| WELLNESS / ECOSALON HOME Aug 4, 2008 at 11:08 am by Susan Chaityn Lebovits A Toxic Tumble I’d always had a gut feeling that those laboratory-cocktail laundry scents were toxic. When I would go for a run and smell dryer sheets or fabric softeners waft by, my cheeks felt as if they were on fire and my nose would run. Now there’s scientific proof that my physical reactions were not in my head. The University of Washington in Seattle recently published a study of six top selling laundry products and air fresheners concluding that they emitted dozens of different chemicals. According to the study, all six products tested gave off at least one chemical regulated as toxic or hazardous under federal laws, yet none of those chemicals was listed on the product labels (law does not require this).
Anne Steinemann, a University of Washington professor of civil and environmental engineering and public affairs, said she first became interested in the topic after hearing numerous complaints about air fresheners in public restrooms, and that the scent from laundry products, which were vented outdoors, were making people sick. Steinemann said she was surprised by both the number and potential toxicity of the chemicals that she found, which included acetone, the active ingredient in paint thinner and nail-polish remover; limonene, acetaldehyde, a flammable liquid with a fruity smell; chloromethan, which can cause sever damage to the Related Posts ↓ |
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| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME Jul 29, 2008 at 5:00 am by Mike Sowden Eco Links to Green Your Week Don't miss these green reads: .jpg){kind=small} When you're picking your way through a furniture sale - what's perfect for renovation? Here are ten ...Read MoreRelated Posts ↓ |
| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME Jul 7, 2008 at 10:37 am by Vanessa Barrington Question: What's Missing From This Picture? Answer: your clothes. EcoSalon wants you to air your laundry. In some parts of the world, people routinely hang their laundry out to dry instead of using electric or gas dryers. And I’m not talking about the developing world. It is common not to even own a dryer in Europe. Here in the U.S., where ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME Jun 9, 2008 at 6:00 am by Kim Derby We Gotta Fight, for the Right, to Paaa…Hang Our Laundry? I thought it was god-given or at least somewhere in the First Amendment, but it seems that the right to use a clothesline might soon be stripped away. Yes, you heard me. Your eco-friendly clothesline (the one you just ordered this weekend!) is in jeopardy. Your laundry is literally on the line. Has a neighbor told you ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME May 6, 2008 at 12:04 pm by Kim Derby An Easy Green Dry Cleaning Trick Next time you drop off clothes at the local dry cleaners (an environmentally friendly one, I hope), bring a garment bag along and ask them to hold the plastic and paper. I started doing this about six months ago when my dry cleaner began providing simple, black garment bags for purchase. I spent the $5 and also use it to hold all the ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME Apr 29, 2008 at 5:29 pm by Mike Sowden Alternative Laundry: Give it a Whirl Tumble dryers are last century's technology. You can see it when you switch them on - after an hour, the room is a clammy fog of wasted heat ....and your clothes still aren't completely dry. All this comes with a hefty hike in your household power consumption. The environmental cost? Around 7.5kg of carbon dioxide a week, ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| LIFESTYLE / ECOSALON HOME Apr 21, 2008 at 12:07 pm by Mike Sowden Clean the 5 Most Common Stains, Naturally There's little I find more frustrating than walking away from an evening meal in my favourite Italian restaurant, looking down and finding I've spilled olive oil on the front of one of my best shirts. Here come the gallons of caustic, paint-stripping eco-hostile chemicals, futile trips to the cleaners, and cycling through umpteen ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| ARTISAN / ECOSALON HOME Jun 6, 2008 at 6:00 am by Larkyn Mungovan All The Pretty Clotheshorses We are big believers in hang drying our clothes as an easy way to save energy after washing. Sadly, the image of your grandmother's bloomers blowing in the breeze is what most people think about when they think of line drying their clothes. ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| FASHION / ECOSALON HOME May 7, 2008 at 12:00 pm by Allison McCarthy Becoming Our Mothers No matter how hard you may try to be different from your mother, sometimes it's a lost cause. Old habits die hard (and reproduce). In my case, one of these habits is using cold water to do the laundry. I never really knew why my mom did this - I guessed it had something to do with shrinkage or saving money - but whatever the real reason may have ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |
| FASHION / ECOSALON HOME May 6, 2008 at 1:07 pm by Allison McCarthy Extend the Life of Your Cardigans Hand washing a delicate sweater is no fun task. I had to find a way to make this tiresome chore more pleasant. I recently discovered The Laundress, a gentle line of products that will actually help extend the life of your clothes. I was particularly drawn to their Wool ...Read More Related Posts ↓ |