Deciding to replace traditional toxic products in your home with their non-toxic alternatives is a great goal, but sometimes it is hard to know where to start. After years of research and product swaps for our family, I’ve developed a system to evaluate potential new products for our household.

Here are the 5 rules I follow when evaluating a new product. All products I recommend on this site have passed these tests to my satisfaction.

01 - Check the product on EWG

Environmental working Group, or EWG, is a non-profit that evaluates household products and individual ingredients on a number of toxicity dimensions, such as risk of cancer, reproductive harm, and environmental impact. While it is not a perfect resource, it is the first place I check when evaluating a product. If the product isn’t listed, I use EWG to look up individual ingredients. Some people very far in the natural camp don’t think that EWG is strict enough, and they do approve a few ingredients I still try to avoid (like lavender—see #3). But, as with all things in my non-toxic journey, I try to make practically natural choices—ones that are reasonable and better than many alternatives—and EWG is a great resource for that.

02 - Avoid the ingredient “fragrance”

There are over 3,000 ingredients that can be lumped into “fragrance” on a product’s label, most of which can be harmful to health. A common violator in fragrance is phthalates, which are known endocrine disruptors. While there are a number of other health reasons to avoid fragrance, endocrine disruption is at the top of my list. Also note that even products labeled as unscented or fragrance-free often still have a fragrance ingredient to mask the smell of other ingredients—so read your labels! Anything with fragrance won’t get a good rating on EWG, but if I see this ingredient I don’t even bother taking the time to look up the product.

03 - Use caution with essential oils

I’m probably going to enrage a lot of people in the natural world by saying this, but I tend to avoid essential oils (EOs). Essential oils are touted as the natural alternative to artificial fragrance, but that doesn’t mean they are safe. I am very cautious using EOs around my family, as studies are beginning to emerge about their health effects. For example lavender, which is typically considered one of the safest oils even for children and pets, is a known phytoestrogen (a plant-based compound that mimics estrogen). Google this and you’ll see a lot of conflicting information, but there have been enough actual studies that indicate it might affect hormones, and I’m not willing to take the chance. When I do choose products scented with EOs, I carefully research each one and weigh the risks. Ultimately, truly unscented is the safest option, but sometimes you just want to smell good!

04 - Choose products with fewer ingredients

Generally speaking, more natural products have fewer ingredients. If I see a long ingredient list, I raise an eyebrow and carefully review it before moving forward. The FDA allows thousands of different ingredients to be lumped into generic ingredient names, so products can have even more ingredients than are listed. While EWG provides a nice shortcut to reviewing products with longer labels, I still often look up individual ingredients on long lists to make sure I personally am comfortable with them.

05 - Verify products actually work

Now, I want to eliminate 100% of toxins from my home as much as the next person, but 1) I recognize this isn’t totally possible, and 2) I personally don’t want to live like a cavewoman because none of my natural products actually work. Once I identify a natural product that fits my non-toxic criteria I review actual user feedback. Even then, the product doesn’t always work for me. A good example is my shampoo. My family lives in an area with extremely hard water and we don’t have a water softener, and none of the truly non-toxic shampoos can cut it. So I chose a shampoo option with a few questionable ingredients to save my hair from turning to a crisp. I don’t stress about it, because we have eliminated toxins so many other places in our life and I only wash my hair twice a week (and remember, there’s a reason I titled this site Practically Natural… we’ve gotta stay practical to keep our sanity!).