Green up – Detox your home for a healthier life
As we enter the spring season, it’s the perfect time to refresh and green up our homes. Your home should be your safe haven. To be able to move with the ebbs and flows of life it is important to maintain your space and spring is the perfect time for a fresh start. Research shows our surroundings have a profound impact on our mental and physical well-being. A spring detox for your home is a great way to reconnect with what really matters and improve your overall quality of life. Today, we’ll discuss four steps to detox your home: declutter, detox, clean, and organize. Change your home into a space that inspires optimism, energy and creativity so you’re able to feel your best!
Organise
before you organise
Before you start, make sure to sit down and come up with a plan to tackle your home. Oftentimes decluttering and detoxing your home can get quite overwhelming. To combat this and help yourself move through your home swiftly and confidently, decide what will work best for you. You can work per category, room, or even corner. Come up with your own strategy!
Declutter
make physical and mental space
The first step to detox your home is to declutter. This means putting away items that are out of place, fixing broken things, and recycling, donating items that you no longer need. A cluttered home can create a stressful environment, so taking the time to declutter will free up not just physical but also mental space. Reducing the number of items in your home, however, doesn’t have to mean that they go to waste either. Of course, we encourage you to reuse and recycle as much as you can. Why not try to come up with a new way to use your items? Or find someone else who could use that which you no longer want, donate your items to charity shops, or gift them to family, friends or neighbours.
Detox
from chemicals & make natural swaps
Detox your home by swapping out toxic and non-eco-friendly products for more sustainable alternatives. We often don’t realize how harmful some of the items in our house are. But they could cause real damage to our health over time. It is time to make some swaps. Look for products that are made from natural materials and free of harsh chemicals.
Remove these toxic items from your home:
- Plastic containers (food storage): these often contain BPA & Phthalates which are proven to be incredibly harmful to your health.
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- Choose glass or stainless steel instead, these are much better, especially when you heat up your food.
- Chemical cleaning products: the chemicals in most cleaning products are damaging both the environment and animal life as well as human health.
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- Opt for non-toxic, natural cleaning products instead (see Step 3 for our favourite natural alternatives).
- Paraffin wax and scented candles: Paraffin wax (used for most cheap candles) is made from petroleum byproducts, emitting toxic fumes, and generating far greater emissions than other waxes. It is important to be mindful of the levels of air pollution in your home. While scents are not necessarily bad for your health, they can lead to irritation and allergic reactions, not just in yourself, but also in your pets.
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- Swap your paraffin candles for organic, non-toxic candles such as the palm wax candles from the originalhome collection, which emit much less CO2. If you want a nice scent in your home, try decorating with fruits and vegetables or flowers!
Clean green
for a refreshed home
Once you’ve decluttered and detoxed, it’s time to deep clean your home. Maintaining your home’s hygiene is essential to good health and encourages you to be more productive. But instead of using nasty chemical cleaners that are harmful to both the environment and your personal health, try using more earth and people-friendly alternatives such as a simple water and vinegar solution or lemon.
- Nature’s super cleaner: Mix equal parts water and vinegar to create a natural, antibacterial cleaner that’s safe to use on almost any surface.
- Cleanse with freshness: Lemons are a great natural cleaner. Try using the juice from a lemon and a natural sponge or cloth to remove the limescale off your taps or use it to clean your oven for a fresh and natural scent. Or you can even use the lemon itself to clean. Simply cut in half and scrub away, lemon in hand.
Always make sure to do a small test patch first so you don’t accidentally damage your finishes.
Organise sustainably
with organic baskets
Finally, it’s time to put everything in order. An organised home gives you an organised mind. This is where originalhome baskets come in handy. Organise your items in natural baskets made from biodegradable sundried plant materials such as seagrass, jute, or abaca (banana leaf). Our baskets function as perfect organisers, create a cosy atmosphere in any room, and are the most eco-friendly option. These baskets are not only practical and beautiful, but they’re also earth and people-friendly. They offer a stylish way to store and organise your possessions and are a great addition to any room in your home, invoking a calming, biophilic atmosphere.
Refresh and reconnect
Create safe, healthy, and organized living spaces this spring and detox your home! By following these four steps of decluttering, detoxing, cleaning, and organizing, you can create a home that promotes physical and mental well-being and inspires optimism, energy and creativity. Try to reconnect with what really matters to you and become more conscious of your lifestyle. It is time to get inspired to make healthier decisions, not just for yourself but also for the planet.
It is important to truly become aware of our surroundings and do our research before buying items we’ll spend most of our time with. Originalhome offers many non-toxic, earth and people-friendly alternatives to decorate with and use in and around your home.
We would love to see how you detox your home, please feel free to share your practices and tips with us through social media!
Products to detox your home
Get Inspired
It’s time to create an original home. A place where you can relax, be creative, get inspired and most importantly be your 100% original you.