Fragrance might sound sweet, but it’s often a hidden mix of chemicals that can mess with your health—think allergies, hormone disruption, and more. In this episode, I’m breaking down why that one little word on your favorite products is a big red flag and how you can make simple swaps to protect your family without giving up a fresh-smelling home. From using essential oil diffusers to choosing cleaner brands, I’ll guide you with easy, doable tips that won’t overwhelm. One product at a time, let’s move toward a low-tox lifestyle that supports your well-being!

Takeaways

• Fragrance on product labels can disguise a host of harmful chemicals we should be aware of.
• Understanding the term 'fragrance' is crucial since it often conceals endocrine disruptors and toxins.
• Making small, intentional shifts in your home can lead to significant health improvements over time.
• Instead of overwhelming yourself, focus on swapping out one product at a time to reduce toxins.
• Using essential oils in diffusers can create a pleasant atmosphere without toxic fragrances in your home.
• Awareness of what's in your cleaning supplies is key to creating a safe environment for your family.

Don't forget to grab your free Non Toxic Living Guide.

https://live-life-balanced-with-robin.kit.com/nontoxicliving

Where to find Robin, INHC

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Companies to check out in this episode:

• Branch Basics
• Molly Suds
• EWG
• Think Dirty
• Yuca

Keywords:

healthy habits, low tox home, ditch toxins, family nutrition, fragrance risks, clean living, toxic ingredients, wellness journey, asthma triggers, hormone imbalances, eco-friendly products, essential oils, greenwashing, DIY cleaning recipes, safe home products, integrative health coach, health awareness, allergy symptoms, non-toxic lifestyle, natural fragrance alternatives

Hey there, it's Robin, and you're listening to Healthy Habits for a Healthier Home. I'm here to help you create a healthier life one simple shift at a time.

If you're a mama ready to ditch toxins, clean up your family's nutrition, and build daily habits that support your well being, you're definitely in the right place.

Each episode is packed not only with education, but practical tips and tools to help you transform your health in your home without that feeling of overwhelm. So, so let's take this journey together to create a thriving low tox home for you and your family. If you're ready, say, I am ready.

Now let's get into this episode. Hey. Hey, beautiful mama. Welcome back to the Healthy Habits for a Healthier Home podcast.

I'm your integrative health coach, Robin, and today we're going to be talking about one tip, tiny word that can hide big health risks in your home. And that word is fragrance.

And I know that y' all have heard me talk about it before, but it's such an important ingredient that I wanted to circle back around and do a little bit of a deeper dive.

Yep, the seemingly little harmful word on your lotion labels, your laundry detergents, your candles, they might actually be contributing to you and your children's allergies, asthma symptoms, headaches, and even hormone imbalances. But there's no need to worry because I'm here to help you make those simple, doable steps to shift your home towards health, not perfection.

The first thing we need to do is become aware. That's always our first step when we're going to be shifting something.

And so we need to understand what is fragrance really like, what does it actually mean? And when we're looking at a label, what, what should we know? So let's talk about what it means. It sounds nice, right?

Like, it sounds, oh, it's like clean and fresh and floral. But legally, the one word fragrance can hide hundreds of undisclosed chemicals in that product.

And companies don't have to tell us what's in the actual fragrance blend because it's consider a quote unquote trade secret, which, you know, for me burns me up because I'm all about transparency.

So what they often include in the word fragrance are things like phthalates, which are those known endocrine disruptors, synthetic musks and other toxic fillers. They're all bundled together in that sweet smelling name, fragrance.

And so this loophole, this is where for me it gets super, super frustrating because the FDA so Far right now where we're at, and I do believe it is going to change. But the FDA and the product safety regulators in the United States have not caught up to what this is actually doing.

They don't require companies to tell us what's in their fragrance. And that is a huge loophole. And it's not transparent. And the result for us is that we're using it in air fresheners, cand dryer sheets, body sprays.

And all of this could be messing with your immune system, your hormones, your respiratory health. And as a consumer, we absolutely have no idea because it's not listed. And so here's what I've seen, especially as a mom and a health coach.

