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-Recent update at bottom.

As I have gotten rid of my less natural stain removers baby girl seems to have gone on a very messy kick and I swear everything she is wearing is getting covered in stains. Our whites have also been looking dull lately and I finally decided I should do something about it. I have never bought OxiClean or used bleach on our laundry, but we have always just kind of watched our whites get dingy. I’ve had it, so I started researching some different more natural options for stain removers and brighteners. I had three that I am interested in buying that I will link.

Branch Basics Oxygen Boost. $10

https://branchbasics.com/shop/pure-oxygen-boost-limited/

Molly’s Suds Oxygen Whitener $12.49

https://thrivemarket.com/p/mollys-suds-oxygen-whitener

OxiClean baby $7.96

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CXVM7RI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Truthfully the order these are written in are probably the order of which I wanted the most, but I actually ended up buying the OxiClean baby because it was the cheapest and had free shipping which neither of the others did without making a decently large purchase. I did find noticeable differences in stains on baby girl’s clothes just after one or two soaks in the product (even in clothes that have already been washed and dried with stains), and can’t wait to continue to use them and see how much they improve my whites. I went with the baby version rather than just regular OxiClean because it has much less harsh chemicals in it and scores a B on the EWG. I would still like to try the other options but was happy to have a more natural version of something that will hopefully help my laundry start looking better.

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Also just as a small testimonial, a few days ago baby girl got food all over a cute little white onesie she has. Like not the regular crumbs but a raspberry popsicle, and I was pretty sure her shirt would have to go in the trash. I decided to put this stuff to the test, and soaked the shirt overnight and holy smokes am I impressed. I can only see a tiny mark up close and I’m pretty sure if I do one more soak it will be completely gone. This is huge for saving her clothes as she manages to get food on like every outfit she owns. I may need to invest in those full body bibs, because even her silicone catcher bib did not cut it on this day. I’ll have to add some before and after pictures as I remember to take them.

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My only hesitation with using OxiClean Baby is that they don’t list their ingredients on the box, which I feel is concerning. After searching through their website I did find that the ingredients are disclosed online and that it is made out of sodium carbonate, sodium carbonate peroxide, and C12-15 alcohols ethoxylated. This probably won’t be a constant on my shelf as the last ingredient mentioned rates as a D individually on EWG, but I feel like because of the high overall rating for the product on EWG it is a good option to buy until I can splurge on the others. I also love knowing that it is better than using regular OxiClean that I probably would have gone and bought if I hadn’t known to look at the ingredients.

UPDATE 6/13/20: Okay, so we have been using this for months now mainly for soaking stained clothes. We did finally invest in that full body bib for the babe which has SAVED us, if you have a baby or toddler please just buy one right now. You will thank me later. Also we are purely trying to finish off our OxiClean Baby because Tanner seems to be allergic to it or something. Anytime I use it on anything he touches his eyes start to hurt, so it is not working out for us and we will be looking elsewhere for a stain remover or brightener. It took us a long time to realize what was causing his irritation since I switched out so many products in our house at the same time. Just as a word of caution I would suggest being a bit more careful than we were and intentionally switching one thing at a time so you can make sure you don’t have bad reactions. 🙂

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Sources:

https://churchdwight.com/ingredient-disclosure/laundry-fabric-care/40002384-oxi-versatile-stain-remover-baby-stain-soaker.aspx

https://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners/190-OxiCleanLaundryBabyStainSoaker

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Alright I’m going to talk about a subject I didn’t necessarily want to talk about publicly, but I have loved the results so much I want to share. I remember hearing that most anti-perspirant deodorants have aluminum in them as an active ingredient several years ago. I heard this from a family member who is allergic to this ingredient, but never thought much else of it. Over these last few years I have heard that it was bad several times, but honestly I have been using the exact same brand (two different scents) of deodorant since I can remember and I have been slightly terrified to change. Sometimes it is scary to change something that works well for you, but when I realized that my deodorant rated as an 8 on the Think Dirty App so I knew it was time to start making changes.

