By Nicole Duncan

Call me crazy, but I love cleaning. Not in an obsessive, Monica-from-Friends kind of way, but I love that feeling of satisfaction I get after a good scrub session. A wave of bliss washes over me as I sink into the couch and survey the fruits of my labor—a spotless house.

But recently, my mom (who else?) tipped me off to some startling information about what’s in my go-to, all-purpose cleaner: carcinogens and glycol ethers, among other things. Animal studies have shown that these glycol ethers can cause testicular damage, reduced fertility, and birth defects. Suddenly this warning from my mother didn’t seem like just another overprotective lecture. Instead, her words sent me on a quest to find out what other kinds of harmful ingredients lurk in my arsenal of cleansers under the kitchen sink.

What I found was unsettling. Spend 15 minutes cleaning the shower, and you could inhale three times the “acute one-hour limit” set by the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment for glycol ether-containing products. Janitors and people who clean houses for a living have eight times the rate of asthma found in other workers, according to a study in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine. And these cleaning products aren’t just hurting those of us who use them. A nationwide study by the US Geological Survey showed that nearly 70 percent of streams tested contained breakdown products from detergents, and 66 percent contained disinfectants.

Could my post-cleaning contentment be a farce? Was I actually cleaning my house, or was I polluting it and making myself sick? After all, according to the EPA, the air inside my home is three times more likely to give me cancer than the air I breathe walking down the street—and my tried-and-true cleaning products play a bigger role in that toxicity than I ever imagined.

But before I resigned myself to a life of grime, I unearthed some good news. Cleaning products that are better for our health and the environment do exist—and they work just as well as the ones jam-packed with chemicals. So here you go: the lowdown on the bad stuff, along with the new team of products I use to tackle even the toughest jobs. They actually work, and they’ve helped give me an even more euphoric post-cleaning nirvana.

All-Purpose Cleaner Stay Away From:
Glycol ethers (labeled as Butyl Cellosolve, 2-butoxyethan, or ethylene glycol monobutyl ether). This solvent strips hands of their natural oils. Even worse, it’s easily absorbed through the skin when it evaporates into the air and can affect the body’s hormone regulation. Once absorbed, it travels through the bloodstream and deposits itself in fatty tissues, where it can exist indefinitely and cause health problems ranging from infertility to birth defects.
Diethanolamine (DEA) and tri-ethanolamine (TEA). These sudsing agents react to nitrate, which is an often undisclosed preservative in cleaning products. Research shows they form carcinogens that penetrate the skin on contact.

Greener Picks: Earth Friendly Products Parsley Plus All-Surface Cleaner is made with a biodegradable coconut-based cleanser and is free of glycol ethers, DEA, and TEA. ($5 for 22 oz; ecos.com) Vermont Soap Organics Liquid Sunshine is loaded with natural oils and minerals. Testers raved about its grease-cutting power and citrus scent. ($8 for 16 oz; vermontsoap.com)

Glass Cleaner
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