Fragrances can trigger things like asthma and allergy in kids, eczema and rashes, headaches and mood swings, hormonal imbalances, especially in teen girls and women, where our hormones are fluctuating all the time and brain fog or fatigue after cleaning or doing laundry.

So again, this is all about the awareness and getting curious when you are doing certain things, understanding that if there is a fragrance in it, you and you're feeling a certain way, being able to link that together. Because the more that we understand, the more empowered we are to make better decisions.

And if you're struggling with things like insomnia, anxiety, chronic skin issues, this could be one of those sneaky contributors. Again, it's not just one thing that sets our body off. It's a multitude of things that kind of come together and create that storm.

And I've seen this kind of, I've seen this play out in real families like my own and people that I've coached. And so looking at your ingredients, you know, for me, gives us the most power to make the decisions that are best for ourselves and our family.

All right, so now that we are aware, we're aware what fragrance is, that is a loophole term. And also when you're looking at your ingredients, it could be listed as fragrance, perfume or perfume, and natural fragrance as well.

And do not let that fool you, because natural can be very, very far from natural. Unless it's from essential oils and it's fully disclosed. It should say lavender essential oil.

If the brand won't list their full ingredients, that's a hard no for me.

And the reason I feel that way is because if you are creating a healthy, real, clean product and not a green washing product, and then you're not going to be afraid to be fully transparent and list everything in your ingredients. So flipping over those bottles and reading the ingredients is what is going to allow you to make the best choice.

When you're looking at lotions, let's say on the front, it's going to have what the term I called greenwashing. I didn't coin the term greenwashing. It's something that is well known to many people.

And what that is is when we go to look at, you know, the front of the bottle of our L lotion, it might say for sensitive skin, it could say for eczema, it could say, you know, has, you know, oatmeal for soothing. But that's all greenwashing.

That's so that you don't turn the package around and you don't investigate the ingredients because what you see on the front makes. Oh, okay. So those are the things that my child has. And so let me just try this.

And again, I just want to caution you, I've fallen for that a few different times over the course of 21 years, and it's super aggravating. When I then realized, realized, oh, my gosh, I just spent $12 on something that's actually junk.

So again, when we flip those products over and we're looking at our ingredients, we're really looking for perfume, perfume fragrance and natural fragrance. And if you see that again, that's a clue for you to make a decision. Do you want to add these extra things to your body load?

We call it a body burden, toxic load. Do you want to add to that load or do you want to, you know, take away from that load? All right, now we're aware. Now we know what we're looking for.

And now you might be saying, what in the world do I do? And so the swaps, you know, swaps can still smell really good.

You don't have to live in a house that smells like vinegar or go completely fragrance free. And here are some of my favorite gentle swaps that I like.

Of course, there are candle companies out there, and I will list them in the show notes that have clean candles that are made with essential oils that actually smell and burn well. But before candles kind of came onto the scene, I was introduced to diffusers. And so I like diffusing blends. It's kind of like an science experiment.

You can put things together, and when you put them together, you can create different smells within your home that actually create different energies.

So some of the diffuser blends that I like are lemonade, lavender, peppermint, and for different reasons, if I'm trying to relax, I'm going to be using lavender If I'm trying to feel energized, I will use peppermint and then lemon. To me I just think it's a clean smell. So it's just something I, I like something else that you can do now.

Again, there are companies out there that are making safe, healthy, clean products in our cleaning supply section. And my favorite one is Branch Basics which I'm super excited to share that they're now in Target.

But what I love about them is you can order their concentrate and you can make the bottles as you go.

And I probably order once every six months to eight months, just one bottle and then I create my own mixtures, grabbing, you know, a spray bottle, adding the filtered water, adding a few drops, whatever their recipes call for on their bottle. And then sometimes I'll put in the little drops of essential oil just to make it smell nice.

Sometimes not smelling anything doesn't mean that your house isn't clean. We've just been conditioned that we need to have that bleach smell or that clean chemically smell to feel like things are clean.

