How green cleaning changed my life and family

By: Maria Lally / From: The Telegraph 

Like most of the changes I make in life, it started small. My daughters, Sophia, six, and Rosie, three, both have eczema. So a few years ago, tired of endless steroid creams, I noticed some natural, fragrance-free washing capsules in the supermarket and decided to try them out.

They made a small but welcome difference to the girls’ skin and since then I’ve never looked back. I then swapped my bright-orange, chemical-smelling kitchen spray for a rose-petal pink one from natural-cleaning brand Method.

Before I knew it, I was cleaning my microwave with lemon halves, after seeing something about it on Pinterest.

And it seems I’m not alone in my green cleaning obsession… 

Green cleaning has gone from hippy-ish to mainstream and glossy

Gwyneth Paltrow recently dedicated a post on Goop, her lifestyle blog - entitled ‘The Dirty on Getting Clean’ - to going green around the home. ‘In a world that sadly is growing ever more toxic by the day, we like to be smart where we can,’ she wrote.

‘Life is about balance. I will never give up my perfume, but maybe I can switch to greener and unscented laundry detergent.’ She also mentioned several of her favourite products. 

Another Hollywood actress, Jessica Alba, has created a billion-dollar business selling natural cleaning products. The idea came to her when she was pregnant, in 2008, with her first child.

After her baby shower, Jessica – who suffered allergies on and off as a child – washed a batch of babygros in regular washing powder and broke out in a skin rash. 

Later that night, she Googled the ingredients used in cleaning products and discovered that some toxins can legally be labelled as ‘fragrance’. So she decided to develop and sell her own natural cleaning products. The result was Honest, which launched in 2011 after the birth of her second daughter. It sells non-toxic household, baby and beauty products, and was recently valued at an astonishing $1.7 billion.

So it’s fair to say that green cleaning, like clean eating and clean beauty, has gone from niche, and perhaps a little hippy-ish, to mainstream and glossy in the past few years. 

Indeed, UK sales of Method (a best-selling natural cleaning range) increased by 24.2 per cent to £7.4million last year, and the US brand Earth Friendly, which sells products from air fresheners to laundry detergents at Lakeland and Holland & Barrett, saw its European sales grow by 29 per cent in 2014 alone. 

‘With widespread press coverage on environmental issues such aswaste plastic in UK waterways and global oceans, consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the products they are choosing,’ says Clare Burke, head of marketing for Method and Ecover – two of the biggest green cleaning companies in the UK, which merged four years ago. 

Now I’m as careful about my cleaning products as those I put on my face

Method was started 15 years ago by two friends in San Francisco. One worked in climate change and the other was a visual designer.; one cared about sustainability and the other wanted to create beautiful cleaning products that homeowners would want to show off, rather than hide under their sink.

‘Since then,’ says Saskia van Gendt, a scientist and head of sustainability at the company, ‘there has been a shift. People want to make small changes to help the environment.’ 

Van Gendt says the recent microbead scandal is a good example of our growing awareness of the everyday products around our home, and the effect they have on our health and the environment.:38

‘People are becoming more informed,’ van Gendt continues, ‘questioning what they’re eating, using on their skin and around their home.’ 

Victoria Reynolds, a 44-year-old from Surrey, says she started going greener around her home after suffering from eczema and dry skin on her hands and body. ‘I’ve always had really sensitive skin, so for the past few years I’ve swapped a lot of my usual beauty products for natural brands, like Dr Hauschka and Kiehl’s. 

‘Then I realised that a lot of the cleaning products I was using were full of chemicals, smelt really strong and were fake, bright colours. So I started using brands such as Method, Ecover and E-cloth, which cost the same and do just as good a job as the products I was using before. 

‘Now I’m just as careful about which cleaning products I use as I am about what I put on my face or in my bath. After all, there’s little point buying a beautiful organic bath oil if you pour it into a bath that’s been cleaned with harsh chemicals.’ 

‘Traditional cleaning products contain a vast numbers of ingredients,’ says Dr David Santillo, a senior scientist at Greenpeace Research Laboratories at the University of Exeter.

 ‘If you look back 40 years, most people used vinegar to clean their windows and bicarbonate of soda to clean their saucepans. Since then, manufacturers have created hundreds of products with complex mixtures of chemicals.

'Without wanting to spread fear, it is inevitable that the more you’re exposed to, the higher your chance of experiencing problems such as skin irritation or feeling unwell.

'This is especially true where chemicals accumulate, such as carpet cleaners or air- freshening sprays that settle and build up over time.’  

A recent study by the University of Bergen, Norway, found that people who use harsh modern cleaning products are at greater risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, which includes conditions such as bronchitis and emphysema.

‘We need to start being much more aware of the chemicals we’re releasing into the air we breathe when we use things like cleaning spray,’ says Øistein Svanes, the study’s author. 

Or, as Dr Santillo puts it: ‘Ask yourself if all these products and chemicals are necessary? If you’re not comfortable using bicarb or vinegar, look for simpler products that many reputable companies are launching, which contain fewer chemicals and are kinder to your health and the environment.’

Mark Jankovich, a former banker, is now the CEO of Delphis Eco, which launched a range of domestic eco-friendly cleaning products last month. ‘I gave up banking to do something more useful, then I noticed everybody wanted to be a little bit more sustainable,’ he says.

His green-cleaning company now has two royal warrants, supplying products to the Queen and the Prince of Wales, as well as schools and offices.

‘The parents at school loved our products and wanted some to use at home, so we’ve just launched a consumer range,’ says Jankovich. This includes a bathroom cleaner, washing-up liquid, hand soap and a ‘fantastic oven cleaner used at Clarence House’, with plans for more.

‘The green-cleaning tipping point is here,’ he adds. ‘Children are being taught how to go green at school, people are searching for green cleaning on Pinterest and parents are questioning the products being used around their homes. 

‘After all, you don’t need a study to tell you that something that’s bright blue or smells completely fake probably isn’t that great for your health or the environment, do you?’