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Well after researching different brands quite a bit I decided I was even more afraid because as it turns out a lot of people have reactions towards natural deodorants, end up going through a very smelly detox period, and sweat a lot. This did not exactly feel like an ideal time for that right as my school semester was starting, but my deodorant was almost gone and I didn’t want to buy a whole new stick of the one I know has harmful ingredients in it.  I ended up buying the Schmidt’s Bergamot Lime deodorant when I was at the grocery store because it was right around the same price as my regular Dove deodorant. It is probably silly that I feared using this tiny little stick on my body but I am happy to report I love it. Over two months in and I am happy with it. I have had zero rashes or irritation, and am actually loving the smell which is surprising because it is far stronger than my nondescript Dove scents I always chose.  I have not noticed any symptoms of my body getting rid of toxins, extra sweating, or a smelly few days so I am hoping I have just lucked out and they won’t end up happening.

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Now because I want to be completely honest about a product, I am going to say that I think I may keep trying other brands. I have loved how this smells, but I will tell you that I feel like the sometimes the scent doesn’t last quite as long as I would like. Also my white undershirts have seemed to get dingier and are graying since I started using it which is a huge bummer. This may have just been because I’ve never used any type of bleach, whiteners, or brighteners on our laundry so I guess it was just a matter of time. I plan on keeping an open mind for different natural deodorant brands, but will keep using this unless I find something else I like more as I still like the ingredients in it and am happy that I am using a natural deodorant. I’ll post the picture below so you can see all of the ingredients included in it.

Sources:

Bergamot + Lime Deodorant Stick

https://www.thinkdirtyapp.com/

The first solid food we gave baby girl was sweet potatoes, and she was seriously obsessed with them until the last few months. Suddenly she’s started fighting me every time I make them for her. At first I thought it was just because she was sick of eating purees now that she thinks she can eat all the food, but it turns out it also applies to mashed sweet potatoes as well. As a person who tends to be quite the picky eater myself I really want her to be less picky than me and willing to try things. Because of this I have made huge efforts to buy fruits and vegetables that even I had never tried to let her get a taste for them. You guys I literally tried to make eggplant baby food one time, so I think we can say I was determined. Both of us took a bite of that nasty stuff and I threw it all out, I mean I figured if I’m making her try things I should try them too and it was not a winner. If you have an awesome eggplant recipe that you can convince me to try, go for it, but I do not recommend making it into a pureed baby food.

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 Last night I cooked up a tiny little sweet potato in the microwave and tried to put some toppings on it and give it to her. She had us cracking up so hard at the table because every bite she got she would eat everything but the sweet potato and just let it roll off of her tongue and onto her tummy. What is a girl to do?

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I still had half a sweet potato left when we woke up for breakfast today so I decided to try to make a sweet potato pancake. I mashed up the leftovers, added some egg white to the bowl, and mixed it all up until I felt like it was pancake consistency (the reason I only did the egg white was because I was pouring the egg in slowly and before the yolk could come in there was enough liquid). Then I just heated up my frying pan and cooked up one little pancake. I gave it to her without anything on it because that’s how she eats regular pancakes. I have to admit I was pretty proud of myself for figuring out a way to use them, until to my dismay she took one bite and tossed it on the floor. I don’t think she hated it, but it was a kind of spongy texture and I think that bothered her initially. I decided I would rather have her get the nutrients from the sweet potato with a little dollop of maple syrup to dip it in than to not eat it at all. You will be happy to know that our maple syrup saved the day and she ate the whole thing! Girlfriend learned how to dip food last week and she’s a big fan (also yes I definitely picked up the pancake off the floor because it was the only one, so let’s just pretend I mopped yesterday). I’m sure I’ll be making these again in the near future as I have a big bag of sweet potatoes on my counter, so I will add pictures the next time I make them and possibly keep adjusting until I can find one she doesn’t throw. The site linked below is where I found the idea to be able to make such a simple healthy pancake, so give it a read for the actual recipe.

