Home Environmental Guide
Creating a Healthier Home Environment
Your home should be a place where your body has an opportunity to recover from the exposures encountered throughout the day. One of the simplest ways to improve your home environment is to reduce unnecessary chemicals and fragrances in the air and maintain healthy indoor humidity and ventilation.
Remove Artificial Fragrances
Artificial fragrance is found in far more products than most people realize. Fragrance chemicals can be released into the air and can also remain on clothing, bedding, furniture, and other surfaces.
We recommend removing artificial fragrance from your home as completely as practical.
This includes:
- Plug-in air fresheners
- Scented candles and wax melts
- Room sprays and air fresheners
- Scented laundry detergent
- Fabric softeners and dryer sheets
- Scent boosters
- Scented cleaning products
- Scented soaps and body washes
- Scented lotions and creams
- Perfumes, body sprays, and heavily fragranced beauty products
When replacing these products, look for fragrance-free, nontoxic alternatives whenever possible.
Be aware that “unscented” does not always mean fragrance-free. Some unscented products contain fragrance ingredients designed to mask other odors. Look specifically for products labeled fragrance-free.
Simplify Your Laundry
Laundry products are an especially important source of fragrance because they are deliberately designed to leave scent behind on clothing, towels, sheets, and bedding.
Choose a simple, fragrance-free laundry detergent and eliminate:
- Dryer sheets
- Fabric softeners
- Scent beads or scent boosters
- Fragranced laundry sprays
You do not need your clean laundry to smell like anything. Clean does not need a fragrance.
Choose Fragrance-Free Personal Care Products
Products applied directly to the skin can be another significant source of fragrance exposure.
Whenever possible, choose simple, fragrance-free:
- Soap
- Shampoo and conditioner
- Lotion and moisturizer
- Deodorant
- Skin-care products
- Cosmetics and beauty products
The goal is not necessarily to eliminate every personal-care product. It is to reduce unnecessary ingredients and repeated fragrance exposure.
If You Enjoy Fragrance, Use Essential Oils Instead
Removing artificial fragrance does not mean your home can never have a pleasant scent.
If you enjoy fragrance in your home, consider an aromatherapy mist diffuser using a small amount of a high-quality organic essential oil rather than plug-ins, synthetic room sprays, or artificially fragranced candles.
Remember that essential oils are still biologically active substances and can irritate some people. Use them sparingly, and discontinue them if anyone in the home develops headaches, respiratory irritation, skin symptoms, or other sensitivity.
Control Indoor Humidity
Humidity is an important part of maintaining a healthy indoor environment.
Aim to keep the relative humidity in your home at approximately 35–50%.
During warm, humid months, run a dehumidifier when necessary to prevent excessive indoor humidity.
During dry winter months, a humidifier can be helpful when indoor humidity becomes too low.
An inexpensive digital humidity meter, or hygrometer, makes it easy to monitor the humidity in your home rather than guessing.
Avoid allowing the home to remain excessively humid. Persistent moisture encourages mold and dust-mite growth and can negatively affect indoor air quality.
Open Your Windows
Modern homes can trap pollutants, odors, cleaning chemicals, and other airborne contaminants indoors.
Open your windows regularly whenever weather and outdoor air quality allow.
Even a relatively short period of fresh-air exchange can help ventilate the home and reduce the buildup of indoor pollutants.
Use common sense during periods of heavy outdoor smoke, very high pollen, extreme temperatures, or poor outdoor air quality.
Keep It Simple
Creating a healthier home does not require filling your house with more products. In many cases, the best approach is the opposite.
Remove artificial fragrance.
Choose simple fragrance-free products.
Keep humidity between 35–50%.
Control excess moisture.
Bring fresh outdoor air into the home regularly.
The goal is to create a cleaner, simpler indoor environment with fewer unnecessary exposures so that your home remains a place for rest and recovery.