The Truth Behind Airfresheners

Air fresheners are pretty common. They can be found in many homes, bathrooms, dormitories, locker rooms and anywhere else that might be prone to stink. The soft sweet smell of lavender bliss or ocean breeze tricks our nostrils into believing it's harmless. Unfortunately we are wrong.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that out of the 14 common air fresheners they tested, 12 of them contained "hormone-disrupting chemicals known as phthalates."

What are phthalates? Exactly that, hormone disrupters. Because phthalates interfere with hormone and testosterone productions, little kids especially are vulnerable to these chemicals. Yet none of these air fresheners, not even the "all natural" ones, listed phthalates on the label. I wonder why?

According to NRDC, "the state of California notes that five types of phthalates- including one detected in air fresheners- are 'known to cause birth defects or reproductive harm.'"

Phthalates are also used as solvents in perfumes and fragrances.

What's a good alternative to air fresheners? Home-made ones! And they are very easy to make.

Here's a quick DIY for air fresheners.

What you'll need:

1. Plastic spray bottle- Can be found at local drug stores or target for about $1

2. Baking soda- $3 at your local grocery store

3. Extract of your choice (vanilla, almond, lavendar, etc)- these range from $5-$15 at grocery stores (maybe you already have this in your pantry?)

4. And water- free if from your sink!

Combine these ingredients in the spray bottle, shake and sprits away! It may take a few tries to find the right measurements of each ingredient for the mixture, but you'll figure it out.

Also, if you squeeze some lemon or lime juice in your vacuum bag before vacuuming your carpet, it'll smell citrusy fresh by the time you finish!

Now remember, this is just a quick fix. If you want to get more detailed, there are some serious freshening recipes out there with ingredients such as vodka and corn oil. These involve boiling water and mixing ingredients at the perfect temperature, but I'm a simple kind of girl myself. There are many recipes out there, so do some research and find the one thats best for you!

Shit, its been a while.

10 days as a matter of fact, and my 30 days segment is just about over.

More like really over.

I blogged for more than 30 days, and will probably continue blogging about living a "green" lifestyle.

The most important thing you should all know:

ITS NOT HARD.

At all.

(but we'll talk more about that next time)

Living green is all about conscious decisions. Whether you want to make those decisions or not, the Earth needs a change.

This time, I want to talk about greenwashing.

According to Greenpeace, www.stopgreenwash.org, greenwashing can be defined as "Used to describe the act of misleading consumers regarding the environmental practices of a company or the environmental benefits of a product or service."

Most of the big oil companies like Exxon and Shell and Chevron are huge examples of greenwashers, airing commercials about "clean coal" and "less CO2." What people don't understand, and what you'll see from the video below, is that there is no such thing as "clean coal" or "less CO2."

I recently watched a video on 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley, on Duke Energy and their greenwashing bit. It's pretty unsettling to think that America is such an educated country about the danger our world is in, but we willingly choose not to care or do anything about it. Better yet, most people choose to be ignorant about it. Good idea, lets just pretend because we can't actually see anything wrong, that nothing is really wrong and we'll all live happily ever after!

Our Earth doesn't have much time left, and obviously neither do we.

http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=4969902n

P.S. check out TheCorsairOnline.com for the articles I've written about my green lifestyle adventures, hopefully you'll learn something new.