going green

so, i’ve decided to go green.  not the total crunchy granola hippie girl green, mind you.  but in the best interest of my family and in trying to be a good steward of the world God created, i’m going green.  i’ve noticed that mikey’s been getting a lot of skin rashes since he was a wee baby and i’ve been having a bad bout of indoor allergies this season.  perhaps some small changes would be beneficial.  and good for the environment, too!  there’s some pretty nifty stuff out there! 

our new laundry detergent:

and did you know dryer sheets are really toxic?  i was surprised by that.  click here or here for more info.  so, we’ll now be using:

my other cleaning products (for the kitchen, bathroom, toilet, cleaning wipes, dishwasher soap, rinse aid, bleach) will all eventually be replaced with more environmentally safe products.  it’s always bugged me that regular cleaning products emit such strong fumes.  that can’t be good for little kids to breathe in and come in contact with, can it?  thankfully, ‘green’ stuff is easy to find (amazon has a lot of good options!) and is comparable in price and effectiveness to regular brands.  now i know you can make your own green cleaning products, but i’ve not gone quite that far.  yet.

not only that, we’re going organic (for some things) too!  click here for more info on pesticides in produce.  and click here for why it’s worse for kids.  so, here’s a handy dandy little guide for fruit/veggie buying.

some other sites that i’ve found to be really helpful:

the environmental working group 

the skin deep homepage — you can type in the health/beauty products you use to get in-depth info on them and see possible safer choices.

i’ll update in a while to see if these changes bring about good changes for our family.