Swapping out your toxic products for clean ones can be intimidating, especially when you don’t know what is toxic. And what is “clean” anyway? There is so much marketing for “natural,” “organic,” and “clean” that it is hard to know what is true. For some things organic is not enough. For others it is not even the safest choice.
I have been appalled lately by the sheer amount of devious marketing involving so called “natural” products. It is called “Greenwashing” and it is more common than you think. Finding that my Mrs. Meyer’s soaps, lotions, hand sanitizer and cleaning products have frangrances, which are just as toxic as anything else, scoring an 8 on the EWG.org toxin scale (EWG verified is like zero, the cleanest, and 10 is the worst). It seems that every time I clean out a new space in my house and start scanning I am horrified… especially because I thought I was doing so well! First task: download the EWG healthy living app and save the EWG skindeep database on your bookmarks bar. It is the most helpful tool I have.
This page is dedicated to thoughtfully replacing your toxic (maybe unbeknownst to you) everyday items with clean, EWG verified, and top scoring products. In addition, if you fancy supporting this website and me, please click through the affiliate and other links. Every bit helps! I will follow it up by making this a permanent page on my site and will continue to add to it as needed.
SKINCARE AND BEAUTY: Beautycounter is the leader in clean beauty and is the originator of The Never List. We will never put known harmful ingredients into products and are constantly testing and growing our list. I am very proud to be a consultant and health advocate in this company. If you can’t afford it, please just go buy some responsibly sourced argan oil for your face, and use everyone soap for your family. It’s clean if not luxurious and that is the most important thing. If you’re interested in why I joined Beautycounter, visit my shop page. I also love Primally Pure for their dark locks dry shampoo, their deodorant and their soy free, non-toxic lip balms. They also now have hand sanitizer! I also like Innersence Organic Beauty for clean hair and curl products.
PERSONAL CARE: I highly recommend swapping deodorant and anti-perspirant as quickly as possible. Every biopsy from breast cancer reveals carcinogens and aluminum from toxic deodorants. I like Beautycounter’s Clean Deo the best… but there are some decent runners up, including dōTERRA’s deodorants, Primally Pure, Humble and Native.
SELF CARE: I use CBD to help manage some of the daily issues of autoimmune disease. CBD supports the endocannabinoid system and helps support homeostasis in the body. If you have issues similar to mine and struggle with exercise induced inflammation, CBD can be extremely helpful for that, but also helps promote healing in the entire body by simply helping the body to function better and do what it was always meant to do. Not all Hemp Oils and CBD’s are created equally. I like Joy Organics, which has Broad Spectrum (THC free/non-psychoactive) and Full Spectrum (non-psychoactive) CBD products. It is a women owned company that has been featured in Parents Magazine and Forbes. I love their ethos, their methods and that they offer very high quality products and a strong enough sublingual tincture for my needs. Save 15% on ALL Joy Organics premium CBD with the code CULTUREDBITE. Click here to get discount
PROBIOTICS & SUPPLEMENTS: I have my own Wellevate Supplement Dispensary here. Many of these items are discounted cheaper than amazon and you can set up autoship and as a practitioner I can make recommendations for wellness. Ancient Nutrition SBO Probiotics, Amy Myers MD are my favorite probiotics, but as no two people are the same, I recommend scheduling a consultation to find the right product for you. Quinton Isotonic, Quinton Hypertonic and Ancient Nutrition Bone Broth Protein are some of my favorite staples. I also highly recommend doTERRA’s nutritionals as an option because both their adult and children’s probiotics are also double encapsulated. I also cannot recommend enough My Allstar Nutrition’s BioHeal Powder supplement for children especially if you suspect an infection of B. Hominis. I have also used the adult supplement in capsules as well. S. Boulardii is a hyper-vigilant beneficial yeast that helps heal the gut as well as overtake bad bacteria in the gut and both these brands use it in their formulations. I have experienced a decrease in many of my symptoms since incorporating these into my regimen, as well as seen my children thrive on a day to day basis. Their anxiety is lessened, their attention and focus are better and they are generally healthier. I have a NEW addition to my supplement shop as a thank you for following me!
CLEANING PRODUCTS: Replace your toxic household Lysol and Mrs. Meyers (yes, Mrs. Meyers has toxic fragrances!) with doTERRA’s Healthy Home Kit and OnGuard Laundry Detergent or with Branch Basics. I like Norwex after following Dr. Annie’s Experiments on YouTube. Norwex wins out on antibacterial cleaning OVER Bleach, Lysol and store bought methods. I also use e-cloth
PERFUME AND FRAGRANCES: I don’t use them! They are toxic! A single scent may contain anywhere from 50 to 300 distinct chemicals, which by anyone’s standards, stinks! My top pick for essential oils is doTERRA because they now do heavy metal testing and have QR codes on each bottle so you can see the lab tests. Just as importantly they do the polar opposite of what most companies do when they search out their sources. They pay a fair wage and give back into the communities where they source their oils. I never planned to do direct sales with essential oils but their stories both broke and won my ex-missionary’s heart. For perfume replacement doTERRA has created their first clean Perfume Spray, Kintana, and I love these roll ons as Vanilla and Neroli are favorites of mine. This doTERRA Family Essentials Kit is a great place to start as well as this Kid Safe Set! I also like Plant Therapy‘s vanilla and most test clean and are affordable (update – not all), though do not have the potency of doTERRA. If you prefer Young Living, my lovely friend Anita sells it and is very knowledgeable.