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Sources:

https://www.thekitchn.com/sweet-potato-pancakes-259059?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=managed&crlt.pid=camp.iigmtAknGyhH

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One of the first changes we made in our home was switching out our toothpastes. I actually started to research the ingredients in toothpaste quite a while before deciding to write this blog, but after I found out that there are specific ingredients that are thought to cause or irritate canker sores that are frequently included in toothpastes. My husband gets pretty awful canker sores, so we were trying to see if maybe our toothpaste was causing them. What I learned is that a lot of toothpastes have a chemical called Sodium Lauryl Sulfate (SLS) in them to create a foaming agent. This chemical is a bit controversial on whether it is harmful in personal care products, but there is some evidence it can cause/irritate canker sores. I decided that it was worth our time to try a toothpaste without SLS and see if it made a difference. I ordered Tanner and baby girl their own separate Hello toothpastes, a toddler training one without fluoride, and one for sensitive teeth. I did a lot of research on natural toothpaste brands because I really want our toothpaste to still work but would love it to have better ingredients. I seriously read SOOO many amazon reviews trying to see what people thought about different natural brands. I also read several different articles dentists had written to make sure I didn’t make any crazy choices, especially since I was getting baby girl’s first toothpaste as she had just gotten her first tooth. There are a lot of other natural brands out there, but I liked the ingredients used by this brand and the reviews. I will say that these do not rate as high on the EWG scale or Think Dirty app, but I felt a lot better about the ingredients in it than the toothpaste we had been buying previously and still felt like it was a good change. For reference they rated as a 3 on Think Dirty which I felt was still pretty clean, as 10 is the worst.

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I wish I could say that Tanner hadn’t gotten any canker sores since we switched over, but truthfully it hasn’t solved the problem, although I do feel like he has gotten less since switching over. Thea loves hers, she’s alright with her teeth being brushed with it but really just prefers to hold the bottle. I ended up choosing the organic apple flavor for her, and I haven’t tried it…haha but Tanner did accidentally the other day and said it tastes fine. 🙂

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This week I finally got close enough to the bottom of my old bottle of crest that I decided to finally get my own. I will admit that sometimes I use Tanner’s even though I picked it specifically for him. I decided to try the charcoal toothpaste because I’ve been feeling like my teeth aren’t looking super white and there were good reviews on people seeing improvement in the brightness of their teeth. I figure it’s worth a chance. Also the company Hello wants people to be able to choose whether or not they want fluoride in their toothpaste so they actually have a lot of options for both, you just have to make sure you read closely and pick whichever you want. I know that a lot of people who are cutting out toxic products try to cut out fluoride in toothpaste, but until we have some good dental insurance after college I’m too scared to try using toothpaste without it as I have definitely had my fair share of cavities over the years. Also fluoride is a topic I would prefer to ask my dentist about, because I want to make sure I am making an educated decision about it.

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I am not opposed to trying other natural toothpastes after we finish these bottles, but I will definitely be making sure I continue to stay away from SLS to try to help prevent cankers at our house. Buying Hello toothpaste has been a good choice in our house, and I am happy to have a better option with ingredients I feel better about.

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Sources:

homepage

https://www.thinkdirtyapp.com/

We were most nervous to try a natural laundry detergent as we have been using one with a strong scent for a while, and were afraid our clothes would not smell good with an unscented detergent. After over 3 months of using it, I can honestly say that I like it and that my clothes still feel and smell clean. It has been an adjustment to use such a small amount of detergent, and to not see very many bubbles when it goes in the water, but I do feel like it gets the job done.

I was not  shocked to find out that my cleaners had harsh chemicals in them, but I was surprised to learn that my laundry soap was rated an F on the EWG scale. This is the soap I wash my baby’s clothes in, and that makes me feel really bad. I have found it funny how much more willing I am to make healthier changes now that I am a mom. I love knowing that this detergent is so much cleaner than others and that when we have another baby someday I can just keep washing all of our clothes with the same detergent.

Maybe it is just me, but I felt like it was a lot of extra work and tons of tiny loads of laundry to wash all of the baby clothes with separate detergent. Granted my girl was a spit up queen (not exaggerating friends, it was everywhere) so we were washing clothes and burp cloths basically every day. I remember being so excited when I realized baby girl didn’t get a rash or anything after I had accidentally thrown her sleep sack in with our laundry. Now I sincerely regret not looking into the reasons why it is suggested to use a gentle detergent on baby clothes, I thought it was purely to make sure they didn’t have sensitive skin or weren’t allergic to your detergent.

