Making your own household products: a healthy and ecological gesture

Although we know they are harmful to health and the environment, we regularly use various industrial household products. Yet, there are simple homemade recipes to follow. With a few ingredients likely already in your cupboards, you can make a DIY dish soap or window cleaner. Let's review what can be done to protect your health and nature's when doing housework. 

The harmful effects of industrial household products 

Harmful to health

With the countless options available on the market, it does not always cross our minds to create our own cleaning products. However, making homemade household products can help avoid the toxic components generally found in commercial products. A 2018 study shows that frequently using these products had an effect comparable to smoking 10 to 20 packs of cigarettes a year. They can cause allergic reactions, skin or eye irritations, headaches or dizziness, and even be carcinogenic! 

Harmful to the environment

Human health is not the only thing affected by these products. The environment also suffers from these harmful effects. Household products pollute the air, water, and soil when discharged into wastewater or waste treatment facilities. The pictograms on packaging inform us of the main risks these products entail: danger of explosion, fire, or corrosion, health hazard, or environmental hazard. 

More expensive

Furthermore, making your cleaning products at home often turns out to be cheaper than buying industrial products. The DIY window cleaner, for example, costs twelve times less according to an investigation by the magazine "60 millions de consommateurs". So, why not prepare your own household products?