I Want to Cut the Toxins Out of My Life. Where Do I Begin?

This is where I started, and honestly where I'd tell most women to start. Your skin is your largest organ, and a lot of what you put on it gets absorbed, not just left on the surface. Look at your lotion, your face products, your deodorant, your makeup, and your sunscreen first.

Watch labels for parabens, phthalates, synthetic “fragrance” or “parfum,” formaldehyde-releasers, triclosan, and oxybenzone. If a product hides its fragrance or has a long list of words you can't pronounce, that's my cue to look closer.

This matters for all of us, and it matters even more while you're trying to conceive, pregnant, or nursing, since your hormones are already doing extra work in those seasons.

Non-stick coatings shed more as they get hotter and as the surface wears, and that ends up on your family's plate. Stainless steel, cast iron, and enameled cast iron don't have a coating to lose.

What to switch to: cast iron or stainless for the stovetop, glass or ceramic for storage and leftovers, wooden or metal utensils instead of plastic. When you can, reheat on the stovetop or in a toaster oven instead of the microwave, especially in anything plastic.

Slowly move away from plastic for food and drinks too, especially anything hot. Heat and plastic are not friends, since both heat and acidic food make plastic shed more into what you're eating. Never microwave or store hot food in plastic.

Swap one pan or one container at a time as your current ones wear out. You don't need a new kitchen this weekend.

So much of what we clean with, we then breathe in, and our kids touch constantly. Simple, fragrance-free, plant-based cleaners go a long way. Vinegar, castile soap, and baking soda handle most jobs without a single spray bottle of anything synthetic.

Detergents, fabric softeners, and dryer sheets are a sneaky source of synthetic fragrance, since it's pressed into every towel, sheet, and piece of clothing your family touches all day. This is an easy, high-impact swap once your current bottle runs out.

Look for the same red flags as skincare here: unlisted “fragrance,” and anything with a long, unpronounceable ingredient list. Dishwasher pods and rinse aid are an easy one to miss, since fluorinated compounds and surfactant residue can linger on dishes that look perfectly clean.

My go-to DIY swaps: castile soap and a few drops of essential oil for hand soap, white vinegar and water with a splash of citrus or tea tree oil for an all-purpose spray, a baking soda paste for scrubbing, and washing soda with castile soap for laundry. None of it needs to be fancy to work.

When I don't want to DIY it, TrulyFree is what I actually use, a fully non-toxic, refillable cleaning and laundry line. Use code HOLISTICLOVE for 20% off.

A diaper and a wipe sit against a baby's skin for hours at a stretch, and babies absorb through their skin even more readily than we do. Look for fragrance-free wipes and diapers, and skip anything with added lotion or dye you can't explain.

Wash new baby clothes, swaddles, and crib sheets once before first use, and choose a fragrance-free baby laundry detergent without optical brighteners. Their laundry doesn't need to smell like anything to be clean.

You don't have to overhaul the nursery overnight. Start with whatever touches their skin the longest: diapers, wipes, and sleepwear.

I built a whole guide just for this season, sorted by age, with an ideal pick and a more affordable pick for every category.

The air inside our homes is often more polluted than the air outside. Candles, plug-ins, sprays, and air fresheners are one of the biggest sources of synthetic fragrance in a home, and “fragrance” on a label can legally hide dozens of unlisted ingredients.

Real airflow beats masking the air every time. Open a window, especially after cooking or cleaning, and let a cross-breeze do the work.

When you're ready for a filter, the number to know is the MERV rating. 8 is a basic residential filter. 11 to 13 catches the finer stuff and suits most home systems. 14 and above usually needs a system built for it. A slightly lower MERV filter changed on schedule beats a high MERV filter choking your airflow.

A whole-house filter only cleans the air that actually passes through your return vent, so it never fully covers every room. A portable room filter is an add-on, not a replacement-- run one in the rooms you spend the most time in, on top of a MERV-rated house filter, not instead of it.

The one we personally use and trust for this is Air Oasis. Here's the exact one we bought.

Filtering your water matters, since what's in your water ends up in you. But here's the part most people miss: a filter that removes the bad stuff often strips out minerals too. Filtered water without minerals doesn't hydrate you the same way.

So think of it as two steps, not one. Filter first, then re-mineralize. That's exactly why a mineral supplement belongs next to your water filter, not instead of it.

Start by looking up your own water utility's water quality report, it tells you exactly what you're filtering for. On the box, activated carbon handles chlorine and taste, and reverse osmosis covers the broadest range including PFAS, though it strips the most minerals too.

My favorite shower filter is Waterstik. It softens the water, and my skin genuinely feels smoother and more hydrated after using it.

We've also used and liked MitoLife's shower filter.