WATER: I do NOT drink out of cans any longer because of the BPA. I use glass ball canning jars that I fill up at home (we have a well) and I drink sparkling water in glass bottles only when I am out and about as well as Whole Foods 365 brand sparkling water as it is BPA free. If you do need a good brand reverse osmosis filter (no other will take out the toxins in the tap water) then Berkey is a good brand, as is the Multi-Pure AquaVersa and my first pick, the AquaTru Reverse Osmosis Water Filter. We have the under-sink version with alkalizing minerals cartridge. It is important to remineralize if you use a Reverse Osmosis system. I recommend Quintin Isotonic and Quintin Hypertonic minerals (available in Wellevate) as well as CT Minerals from Cell Core.
FOOD & BEVERAGE: I find a lot of my organics at Costco, Azure Market (which is like mass drop for Organic Foods), Basics Market (local to Portland, OR)
and the Farmers Market. Amazon Subscribe and Save and Amazon Prime Pantry are available for anyone and I do use them on occasion. I also get organics on Amazon Prime: Whole Foods Market delivery. For my fellow Autoimmune Protocol readers, I highly recommend Shop AIP. They are the first 100% compliant online shop and have a lot of great products. Use code SHOP to get 20% off your first purchase. If you are a cured meats fan, I highly recommend Carnivore Club for their Keto Box! I don’t really snack much but I’ve always enjoyed a charcuterie board and I approve their Keto options for my husband’s snacking enjoyment! I am Thrive Market Affiliate and get quite a few of our staples from this shop. If you didn’t know, they support families in need all over the US. One brewed beverage I am especially fond of and excited about is RASA, which is a small, responsible, woman owned business that creates some incredible adaptogenic brews (like tea & coffee) to energize your life without the big caffeine hit. What a lovely way to enjoy ayurveda… click through for a discount on your first order and use code “CULTUREDBITE”. For extremely well formulated superfoods to boost your health, I recommend YourSuper Superfoods. My current favorites are the Magic Mushroom, Moon Balance and Forever Beautiful. Use code “CULTUREDBITE” for 10% off. They even have a whole detox system for starting off strong, which I highly recommend. It is important to focus on Grass Fed/Pasture Raised Meats and avoid GMO soy products. My body can’t tolerate even organic chicken because there is soy in the feed so I get my poultry from Basics Market. They also have a real in house butcher so I often order custom sausages without nightshades. There are other pasture raised options in the US though and Thrive Market carries pastured chicken.
COFFEE: Coffee is one of the most toxic things you can consume if it is not organic. Decaf is worse because the process often uses formaldehyde and other chemicals to extract the caffeine. I recommend Co2 or Swiss Water Processed Organic Coffee for Decaf and high quality organic coffee so you are not just drinking pesticides that can wreak havoc on your immune system. Bulletproof and Lifeboost both make Swiss Water Decaf as well as Café Mam. You can also find organic and Swiss water decaf at your local Winco, but be careful as they are not tested for mycotixins/mold.
WINE: I know this should be part of food and beverage but I feel it needs a category by itself! One thing that has changed drastically since developing autoimmune disease is my wine consumption, both in quantity and quality. It has taken me some time but I am now far enough along in my healing journey that I can enjoy very high quality wines from time to time, but it has been an interesting time trying to figure out which ones will kick me out of ketosis or cause an inflammatory response and which are okay. Not anymore! I love Scout & Cellar Clean Crafted Wines and am a consultant for them these days because I can truly stand behind them. Their wines are extremely low sugar, lab tested twice, and they even have my favorite varietals! It’s so good to enjoy Oregon Pinot Noirs again! Message me for advice on picking wines. I like Dry Farm Wines as well because they are organic, biodynamic, clean and they test every bottle as well for glyphosate, sugars and sulfites! They are also lower alcohol and even have a low alcohol subscription. You can visit in the shop tab or here: www.dryfarmwines.com/BrennaMay and you can get an additional bottle for a penny on your first order. Both companies have a 100% satisfaction guarantee.
CANDLES: Parrafin wax lets off toxic chemicals in the air when you burn it, and most candles are made from paraffin. I have been seeing soy candles everywhere, but with Hashimoto’s I have to avoid soy products so I lean toward beeswax or coconut oil candles. Edens Garden’s candles, Big Dipper Wax Works Beeswax Candles and Pure Plant Home coconut wax candles are good choices. Stay tuned for beeswax essential oil candles by Eva in our Etsy Shop. A diffuser and clean, responsibly sourced, heavy metal tested essential oil setup is also a fantastic swap choice and has many health benefits.
HOUSEHOLD & KITCHEN: It’s time to ditch those plastic water bottles & kitchen utensils, analon and teflon pots and pans because those things are putting PFAS Chemicals (toxins) in your body every time you use them! I recommend cooking with cast iron mainly and stainless steel when necessary. Cast iron gives you a healthy source of iron in your food and does not leach any unwanted toxins into your body. For utensils, move to wood, bamboo and silicone. We use Corkcicle, YETI, and Klean Kanteen for our kids water bottles as well as Ball Mason‘s for drinking and for fermenting and food storage. I use these stainless steel rings to prevent rust when fermenting. We use silicone lids for the kids drinking with stainless steel straws. as well as these bamboo lids with straws for wide mouth and regular mouth masons. This is my favorite home coffee cup from YETI and our favorite to go tumblers.
Kitchen foil and bleached parchment paper when heated move those chemicals from the paper to your food, so switch to a Silpat or unbleached parchment paper.
I will add to this as I go and it will hopefully become a bit more polished and easy to use. Many of my links you will find in my shop tab. and I keep my Link in Bio updated.
If you have any questions or suggestions, message me on Instagram and I’ll do my best to research and update this list. If you want to contact me about Beautycounter, dōTERRA, Scout & Cellar or any of my affiliate programs you can message me as well on my @brennamaywellness Instagram, Facebook, Gab & MeWe accounts.
With love and eyes wide open,
Brenna May
#switchtosafer #ewg #tossthetoxins