Luckily I have learned and I plan on moving forward and making better choices in the future. I would definitely suggest doing your own research on the laundry soap you use and seeing if there are harmful chemicals in it, because if you are like me it had never even crossed my mind. Also just as a warning, just because something says the terms “clean”, “free and clear”, or “gentle” does not mean it doesn’t have harmful ingredients in it. Even products marketed specifically for babies can still have bad ingredients in them, both my regular Gain detergent and my Dreft baby detergent rated as an F on the EWG website. I found the EWG website to be very helpful with laundry detergent as I could see the list of ingredients and why they got the rating they did.

I am not opposed to trying out other kinds of natural laundry detergents and will probably add some different ones into the mix so we can find a few different clean detergents that we like in case we run out of one since shipping takes time. I would definitely suggest this as a great choice though because we really have been very impressed by it.

My only complaint so far is that I do feel like my whites are looking a bit dingier than before, unfortunately I am unsure of whether this is from the laundry soap or from the new natural deodorant I have been trying. If you plan on using Branch Basics as laundry detergent I would suggest getting their oxygen boost as well to use with your whites. I didn’t want to spend the extra $10 on something I didn’t think I would need to use, but after seeing a lot of before and after pictures on their Instagram page and website I think the oxygen boost makes a big difference in helping keep whites white and stain removal so I plan on buying it next time I make a purchase from them.

*Also just as a side note, it has been months since I have used my regular old Gain detergent but my husband washed a load of laundry and grabbed the old pods out of habit. I could immediately tell as I started folding the laundry this morning. The clothes smelled so strong now that I had just gotten used to no scent, and they had almost a soap like consistency when I touched them that remained on my hands. I’m surprised I never noticed this in the years we have been using this detergent, and am so glad to have found a better option for our family that does not leave residue all over us. I also pulled a pair of summer pants out of my drawer that have been sitting there for probably 9 months and immediately smelled my old detergent and was shocked by how strong the smell still was. This has been a change I am really glad we decided to make, I love having a detergent that is safe for all of us to use and that I no longer have to worry about what chemicals are touching our skin.

If you end up choosing to buy Branch Basics you can get $10 off your purchase by using my referral code http://branchbasics.refr.cc/carissao

Sources:

https://branchbasics.com/shop/

https://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners/

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As I have been looking for better products to use in our home I have realized that there are quite a few natural brands I can’t find at my grocery store, and that either have a very limited Amazon selection, or their prices are way higher on Amazon. Unfortunately, Prime shipping has basically ruined by ability to happily pay for shipping so you can imagine the amount of time I spent trying to find particular brands for good prices where I hopefully didn’t have to pay a ridiculous amount in shipping. This searching journey led me to find Thrive Market. When I saw it I felt like the name seemed a little bit familiar, like maybe I had seen an ad for it on Instagram but I didn’t know anything about it. Let me tell you, I have now spent quite some time looking at this site. I would say it is a health food store online, but similar to Costco in the way that there is a yearly membership fee of $60.00 (keep reading to learn more about this and deals they offer). Since there is a membership fee they say that you will get consistently lower prices on their products than you would in other places. Now I am definitely one to check a few places before buying a product to make sure I am getting the best deal so I still plan on doing this, but I have seen some great prices for products I have been wanting. You also do still have to spend a certain amount to get free shipping, but I feel like this wouldn’t be very difficult for us if I were to only make an occasional purchase. It would be easy to spend the $50 on their groceries, or their personal care products. I only spent around $22 on my order but they gave me free shipping anyway since it was the first purchase.

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I highly suggest checking this site out and looking at the products they sell especially if you or anyone in your home has a specific diet or allergy that might make shopping for pantry items difficult. They have very easy ways to categorize foods by specific things like gluten-free, paleo, nut-free, etc. which looks so helpful to me as I imagine it can be very time consuming trying to read every label in the grocery store especially when first starting a diet, or getting diagnosed with an intolerance or allergy.

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My favorite part so far was that they have their own brand Thrive Market that they tend to offer really good discounts for. I got a code for 30% off their brand on my first purchase and it saved me a good amount of money while letting me try some new products. The website is very transparent and I loved how easy it was to find ingredients listed under every product I could find. This has helped me as I am now trying to be better to look at ingredients lists and working to learn ingredients I want to avoid in my home.

