Taking the steps towards a cleaner lifestyle can be a little overwhelming, but it’s not impossible! The past year, I’ve taken small steps around the house and in my beauty routine to create a cleaner, less toxic lifestyle.  If you’re looking to avoid harsh chemicals and toxins around your house and in personal products, here are a few simple ways to get started.

Download the “Think Dirty” App

This is a great app if you are trying to find cleaner products for personal use, or for around your home. Simply type in a product you currently use, and it will give you a clean rating on a scale of 0-10. (0 being the cleanest and 10 being not clean at all). It will list all the ingredients, and tell you why certain ingredients are bad for you. On top of rating products, the app will also give you alternatives to products that aren’t the cleanest! How easy is that?!

Introduce Clean Personal Products

Once you get the hang of using the Think Dirty app, it’s then time to start buying cleaner products! Over the past year, I’ve been trying to buy cleaner beauty products and eliminate items from The Never List from our house.

This can be a long process, and you don’t have to throw away everything you own all in one day! Simply find some products that you want to start trying, and swap them out once you’ve ran out of your current stash. When I first got started, I did go through my make up and toss the really old stuff that I was clearly never going to use. But I kept what I knew I liked, and started researching what brands and products I wanted to try once I was near the end of my current self care and make up products, shampoo, body wash, etc.!

Need help on where to start? Here are some great companies, with clean products you should look into…

• BeautyCounter
• 100% Pure
• W3ll People

Buy Chemical Free House Cleaners

Let me say it again… Swapping out products and home cleaners doesn’t need to be a complicated! It’s taken us over a year, but we have slowly used up all of our chemical-based cleaners and are now almost 100% plant-based.

We started using Branch Basics, and fell in love the results! It’s an inexpensive 100% plant-based concentrate that you can have shipped right to your door! The best part is that you can use it on everything from glass, wood floors, and laundry. I know that you’re thinking natural cleaners don’t work… but the results seriously speak for themselves! Don’t mock it till you try it!

Use Essential Oils

I started using essential oils this past November, and really love them! I definitely have more to learn, and haven’t even scrapped the surface of what I can use them for. But I know that they’re worth the investment. We use them for room fragrance, stress relief, pain relief, acne and even cleaning! I understand that EOs are not for everyone. But they are a neat thing to try if you’re looking for all-natural alternatives to promote a cleaner lifestyle.

Order Imperfect Produce

Imperfect Produce is a company that sells perfectly useable produce that would’ve otherwise been thrown away, due to tiny imperfections or surpluses. Each week, you can customize your box and buy as much or as little produce you need. They’ve also just added additional grocery items like coffee, olive oil and granola!

This might seem like a silly thing to add to this list, but it actually made Brian and I eat more vegetables! We’ve tried different produce, and have even added more vegetables to our diet because we have more in the house. Overall, it’s a simple way to get more nutrients and help your local farmers from wasting quality food. (If you want to try it and get $10 off your first order, click here!)

Shop at Higher Quality Grocery Stores

It may not seem like it, but where you shop can have a huge impact on what kind of food you buy. We use to shop at Pick and Save, which has a ton of options and has good produce and meat. But, while going to a huge store can be great, it can be overwhelming. You can end up buying the same things each week; most of them probably not great for your body and overall healthy.

A few months ago we decided to switch to Trader Joe’s for our weekly shopping trips, and it made a HUGE difference in what we purchase for our home. Trader Joe’s has a huge selection of healthy, organic food on hand. And while it’s not ALL healthy, it’s much easier to buy a clean product without even thinking about it. And the best part, we didn’t even see a huge difference in our bill at the end of a shopping trip!

Implement some of these steps can take time, but they are totally work it if you are looking to create a cleaner lifestyle for you and your family. It has taken us well over a year to implement all of these changes, and we still have a lot more we can do to improve. So, don’t give up! It is possible!

What are some ways that you promote a cleaner lifestyle around your house?