The Nontoxic Home

The unglamorous things, held to the same rule as the food. Cleaners, paper, sponges, dryer balls, candles — the products that never get read because nobody thinks of them as ingredients.

Why it's worth caring about. Household cleaners are used in enclosed rooms, often daily, and their residue stays on the counter you set food on and the floor a baby crawls across. "Fragrance" on a cleaning label can legally stand in for dozens of undisclosed compounds, and it is one of the most common causes of headaches and irritation that people never trace back to the bottle. Conventional candles are worth a second look too — paraffin is a petroleum byproduct, and most scented candles are burning synthetic fragrance directly into the air of a closed room. Ours are tallow and beeswax with essential oils.

The other half of this shelf is simply choosing materials that don't shed: bamboo and cellulose instead of plastic sponges, wool instead of dryer sheets, glass and stainless instead of soft plastic, unbleached paper instead of chlorine-processed.

Who we work with: Humble Suds and MamaSuds for straightforward non-toxic cleaners made by small family operations. Bamboo Switch for compostable brushes, scrubbers and kitchen tools. PlantPaper for bamboo paper without chlorine bleaching. Simple Ecology and ECOBAGS for organic cotton. Dr. Ginger's for coconut-powered oral care. Plus our own Ancestral Wax Candles — tallow, beeswax and essential oil, poured at the shop.

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