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The products I ended up buying off this website in this first order were toothpaste, a frankincense essential oil, lotion, and laundry detergent. It was all very reasonably priced and with the discount I got a seriously great deal. Also small fun fact, when the package showed up I was shocked to realize that the 4ish dollars I spent on a bottle of toothpaste, was actually a pack of 4 toothpastes so it was an even better deal than I had realized. Let’s hope I like charcoal toothpaste since I now have a huge supply of it and was just planning on trying it out for the first time. I still need to thoroughly try my Thrive Market brand items before I can give them a good review but am so excited and can’t wait to see how we like them, especially where they were such great deals. You guys their laundry detergent was $5.60 with that sale and it is supposed to last for 70 loads. It also looked very similar to the ingredients in Molly’s Suds Peppermint laundry soap if you have been interested in that. I was actually about to buy that and then saw this one and decided I had to try it first since it was quite a bit cheaper.

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Now back to the price of the membership since that is what was holding me back from diving head first into this awesome site. Personally I felt that $60 was a lot of money, especially when I really have no idea how much I’ll use Thrive or if it will benefit my family. On the Thrive Market website they say “Our one-for-one membership matching program means that your paid Thrive Market membership provides a free one for a low-income family, student, teacher, veteran, or first responder. As a community, we can all thrive together.” This means that for every person who buys a membership, they give one away to someone who needs it. They call this program Thrive Gives, and I think it is fantastic. I share this because one of the aspects I wanted to cover on this blog was how to make healthy and affordable choices, and if spending an extra $60 is not affordable for you, but you fall under one of the categories on that list and want access to this website and the benefits it can bring your family I recommend trying it out.

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Sources:

https://thrivemarket.com/myaisle/

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My goodness, are there any brands I love more than Hello Bello? Truthfully, probably not. I LOVE this company and the things they stand for. If you haven’t heard of them, Dax Shepherd and Kristen Bell came out with a baby line pretty recently. My sister mentioned the name when I was pregnant, but I didn’t buy any of their products until my daughter was a few months old. When she was really tiny she got this strange little bump on her eyelid that  would go away but reappear every few days. It was like every time I stopped worrying about it, it would come back, but when we got to the doctors office it would be gone. I was frustrated, and felt bad that it didn’t seem to stay away, and would look irritated sometimes.

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We tried the Shea Moisture baby line which we really liked (it smells delicious by the way) and used up a bottle of Johnson’s we’d gotten as a gift, but her eye continued to get irritated. One day I was walking down the baby isles of Walmart and saw a gift pack of Hello Bello products, which had wipes, soap, lotion, and bubble bath. Okay truthfully it was the bubble bath that called my name as I had been wanting to let my girl experience one, but had been nervous about irritating her skin. It was actually a really affordable pack, and so I went for it.

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It has been over a year since we started using these products and I’m obsessed. We buy the Apricot Vanilla line most often and it smells divine. As soon as we started using this, her weird bump on her eye went away and has never returned which made me feel much better. Their lavender scent is also really popular (that’s the scent of her bubble bath) but I don’t love the scent of lavender so we generally stick with the Apricot. Something that I feel is important to note is the texture of this soap is more like Shea Moisture than Johnson’s. It doesn’t take very many pumps to wash her hair and body as it is a little bit thicker and doesn’t feel super watered down like some baby soaps.

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This is actually one of the very first clean products I bought, and it was long before I started gaining interest in replacing my household items. I have definitely been more concerned about what I put on my baby than my own body, so I’m glad we started using these products when she was super little. They also have a brand of organic super soft diapers, which we have recently started buying as our Huggies diapers were getting so expensive with the increase in sizes. Hello Bello diapers are priced affordably and are definitely on the lower end price wise of name brand diapers. They also have really cute patterns and designs, which certainly doesn’t upset me. I’m not one to necessarily buy a diaper just because it’s cute, but I’m not complaining that she gets to have adorable patterns on her little booty.

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Also the Hello Bello Lavender line just got EWG verified, and so did the Apricot Vanilla lotion which is super awesome!!! The company is still in the process of trying to get the rest of the products verified which makes me feel even better about using them. One of my very favorite things about Hello Bello is that they have chosen to make high quality baby products affordable. A bottle of shampoo costs us $6.98 for 9.8 oz. and her lotion is $6.98 for 8.5 oz, which may be a bit more than some other brands but it is definitely cheaper than some as well. I feel they last a good amount of time and think they have been completely worth it for us. Below I will post a picture of the promises they put on each bottle that I think are so fantastic (please forgive the scratched up bottle, we use it every day and baby girl loves tossing bottles into the bath).

