It all started with an article..

So a few months back I was on Facebook, and a friend had posted a link to an article about how dryer sheets are toxic and super harmful to us. I got to thinking, could this be true? Are those lovely little sheets that make my clothes soft, fragrant, and static free really doing me harm? I had hubby read the article too and he was all for ditching the sheets. I was not as happy because I had recently bought a big box of them from Target :/ But I did it, I chucked the sheets. Then the static followed, every time I pulled the clothes out of the dryer I got shocked or everything was a stuck together. The solution to this? Felted wool dryer balls. Now I read a few different blogs to see how they were made and it's a pretty simple process. (Or you could buy them pre-made on Etsy, but that's not as fun) So the key to these is making sure that the wool you use is 100% wool (aka not machine washable, but that is how you get it to felt and stick to itself) I used Patons wool and for my first set I bought it from Amazon but found it to be a little pricey, next round I went to craft stores (like JoAnn's and A.C. Moore) and they happened to have a discontinued (hideous) color that was pretty inexpensive! Unfortunately I cannot find the pictures I took during my little dryer ball making session but here are two blogs that I used as resources for the process!

Crunchy Betty

DIY Natural

Some people suggest putting essential oils in the dryer balls as a more natural way to scent the clothes. I didn't do this because I read some articles about the EO being causes of dryer fires. I'm not sure how true this is but I didn't want to find out! 

I love my dryer balls! They have definitely reduced static in my laundry :) The best is trying to find them all after the clothes come out of the dryer...they love to hide!! 

So now that the door had been opened about chemical properties in dryer sheets and harmful ingredients, that caused a sort of domino effect on just about everything. I can't write about it all in this post because it would take ages but a few things that I have recently started changing about my lifestyle are: making my own cleaners and laundry detergent, starting to learn about essential oils, becoming a no poo-er (not as gross as it sounds), trying the oil cleansing method and oil pulling, and other stuff that I can't think of right now. 

There is a lot I still want to try (homemade deodorant!) and some things that I am not ready to give up yet (makeup!!). I spend soooo much time on other people's blogs trying to learn what they have and read about what their thoughts are on all the bad stuff that is in so many of our every day items. I hope to share what I've learned and my experiments (successes and failures) so here it goes, the start of my journey to a chemical free, greener, eventually healthier lifestyle. 

xo 

Em