When I say necessary evil, what comes to mind for you?
In this case, I’m talking about dusting.
Ok, I might be a bit dramatic here, but dusting really is my most disliked chore of all time.
The fact that dusting is actually important for our health makes it an at least tolerable chore, though.
The thing is, dust is essentially a collection of all sorts of chemicals (and other things) from the off-gassing of the paint on the walls, the carpeting, etc.
This is why you may notice your nose getting stuffy when you dust.
The stuffiness is your body recognizing something toxic and is trying to keep it out.
To decrease this exposure, I recommend wet dusting.
I just use an old rag (like old, clean socks or something), make it moist, and wipe down all the surfaces.
The feather duster types tend to mostly just redistribute the dust… that’s not helpful.
I’ve even seen a video of a gal using compressed air to “clean” areas that are full of trinkets.
Please don’t do that!
We want the dust and it’s toxic chemicals gone, not whirled up back into the air for you to breathe in.
What kind of toxins am I talking about here?
- PFAS
- Fragrance Chemicals
- Flame Retardants
- Phenols
- Phthalates
(And of course, there are more, but you get the picture)
If you need a reminder on what those can do, check out last week’s article here.
On the same token, this means vacuuming and wet mopping (on appropriate floors) is important as well.
What we’re basically doing with these chores is decreasing our toxin exposures safely (and for free).
Additionally, when it comes to painting our walls, as this is one of the things that off gasses chemicals, my family always uses ECOS Paints.
ECOS Paints is a company that makes paints that are VOC free!
Using VOC free paint helps decrease the toxin exposures in your home.
I’m not saying you need to go repaint all the walls right away.
Just that if you’re going to paint anyway, might as well not increase your toxin exposure…
Because new things will have a higher rate of toxins off gassing than things that have been off gassing for years.
Alright, so with all this, I’m going to do my last favorite chore now…
