8 Products to Ditch & Switch in Your Medicine Cabinet: A Room by Room Guide to a Toxin-Free Home
If it’s your first time here, welcome! I’m walking you through your home one room at a time, and show you easy ways to change out mainstream products in your home for clean, healthier alternatives.
We’ve covered the common hidden chemicals in off the shelf products and tackled easy swaps and diys for the kitchen and bathroom. Now, we’re tackling the medicine cabinet.
It can feel overwhelming to replace “tried and true” family remedies for common aches and pains with something new. But, once you have an understanding of the harmful ingredients used to make those remedies and you hear the testimonies of how effective natural products are, the change is easy!
Our family has found effective ways to deal with everyday ailments, aches and pains by replacing products that used to be staples in our medicine cabinet with natural alternatives.
8 Products To Ditch & Switch in Your Medicine Cabinet
The following are 8 products that our family has ditched and switched for a toxin free medicine cabinet. Swapping out these products is a great place to start when revamping your medicine cabinet!
1) Decongestant
Many off the shelf decongestants are not recommended for use by children under 6, and the overuse of some spray decongestants can result in rebound congestion, which means that your nasal tissues swell even more than before you used the spray! I say, no thanks!!
As soon anyone in our family starts to feel stuffed up, I reach for Eucalyptus to help clear the congestion. Simply dropping a few drops on the floor in the shower, away from the spray, fills the air with refreshing steam that provides immediate relief. Diffusing Eucalyptus overnight helps relieve a stuffy nose and/or congested chest to allow me and the kids to sleep soundly!
2) Sunscreen
There are three must haves when it comes to sunscreen:
UVA and UVB protection (also known as broad spectrum protection)
Sun protection factor (SPF) of a minimum of 30
Water resistance
Young Living’s Mineral Sunscreen Lotion SPF 50 checks all three off the list, and more!
YL’s sunscreen is formulated without toxic chemicals commonly found in drugstore sunscreens including: avobenzone, oxybenzone, retinyl palmitate, parabens, phthalates, petrochemicals, PABA and 1.4 dioxane, UV chemical absorbers, artificial colours or synthetic fragrances.
I love that the sunscreen is not greasy! It feels lightweight, goes on smoothly, and is completely water and sweat resistant for up to 80 minutes, which means I won’t be constantly reapplying it to each of my three kiddo’s skin every time they are in the sun!
Because of my daughter Jessa’s diagnosis (you can read all about that here), she is much more sun sensitive. Sun can be a trigger for her auto-immune disease so we have to be extra careful with consistent reapplication of sunscreen when she is outside. Knowing that YL’s sunscreen is completely non-toxic gives me so much peace of mind!
3) Upset Stomach
We’ve replaced chalky pink Pepto-Bismol and Gravol pills with three clean must-have products for tackling upset stomachs.
AlkaLime® is a powder that is mixed with water and then ingested. It helps to neutralize acidity and restore the pH balance in the stomach, and works great when my husband or I experience acid indigestion.
Digize and AromaEase both work topically if we experience an upset stomach.
AromaEase is a staple in the vehicle for any road trip! My oldest daughter gets car sick quite easily. A drop or two or AromaEase on her abdomen helps to ease those feelings. Even just smelling this oil does wonders for our kids!
While we do reach for all of these products when dealing with an upset stomach, our whole family agrees that AromaEase smells MUCH better than Digize ;)
4) Pain Relief
For our family’s minor aches and pains, applying Peppermint or Panaway topically can often be enough! Each of these essential oils provide a cooling sensation which helps to ease the pain of our headaches and sore muscles.
PanAway feels amazing when massaged into sore muscles! If only I could convince my husband to help me out with a back massage every night ;) If my back, neck, and shoulders feel tight or sore I’ll add a few drops of PanAway to epsom salts for a soothing bath.
I suffer from contramalacia patella, which is triggered if I spend too much time on my feet or walking during the day, resulting in my knees throbbing when I go to bed at night. When I massage the Cool Azul Pain Cream onto my knees the throbbing will subside so I can fall asleep!
If Cool Azul Pain Cream is out of your price range just fill in your email address below and I’ll send you an easy recipe for a DIY muscle rub cream.
5) Allergies
The seasonal support blend of Lavender, Lemon and Peppermint essential oils is always close at hand in our home. A few of our family members experience stuffiness due to seasonal allergies and a quick roll on of this blend helps to alleviate that.
We also diffuse this trio of oils overnight in the bedroom to help with daily exposure to seasonal allergens. This year, I premixed the oils at a 1-1-1 ratio in a bottle that we keep next to the diffuser in the bedroom. I give the bottle a quick shake to mix the oils and add them to the diffuse before lights out!
6) Calamine lotion
If you had chicken pox when you were a child, chances are calamine lotion was the go to treatment to tone down the itch. This thin chalky pink liquid is still a staple in many medicine cabinets today.
We’ve tossed the calamine lotion and use Lavender essential oil to take away the sting of insect bites and other itchy skin issues. I love that this ditch and switch is also effective for SO many other things (allergies, cuts, burns, etc) and one bottle of Lavender can go so much farther than a bottle of Calamine lotion. Not to mention, it doesn’t leave a white chalky residue on your skin!
Just a few weeks ago, Kenzie (my oldest) got a bee sting and we applied Lavender to it and the pain and itchiness subsided pretty quickly, we reapplied another time and she didn’t mention it again.
7) Antibacterial Ointment
An easy switch from using an antibacterial ointment like Polysporin is YL KidScents KidCare. We use it on all of our stings, bumps and scrapes to soothe the owie and help it feel better. The blend of oils in this little bottle are amazing! SO amazing, in fact, that I can’t talk about it on this platform. This blend includes tea tree, helichrysm, balsam fir and more! All oils with amazing properties. A drop or two goes a long way and there is no need to dilute because KidScents oils are prediluted!
8) Hand Sanitizer
Hand sanitizer feels like a buzz word for 2021. It’s one of the first things you see every time you walk into a restaurant or a store. We are more aware than ever about the germs that might be lingering on our hands, but have you considered the chemicals and toxins that you could be rubbing into your hands when you use hand sanitizer?!
The majority of hand sanitizers are alcohol based and contain toxic ingredients like parabens, triclosan, Sodium Laureth Sulfate, and fragrances - ALL of which are on our hidden villains list! No THANKS! Thieves Waterless Hand Sanitizer nixes all of that and fights germs with a powerful combination of naturally derived ingredients including aloe vera and peppermint oil.
As if being natural and effective weren’t enough, Thieves Waterless Hand Sanitizer leaves my hands feeling soft and doesn’t dry them out, no matter how many times I use it in a day!
Cut the Toxins out of Your Medicine Cabinet Today
I am a creature of habit… I used to buy all of the products my parents had, the ones I grew up using. It wasn’t until I realized that there are alternatives that work and are not harmful that I was able to change my buying habits. There are two things I love about these ditch and switch products. One, obviously they are cleaner products which is very important and two, these products work!
An added bonus is that these switches save room in your cupboard… and if you know me, you know that I love to save space and keep things organized. Many essential oils and other products from Young Living can do multiple things! The up front cost may make it seem more expensive, but in the long run you’ll save money buying less products for the same need, and what’s not to love about that?!
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Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. The information on this blog is not intended to cure, treat, or heal any disease. Please use essential oils and other Young Living products at your own risk (and with lots of common sense).
Photography by Kim Norcross.