If you’ve spent any time consuming online wellness content, you’ve probably come across videos promoting the “non-toxic home”. While I think the movement comes from a good place, much of the content has become extreme, impractical, and ultimately not helpful for most people.
There are plenty of reasonable recommendations: using glass food storage containers, choosing high quality stainless steel cookware, and reducing unnecessary plastic use. But the content that tends to garner the most views and attention is not about simple, sustainable habits. Because I suppose when there is actually a simple, non aesthetic fix to an issue that is highly accessible, we cannot just leave it at that. People have to get online and talk about how they’re taking it a step further and doing better than you. This is the hyper-optimization aesthetic: a complicated protocol for every aspecxt of life, complete with hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of products. Side note, the over consumption of wellness products is especailly interesting to me considering the low tox lifestyle seems like it should be inherintely based on under consumption. I recently came across a $500 EMF blocking device on Instagram, and it’s a perfect example of how wellness can drift into gratuitousness.
This mindset is not only annoying, but can also create an atmosphere of moral superiority where people are made to feel irrespondible because they still use non-stick cookware. Wellness shouldn’t become a class divide wehre only those with unlimited budgets can participate. At its core, a healthier lifestyle is about reducing unnecessary exposures wehre its practical, not chasing perfection and subsequently demonizing those who are not in the same extreme pursuit.
This is all why I prefer the term “low-tox” rather than “non-toxic”. The reality is that completely avoiding every potentially harmful chemical is impossible. Yes, buying organic produce when you can, filtering your water, and replacing heavily used plastics may provide benefits. But constantly worrying about every exposure and believeing one mistake will ruin your health creates its own problem: chronic stress.
I believe stress to be one of the most significant threats to our health. If the practices conducive to non toxic perfection are causing anxiety, the avoidance is worse than the chemical. The goal should be to lower your overall toxic burden while still enjoying yourself.
Microplastics: Focus on the Big Wins
Microplastics are a great example of where balance matters. Don’t become the person who refuses to drink from a plastic water bottle during an emergency or feels guilty because takeout came in a plastic container. Your body is resilient. Reduce your most frequent sources of exposure and it will have a greater impact than stressing over the occasional situations.
Instead of aiming for perfection, I focus on practical substitutions that fit into everyday life:
- all food storage containers for leftovers/ food prep is glass. plastic lids are fine
- wood, glass, stone, stainless steel cutting boards (no, wood is not the only option and I love my marble board)
- if using plastic, don’t use it for the storage of warm food/ liquids
The philosophy is simple: take care of the big stuff, and your body can handle the small stuff.
Dish and Laundry Detergent
Speaking of taking care of your most frequent exposures, what better to discuss next than the soap that washes the clothes we wear all day and the dishes we use to eat. Once I was able to filter through the nonsense and find brands that were actually safer (and not just marketed to be safer), this was one of the easiest swaps to make.
safer brands for both laundry and dish soap
Cosmetics
We don’t always realize how many different products we put on our skin every day. While this tends to be a bigger conversation around women’s cosmetics, anyone will benefit from being a more thoughtful consumer in the beauty aisle.
To keep from driving myself crazy researching every single chemical string on a label, I use the Yuka app. You simply scan the barcode of a product, and it gives you a quick screening of the ingredients.
While Yuka is a helpful tool, it is not a perfect reference guide, and you shouldn’t let a low score cause panic. For example, the app might give a pure, organic botanical oil a perfect score without mentioning it’s a massive trigger for allergic reactions or eczema. On the flip side, it might slap a scary red flag on a dermatologist-recommended lotion because of a preservative that is only potentially risky at massive doses; ignoring that the tiny amount in the bottle is completely safe and keeps the product from growing mold.
I thoroughly enjoy using Yuka as a shortcut to vet products for obvious offenders. The key is to actually read the descriptions of the flagged ingredients and use your own judgment to decide if the risk is real for your skin, rather than letting a flat color score dictate your life.
Fragrance
As someone who is highly sensitive to fragrance, this category makes some of the most notable difference. If there is one word on an ingredient label that carries the most hidden weight, it’s “fragrance” or “parfum”. Because of trade secret laws, companies don’t have to disclose what makes up their scent. A single instance of the word “fragrance” can represent a cocktail of dozens of undisclosed chemicals, many of which are known skin irritants or hormone disruptors.
You don’t need to throw away everything that smells good, but minimizing synthetic fragrance is one of the easiest, zero-cost ways to slash your daily toxic burden.
- The Easy Swap: When your current plugins, synthetic air fresheners, or heavily scented candles run out, just don’t replace them.
- The Low-Tox Alternative: Switch to unscented or essential-oil-infused products, open your windows for ten minutes a day to clear indoor air, or burn high-quality beeswax candles if you miss the ambiance. Or my favorite: a scent pot. Just put spices in a pot of water and simmer to fill the entire house with natural scent. Particularly during the fall I like to add vanilla and cinnamon for the coziest vibe around the house.
All in all, it seems like the best thing you can do for your health is not obsess over anything. Yes, there are beneficial and easy swaps to make, but thats as complicated as it has to get. Make these simple changes, keep a whole food diet, and you are better off than any hyper-optimization out of touch influencer.
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