This is my 150th post. WHAT?! In honor of this momentous occasion, I’m revisiting my biggest post ever, and why it matters to this blog’s next big thing.
Not long ago I announced I’m working on a new ebook called I Don’t Buy That: 12 simple recipes for DIY household basics. The inspiration behind my most popular post is the same as what’s driving this ebook’s creation: it’s so important that more people know how easy it is to make their own household products.
One year ago, I published a post highlighting a simple, non-toxic recipe for removing sticky residue. I slapped a cute little “gunk remover” label on it, snapped a few pictures and published the post without knowing what a splash it would make on the interwebs.
To date, this post has been pinned more than 57,000 times on Pinterest, and it drives more traffic to my website than anything I’ve ever published. I was shocked at first by how much attention it drew, but in hindsight, it makes so much sense.
Goo Gone was the first product I ever really researched on my own. I had a vague inkling it wasn’t good for me, but to be honest, the results I found kind of shocked me.
Here’s the excerpt from the Gunk Remover post on my findings about Goo Gone and Goof Off, two of the most popular brands of this product:
Here is a sampling (for full details, you can do a web search for the product you have and add “MSDS”):
• Causes eye irritation
• Contact with skin may cause irritation; Prolonged or repeated contact with skin may cause drying or cracking
• Ingestion/Inhalation can cause headache, nausea, drowsiness, central nervous system depression, convulsions and loss of consciousness. ASPIRATION HAZARD. Harmful or fatal if aspirated into lungs. (Um, yikes.)
• Extremely flammable
• Keep away from children
I draw two conclusions from this:
1 ) That’s not okay.
2 ) If I had known the alternative was so simple (and less expensive!), I never would have bought the product in the first place.
Here’s the thing: all of us have plenty of things to do every day without researching every consumable item that crosses our path, and inventing our own homemade replacements by trial and error. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all get to taste, feel and smell what it’s like to know without a doubt the products we’re using are unquestionably healthy.
I can’t snap my fingers and replace all our household products with healthy versions; no one can. But I Don’t Buy That is my way of sharing a huge step forward: the first step. Consider it a starter kit for changing the composition of your consumable products, with strategies in place to help you implement them easily.
The DIYs in the book were chosen based on simplicity and availability of ingredients—to minimize potential barriers so anyone to make healthier choices. I’ve packaged the easiest DIYs in my personal collection into a starter guide for anyone who wants to make their own products but doesn’t know where to begin.
I hope you’re excited as I am about this ebook! I am eager to share the feeling of relief knowing the ingredients of the products you consume are healthy—because you chose them. I want you to rest easy, too, knowing you’re taking a big step toward making your home simpler and more chemical free.
