How to Detox Your Home to Support Hormone Balance
We all think of our homes as our sanctuaries — our safe spaces where we can relax, decompress, and recover from the stresses of the day. Yet, everyday things in our homes can harbor dangerous chemicals in the form of endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
These chemicals can wreak havoc on your hormone function, causing imbalances that can severely affect your mood, energy, and fertility levels, amongst other things. You’ll find EDCs in everything from perfumes to wax melts, hair, and cleaning products. It’s actually hard to escape!
But there’s good news!
Detoxing your home is entirely possible, and even the smallest of changes can have a huge impact. In this post, we’ll go over ways you can detox your home and create a hormone-friendly environment.
23 Tips to Detox Your Home to Support Hormonal Balance
Improve the Air Quality in Your Home
1. Ventilate Your Home Daily
Open up your windows daily to let the fresh air in, and get any toxins or odors out.
2. Use Air Purifiers
Indoor air can be full of chemicals and toxins, invest in a HEPA filter air purifier to remove pollutants and keep the air inside as fresh as possible
3. Avoid Artificial Air Fresheners
One of the biggest culprits for dangerous chemicals and ECDs are synthetic air fresheners and home fragrances. Replace them with essential oil diffusers or more natural alternatives.
4. Use House Plants
Plants are a brilliant way to purify the air and keep air quality in your home in tip-top condition. In addition to that, they just look divine and add life to your space!
5. Don’t Use Paraffin Candles
Use soy wax or beeswax candles to ensure that you’re not creating an atmosphere filled with endocrine-disrupting chemicals. Soy or beeswax candles are all-natural, so are much safer to use.
Replace Harmful Cleaning Products
6. Switch to Non-Toxic Cleaners
Almost every supermarket has a selection of non-toxic more natural cleaning products that will help you reduce the amount of EDCs you have in your home. Look for biodegradable, fragrance-free options, or make your own with vinegar, baking soda, and lemon or essential oils.
7. Use Natural Washing Detergents
Along with the cleaning products, there are plenty of options for more natural, less artificial washing detergents, and since these are sitting directly against your skin, it would be worth opting for products free of synthetic fragrances and dyes.
8. Avoid Antibacterial Products
A firm favorite in most households, but very toxic! Antibacterial handwashes, washing detergents, sprays, and cleaning products — all of them often contain triclosan, a known EDC.
9. Wear Rubber Gloves When Cleaning
Even if you’ve made the switch to non-toxic? Absolutely! They will still contain a certain amount of chemicals, so to make sure you have an extra layer of protection, minimize direct skin exposure to chemicals.
Upgrade Personal Care Products
10. Read Labels
This one can be difficult, as there are truly so many skin and hair care products with EDCs in them and it’s difficult to find the product that works for you, that has reduced toxins and chemicals in it. But fortunately, there are a lot of brands out there that make products to help you avoid parabens, phthalates, and synthetic fragrances.
11. Choose Organic Products
Another surefire way to ensure you’re getting the best quality and healthier options is to choose organic. You won’t find any of those nasty chemicals in organic products, so they will always be a safe bet! Try opting for natural or certified organic skin and hair products.
12. Choose Natural and Organic Feminine Products
By now, you’re probably thinking that it’s literally everything that we put on our skin and in our bodies, and you wouldn’t be too far off thinking that — but our feminine hygiene products are soaked in EDCs and even carcinogens! But luckily there are a lot of alternatives that aren’t harmful like the mainstream products. Avoid bleached tampons and pads, opt for organic or reusable options like menstrual cups.
13. DIY Skin and Haircare
One way to make sure you know exactly what is going into your products is to make your own! You can use ingredients like coconut oil, aloe vera, and shea butter to make rich and natural body butter.
Reduce Plastic Use
14. Use Glass or Stainless Steel
Plastics are filled with BPAs which are known endocrine disruptors. Try to replace all your plastic containers and bottles, especially for food and beverages and anything you might use in the microwave.
15. Avoid BPA and BPS in Plastic
Continuing on from above, if you do use plastic, be sure that it’s BPA and BPS free. But I do recommend just going with glass or metal.
16. Never Microwave Plastic
If you do still use plastic, then please do not microwave the plastics that you have. Heat can cause chemicals to leach into food which exposes you to even more EDCs.
Optimize Your Kitchen
17. Avoid Non-Stick Coating at all Costs
Replace non-stick pans with cast iron, stainless steel, or ceramic-coated alternatives. The non-stick coating on pans is full of EDCs and carcinogenic chemicals, that seep into your food when it’s heated.
18. Filter your Tap Water
I don’t think I need to tell you that tap water has goodness know what in it, so it’s worth the investment to get a water filter to make sure it’s as pure as possible! Install a high-quality water filter to filter out contaminants.
19. Swap out Canned Foods
The cans we store our food in are lined with BPAs, so try swapping out tinned food for fresh or frozen foods where possible.
Don’t Slack with your Food Storage
20. Avoid Using Plastic Wraps
Use beeswax wraps or silicone alternatives, instead of plastics like clingfilm.
21. Store Food in Glass
As mentioned above, using glass for food storage and heating will help prevent those harmful EDCs from leeching into your food!
Limit Exposure to Pesticides
22. Buy Organic Produce
Making the switch to organic produce over normal will help limit your exposure to pesticides which have high amounts of chemicals and EDCs in them. If you can’t switch everything then I’d recommend switching things like berries and leafy greens.
23. Wash Produce Thoroughly
Use a vinegar solution to clean fruits and vegetables to make sure you remove as many of the pesticides and other chemicals as possible.
A Healthier Home, A Healthier You
Detoxing your home is one of the most impactful steps you can take to make sure your hormonal health is working as it should! By reducing exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals in your everyday environment, you create a space where your body can thrive and be balanced.
Small, changes — like switching to non-toxic cleaning products, improving your air quality, and opting for cleaner more natural personal care products — add up and will make a significant difference to your health. Your home should be your haven.