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Sources:

https://hellobello.com/

https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/

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I have loved dill pickles for as long as I can remember, and have fond memories crunching on them with my cousin at our grandma’s house as tiny little kids. Please don’t even mention the words sweet pickles to me though because I cannot stand them…at all. I have always loved sour things, sour candy, Salt and Vinegar Chips, Italian dressing, pickles, you name it and I probably like it. I am a pickles all the time kind of girl, as in we almost always have a jar in our fridge. I know this is frequently something that comes along with pregnancies but I actually didn’t have any huge pickle cravings, mainly just bread and milk were the only things I wanted that didn’t make me feel sick. Funny enough I actually I remember Tanner buying more pickles than I did when I was pregnant so luckily he is also a fan. Now we have baby girl and she also loves them. She likes hers in her little silicone mesh feeder and it works great.

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Something that I didn’t know until recently that most pickles have artificial dyes in them to help them not look gray. The one that seems to be most common is Yellow 5. Now I am not going to claim to be an expert on the dangers of dyes in food, as I am sure there are a lot of foods in my pantry right at this moment that have an assortment. However, I have wanted to start making small changes, and buying a different jar of pickles felt doable to me. There has been some research on the effects of Yellow 5 on children with ADHD where behaviors have improved when it is removed from the diet. I’m sure this does not help everybody, but I do think it is an interesting route to research more about. I have been surprised when looking at ingredient lists and seeing how many of the things we eat have artificial dyes in them to make them look more appealing so this is something I am hoping to begin looking at more frequently.

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Now I tend to be a bit of a pickle snob and am slightly picky on my brands, but generally like Vlasic. Well I was happy to realize that Vlasic has a jar of pickles called “Vlasic Purely Pickles Kosher Dill Spears” that do not have yellow dyes in them. I’ll post the picture of the ingredients at the bottom of the post. I had to try them before posting because I wouldn’t want to mislead anyone to buy something that tastes awful. I am happy to report they literally taste the exact same to me, but just have a bit clearer of a liquid they are in. I noticed no differences in flavor or quality and love that I can make such a simple switch yet still be making healthier choices. Now I am sure other brands do this same exact thing, so just pay attention to the labels if this is something you are interested in swapping out and see if the brand you like has a better alternative right next to your normal jar.

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I have been putting off changing out my dishwasher detergent. First, we live in a rental and I really don’t want to hurt the dishwasher by using things that random people on the internet suggest. Second, our soap has worked really well and I’m a HUGE fan of my dishwasher because I seriously dislike washing all of my dishes by hand. Third, we recently had some major dishwasher repairs and I’m afraid of it breaking again. So needless to say I have been avoiding this change. Unfortunately, I had noticed that my cascade dishwasher pods had a really strong chemical like smell, and after learning more about the ingredients decided that I would try to make a change when we ran out.

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Last week we ran out, and having avoided the topic I had not figured out what new brand I wanted to buy yet so I made myself wash the dishes by hand for a few days while I decided. This gave me greater motivation for making a choice without spending weeks researching. I landed on Nature Clean dishwasher packs. I started by getting some ideas of the cleaner ones on the Environmental Working Group and then looking them up on Amazon and reading reviews. There were several detergents that had awful reviews, didn’t clean well, caused tons of soap suds to come out of the dishwasher and such and those just weren’t compromises I was willing to make. As much as I want clean toxic free dish detergent, I also do not want to flood my apartment with soap suds.

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I searched until I found one that felt good enough to take a risk on, and that had a small enough bag it didn’t feel like a huge investment that I might really regret. We ended up buying the pack of 24 dishwasher packs for $9.82 which felt comparable to what I would have spent on Cascade packs. It does seem to be a better deal overall to buy the bulk box but I wanted to make sure I liked how they worked in our dishwasher before doing that. So far I have been impressed. There have been a few cups that almost look like they have herbs at the bottom of them that I have had to rewash, but other than that everything has looked perfectly clean (including lots of bottle parts). I haven’t noticed any film on the dishes, and all of the glass is staying clear. I do tend to use the normal wash setting on high heat/sanitize as I am often washing items I want sanitized for my baby.

