummies with something delicious —it’s amazing how aromas of food can fill the air and create memories for our children.
Author Annie Malka is a mother of four living in the Florida Keys. She writes about cooking, nutrition, organic foods and sustainability at her blog Hip Organic Mama.
Thank you for all the wonderful ideas to keep our homes smelling fresh. They work so well and are actually so much more inexpensive than buying the room deodorizors as most of us have some of these things already in our pantry. I find a great many people simply want to keep up with the Jones’ and buy all the latest and “greatest” new thing.
I have only one problem with these great ideas: What if you have pets? They can tend to knock things around and spill them, making more work than it’s worth for some of these neat little ideas. And don’t say we should get rid of the animals, they are just as much members of the family as we are. Cats especially are known for liking high spots, and our 4 are no exception; 3 of them tend to want to be really crazy just because they are very happy campers. Our horizontal blinds need replacing because of them! I’m just glad I’m in the carpet cleaning business, I can shampoo the carpets anytime I want for nothing. Oh, yes, I did try some “herbal-based” shampoo, but it is totally inferior to the stuff I was using; a customer’s stains came back, and when actually doing the job, the area smells terrible, even though the shampoo smells nice in the bottle.
Wow, Tina, why so negative? The author is just sharing some ideas. Nobody would ever suggest you get rid of your companion animals.
And your carpet cleaning idea is great as long as your not adding more toxins to your indoor air. Did you know that using chemical-based carpet cleaning products can be very bad for your cats, too? You might want to read up on that so you don’t harm your furbabies :)
Here are some of the air-freshening ideas from the list that should be cat-proof:
• use volcanic rocks to absorb the odors
• get freshly cut fragrant organic flowers
• dab pure organic cotton balls with orange, vanilla, lavender, or lemon extracts or essential oils and place them around the house
• use organic herbal sachets
• clean instead of masking the odor, use nontoxic cleaners
• open the windows for real fresh air (if you’re not in a high rise with smokers on the patio above or below you, or up against a busy street, of course)
• empty the garbage frequently and get rid of rotting meats and vegetables
Sorry to have come off quite that negative. It’s just that the chemical I use for cleaning do not irritate my animals at all, and we also have a chihuahua and did have a collie-shepherd mix. Dogs are much more sensitive than cats to chemicals; our big dog as a puppy got a smell of Roundup in the air where we used to live (we are in Saskatchewan, small towns tend to be prone to wind-drift sometimes from farmers’ fields). I thought she was going to die, she was do sick throwing up and diarrhea, but the carpet shampoo did nothing to her at all.
The cotton balls would end up being playthings for the cats, they love anything that remotely resembles a toy. And flowers in vases would be knocked over constantly, plus I don’t have many places I could even set them.
Like I mentioned before, the herbal carpet shampoo I bought just did not get the job done, and it stunk when I was actually doing the work. Instead of taking one pass, it takes twice the shampoo and at least two passes, many times three, therefore it’s just not good business sense to use the stuff. The original shampoo takes only 1/2 as much and rarely more than a single pass, and smells nice even while working. It’s quite safe for all but the most severely sensitive people and animals to handle, even in the concentrated form.
Tina,
You seem like you have your mind made up against anything that might be less toxic and that’s certainly your prerogative but you should know that while a chemical may not appear immediately harmful to your pets, that does not at all preclude long term health issues, just as repeated chemical exposures can (and will) ultimately cause cancers, endocrine disruption and other disease states in humans. Actually, because of their smaller size and proximity to the floor, pets are actually more vulnerable to chemical toxicity. If you really care for them, please consider those facts when choosing your cleaning and air-freshening products.
My MIL is air freshener obsessed! I feel like I’m suffocating!
Also another concern of mine is off gassing from synthetic mattresses. Eek!
I would like to add a comment to this very informative post. A recent study from the United Kingdom found that babies under 6 months of age who were exposed to plug-in air fresheners had 25% more diarrhea episodes and 30% more ear infections. Their Moms suffered from more Headaches and postpartum depression. For more info visit the site Women’s Voices for the Earth. There is a wealth of info about the dangers of common household cleaners.
Be healthy and green!! Blessings-Ines