What's in your cleaning products?

You clean your home to make it safe and healthy for yourself and your family. But if you're using conventional cleaning products, you're replacing dirt with all kinds of chemicals and toxins that can themselves be harmful. These chemicals can exacerbate allergies and asthma, damage your indoor air quality, impact the environment, and have other toxic effects on people, pets, and even plants.

The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit that examines the effects of chemicals and toxins on the environment and people, found that 53% of cleaners contain chemicals that are harmful to your lungs. You may even notice the warning "fatal if swallowed" on some bathroom cleaners in your own home! Even worse, EWG also found that only about 7% of cleaning products fully disclose their ingredients on their labels — leaving off some of the worst (and scariest) chemicals they contain.

Do you need to trade dirt for chemicals to have a truly clean home? Actually, no! With white vinegar, lemon, baking soda, and salt, you can clean pretty much anything, from windows to laundry. (And later you can make lemon cake.) Try these tips for cleaning nearly everything using only green ingredients.

Lemon Juice

This citrus fruit is amazingly versatile, plus it smells great! It's usually mixed with water, although it can be used alone.

Replaces: Window cleaner, ammonia, bleach, furniture polish (which is often labeled "fatal if inhaled"!).

Great for: Windows, floors, furniture, or polishing any wood products.

Try it! Mix 2 parts olive oil with 1 part lemon juice and rub into wood furniture for a lovely polish.

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Distilled White Vinegar

An all-purpose grease cutter, for general cleaning in kitchens and bathrooms.

Replaces: Harsh drain cleaners, bleach.

Great for: Clogged drains, descaling coffee and teapots.

Try it! Create an all-purpose cleaner for your sink and countertops by mixing 1 part vinegar to 1 part water. Fill a spray bottle for easy use.

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Salt

Generally mixed with water or made into a paste, salt's abrasiveness makes it a great scrubber. We're talking regular old table salt here, nothing fancy!

Replaces: Cleaning powders, bleach, spray-on stain removers.

Great for: Scrubbing out cast-iron pots and pans, cleaning your clothing iron.

Try it! Get bloodstains out of laundry by soaking clothing in cold saltwater, then wash in warm water. Mix 4 tbsps. salt in 1 quart of hot water to get out sweat stains.

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Baking Soda

We know it can remove odors from the fridge and whiten teeth, but it's a powerhouse in the rest of your home, too!

Replaces: Tarnish remover, bleach, fabric deodorizer, air freshener (which is super bad for your lungs).

Great for: Brightening stainless steel, refreshing fabrics and rugs, de-gunking slow cookers.

Try it! If your front-load washer smells funky, pour a 1/2 cup of baking soda where you'd normally add the detergent, and run the washer using hot water.

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By reducing your exposure to some of the worst chemicals in cleaning ingredients, you're also reducing your exposure to known carcinogens, eye- and lung-damaging fumes, and even ingredients that can be immediately fatal to you, your children, or your pets. And when you cut out the chemicals, you're also not releasing them into the water supply by washing them down the drain or allowing them to run off into the gutter, thereby reducing risks to flora, fauna, and the environment.

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Looking for other ways to go green at home? You may be able to tap into your equity to upgrade to high-efficiency appliances and make other environmentally friendly updates. Let's take a look together!

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This letter is for information purposes only and is not an advertisement to extend customer credit as defined by Section 12 CFR 1026.2 Regulation Z. Program rates, terms and conditions are subject to change at any time.