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I would say overall this has been a good purchase for us. They have an A rating on the EWG scale and that makes me happy to have a much better product for around the same price. We are currently making a lot of changes in our home, so I tried to keep these as simple as possible and similar to our other ones so it wasn’t a frustrating change for either my husband or I. We both like the convenience of dishwasher pods, and are fans of this new brand.

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Sources:

https://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners/5829-NatureCleanAutomaticDishwasherPacs

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I have hesitated to share this publicly because I would never want to make someone feel bad about the products they use, but I honestly think most people are not aware of the dangers lurking behind many of the things we use every single day. I recently found the Environmental Working Group online and have been working to educate myself on the ingredients that are included in cleaning products, and cosmetics and have been shocked at how many are very harmful. I have been learning a lot of things that I had never thought about before, and finding products to replace more toxic products in my home. I want to share them so other people can see real opinions on this lifestyle change and be aware of the costs.

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As my little girl has started to walk I have realized that baby proofing my house is much more stressful than I thought it would be. A huge reason for this is because of the different cleaners, soaps, and detergents stored under the kitchen and bathroom sinks that I cannot seem to find another place for. After hearing about the dangers of babies ingesting household cleaners, I decided that I needed to take action and figure out a solution that worked for my family.

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This journey led me to find Branch Basics. I searched for products that were non toxic, very low on the EWG scale, safe around kids, and good for the environment. The two that I felt most comfortable trying were Force of Nature and Branch Basics. With a limited budget I needed to only pick one so I went with Branch Basics because it seemed more versatile. I decided to splurge on the starter kit so I could honestly review how this product worked in all the different areas of our house. I also plan on keeping track of how long everything lasts me so I can get an idea of the cost efficiency of switching to these products for my family. Something that I am learning while searching for better products is that a lot of companies claim to make very clean products but hide behind words like “fragrance” or “aroma.” Branch basics does not. I love that they list all of their ingredients, as well as the ingredients they will never include. It scores a B on the EWG guide, which is much better than most of the cleaning products I was using. They are a very transparent company and want people to have the cleanest products in their homes. I linked an article I found very interesting at the bottom, about some issues the company encountered a few years ago and how they have been able to come back with an even greater drive to only allow the best ingredients in our homes.

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Branch Basics comes with a bottle of 33.8 oz. of concentrate and an empty All purpose, Bathroom, Streak Free, Laundry, and hand soap bottle. They have very clearly labeled on the side of each how much water to add and how much concentrate. Each product uses a different amount of concentrate which is why they are able to work in different areas. We just got our package at the beginning of January and I have been making up the different bottles as I clean different areas of my house and so far I love everything. It is very interesting to have a cleaner that literally has almost zero scent, as you kind of feel like you are just wiping everything down with water, but it cleans so well you know there is more to it. I am accustomed to my house having a very strong chemical or bleach scent when I have been scrubbing away, so this has been a huge relief. Usually after cleaning my kitchen I have to open up a window so I feel like all of the fumes are not going to be trapped in my house, especially with my baby always near. With these new products I feel comfortable enough to give her highchair tray a quick wipe down before I feed her without any rinsing. I love knowing that with these products I can teach her good habits about cleaning and not be worried about her touching harsh chemicals or breathing in toxins.

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We were most nervous to try the laundry detergent as we have used a very strongly scented one for a long time, but I am happy to say it has been working great! I am actually going to write an entire post about detergent so I will not go into more detail other than saying I think this detergent is going to be well worth it and cost efficient for our family.

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***After using all of the products for over a month now I am still obsessed. This is seriously the fastest I have seen a bottle of all purpose cleaner drain in our house as I want to use it on everything. Today I decided to use it to scrub my bathroom floor, and it’s the best it has ever looked.

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If you end up choosing to buy Branch Basics you can get $10 off your purchase by using my referral code http://branchbasics.refr.cc/carissao

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Sources:

How We are Leading the Industry in End-Product Testing

https://www.ewg.org/guides/cleaners

https://www.inc.com/christine-lagorio/why-branch-basics-stopped-selling-its-one-product.html