If you don't want to purchase clean products because maybe they are a little bit more expensive, you can always make your own. And I'll put a link in the show notes to a couple of Pinterest post posts that I follow when making my own blends at home.

So fragrance free cleaning and laundry detergents from trusted brands like Branch Basics, like Molly Suds, you know I'm all for that and I do think it's an exciting time that more companies are stepping up to do the right thing. But again, I want to always provide you with caution. Use some of the apps like the EWG Think Dirty Yuca.

They will rate the product so that you know, if you know it's a 0 to 10 on the toxicity scale and you know I always say go with 0, 1 or 2.

I will tell you that if a product has the word fragrance, perfume or perfume, it is automatically an 8, 9 or 10 depending on what other chemicals are in there. If you are cleaning with something, cracking a window lets the fumes go out.

So if you are still using toxic chemicals in your products and you want to kind of finish them out, just open the window and let it kind of move out.

Some of the other things, putting baking soda, simmering cinnamon like a cinnamon stick on the stove, making like a blend of different things on the stove and just kind of letting it infiltrate your home makes it smell nice as well.

So again there's many, many swaps nowadays and I will Put in the show notes my guide to low talks home and it has each section of the home and then it has different brand swaps for different items that you might be currently using in your home and it takes away the guessing for you and it also makes creates a little bit of ease as you are creating those 1% shifts for you and your family. So now we are aware of what fragrance is.

We know where and how to look for those terms, we know what they cause we've talked about some swaps and so I just want you to know that you don't have to throw everything out today. Remember that this journey is all about the 1% shifts.

Just start with a product that I always say that you use the most and swap that first and just do one product at a time. If that's your personality and things get overwhelming, I would say start with one thing that you use daily.

So that could be shampoo, it could be soap, it could be lotion.

If you are a candle burning person, I would highly recommend getting those swapped out for a cleaner brand or creating diffuser blends yourself because think about that emits in the air and that basically infiltrates all of the air in your home. So I think that and shampoo and soap are kind of my first go tos. But remember, this is not about overwhelm.

It's about creating those small intentional shifts that will add up over time because your family deserves it. Your, your family deserves to feel peace knowing that your home supports their health and is not hurting their health.

If you want some of my favorite low tox swaps, diffuser blends or my DYI DIY spray recipes, make sure you grab that free guide that I'm going to go ahead and put in the show notes that I created just for you.

And if you're not already following me on Instagram, I encourage you to hop over there and also join my newsletter because every week I will put out a tip or two, a recipe, something that's on my heart, something I'm working on, something I'm advocating for so you guys can kind of learn and take away what you want and leave the rest behind. Because remember, we are making these shifts together. We're learning together, we're a community.

And I love to see that you're here thriving and wanting to soak up more information so that you know you can create the healthiest version of your home for you and your family. Because that's what's most important. If you guys have any comments, if you like this episode and you think it's important for another mom to hear.

Please make sure that you pass it on. Please rate and review because as we work through these different podcast episodes, not everybody hears everything.

And so if you like something and you comment, a lot of times people will go back and listen to something that somebody's commented on. So remember, together we work as a tribe and we are lifting and creating better, healthier homes for you and for me.

Until next time, I hope that you guys have an amazing rest of your week and I look forward to hearing from you and can't wait to hear what your takeaways are. Have a great rest of your day. That episode had so many great takeaways.

I hope you feel inspired and more empowered to make small 1% shifts on your wellness journey this week. I'd love to hear what resonated with you.

If you want to leave a review, share your thoughts and let me know how you're going to be implementing these 1% shifts in to your life. And don't forget to subscribe and share this episode with another mama who could use a little wellness love. Want to stay connected?

Join me on Instagram and Facebook at Live Life Balanced with Robin. Check out my website@livelifebalancedwithrobin.com for more resources and grab yourself some freebies while you're there.

Until next time, I hope you find peace, love and light by breathing, being present, and allowing for all possibilities to come your way. See y' all next week. Love to y' all.