“The laundry room is highly toxic, containing chemical perfumes in the laundry detergent and especially the dryer sheets. Dryer sheets coat all your clothes with a layer of toxic chemicals. When you wear those clothes, your body moisture causes those chemicals to come into contact with your skin and be absorbed directly into your bloodstream. It’s an easy way to poison your system with cancer-causing chemicals.” Natural News

Yep, that stuff is just nasty. Think how many chemicals that might be hiding in your clothes by the time you have stain treated, soaked, washed, rinsed, dried and ironed! Us mums are usually the ones using the products and inhaling them, so we get the double dose! Let’s not talk about how expensive all those products are too.

This is one area we have been natural in for over ten years as my precious girl has sensitive skin. So I have put together my top picks when it comes to keeping your laundry toxic free and all natural.

Stain Removal. It doesn’t come much simpler than this homemade stain remover. It’s cheap, effective and totally natural.

For stubborn stains (and yes, they are frequent with messy kids!) I like to use Kin Kin Natural’s Oxygen Whitener and soak. It really works well.

Washing. Washing powder can be extremely irritating to sensitive skin and the chemical residue hangs around in your clothes! I have a couple of brands I recommend:

♥   Kin Kin Naturals. Made in Queensland by a family-owned company. Felix used to work for Omo so he has used this knowledge and applied it to totally natural and effective products.

♥   Abode Healthy Home. Developed by leading Australian building biologist, Nicole Bijlsma and author of one of my favourite books, Healthy Home, Healthy Family. You can buy it in bulk online, making it cheaper and more eco-friendly.

♥  Soapnuts are also very eco-friendly as they are simply the seed pod of a berry containing a very high percentage of saponins, a natural surfactants.  I find they are good for lightly soiled clothes with the addition of essential oils for a bit of fragrance. Other people swear by them. Try them out and see what you think.

There are a few other natural washing powders on the market, but be aware of ‘green washing‘ and do your research! What brands do you like?

Fabric Softener.  I don’t use it. If you want, use vinegar or some drops of essential oils. In fact, once you read this blog post at Care 2, you may never use it again either!

Drying. I try not to use the dryer, but when I have to, these Tumblemonkey wool dryer balls ease my eco-guilt.

If you are hanging out your clothes in the sunshine, use bamboo pegs. They are environmentally friendly, sustainable and will break down in land fill. I hate having bits of broken plastic pegs all over the yard!

Dry cleaning. Dry cleaning uses harsh petrochemicals to clean your clothes. Avoid it if you can or check if you dry cleaner has a Green Earth option, where liquid silicon is used instead.

Ironing. There really is no need for aerosol or chemical ironing sprays. I just use water in a spray bottle and a hot steam setting. There are recipes around to make your own starch, but I haven’t tried them. Has anyone got a good one?

So, can you ditch the chemicals and keep your clothing and linen natural? Is this something you might like to try?

You might also like to read: Washing your dishes, naturally!

♥Thanks to my awesome friend, Jules for the fab pic of her laundry! ♥