Dimmick - Detox your home: a guide to removing toxins from your life and bringing health into your home

Detox Your Home

Detox Your Home

A Guide to Removing Toxins from Your Life and Bringing Health into Your Home

Christine Dimmick

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD

Lanham Boulder New York London

Published by Rowman & Littlefield

A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc.

4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706

www.rowman.com

Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB

Copyright 2018 by Christine Dimmick

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Dimmick, Christine, author.

Title: Detox your home : a guide to removing toxins from your life and

bringing health into your home / Christine Dimmick.

Description: Lanham : Rowman & Littlefield, [2018] | Includes bibliographical

references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018006026 (print) | LCCN 2018006664 (ebook) | ISBN

9781442277212 (electronic) | ISBN 9781442277205 (cloth : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: ToxinsPhysiological effect. | Detoxification (Health)

Classification: LCC RA1250 (ebook) | LCC RA1250 .D56 2018 (print) | DDC

615.9/5dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006026

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication

This book is dedicated to all those who work tirelessly to protect our planet and our health, who continuously go on, without acknowledgment, support, or personal gainbut only for the reason it is the right thing to do.

On all farms, farmers would undertake to know responsibly where they are and to consult the genius of the place. They would ask what nature would be doing there if no one were farming there. They would ask what nature would permit them to do there, and what they could do there with the least harm to the place and to their natural and human neighbors. And they would ask what nature would help them to do there. And after each asking, knowing that nature will respond, they would attend carefully to her response. The use of the place would necessarily change, and the response of the place to that use would necessarily change the user. The conversation itself would thus assume a kind of creaturely life, binding the place and its inhabitants together, changing and growing to no end, no final accomplishment, that can be conceived or foreseen.

Berry, Wendell. Bringing It to the Table , 2009. Part 1, Farming, page 8.

Contents

Acknowledgments

T h is book would not exist if not for Shannon Drenik and Patricia Helding. Thank you Shannon for putting me on the path and your endless support and encouragement. Thank you Pat for seeing a book, leading me to Sharon, and your unwavering support of my work. You are both angels on earth, and I am blessed to know you. I thank you Sharon Bowers for believing in this with all your heartbecause you believed this information needed to get out thereand taking a leap into a completely different world. I also thank you for putting up with my amateur mistakes, not holding them against me, and knowing exactly what to say. To my editor, Kathryn Knigge, I owe you the same gratitude for putting up with my navet and helping me navigate this new world of writing, while at the same time, giving me the freedom to say what needs to be said and a platform to share it with the world.

To my husband and son who honored me with support and changed their toothpaste, their eating habits, and their deodorants during this writing process! To my Mom for always being there for me. To my friends and family and early supporters of my work at the JCC and Canyon Ranch, I thank you for your support, your Facebook shares, and listening to my frequent preaching on toxins. I am truly blessed with so many wonderful people in my life.

And to the experts and the change makers who contributed their work and knowledge to this book: Dr. Margaret Cuomo, Anna Castellani, Tammy Fender, Jenefer Palmer, Ellen Gustafson, Dr. Anthony Miller, Ken McAlister, Eileen Fisher, Cynthia Power, and Amy Hall at Eileen Fisher, Jon Wheelan, Robert Tisserand, and the countless others who helped connect me with the right people. Thank you.

Introduction

How the Story Began

M y journey to a toxin-free life started twenty years ago.

As the founder of the Good Home Companya natural products company specializing in green cleaning productsI have long been a proponent of a natural, healthy lifestyle. My inspiration for Good Home was my grandparents farm in Ohioa place where I spent my childhood summers swimming in the pond, foraging for morels, and eating sweet corn pulled off the stalk in the field. When I first started in 1994, natural cleaning did not exist; Aveda had just taken off and Martha Stewart ruled the airwaves. There was a desire, as there is now, for products that are good for you. Essential oils were being discovered (again), and my love of nature and farm stands inspired me in my own kitchen to create body and home care products over the stove.

So with a few pots and pans, pantry ingredients, and a big dream, the Good Home Company was officially founded on my Grandmothers birthdaySeptember 18in 1995.

From day one, I created everything by hand (still do for new products) right down to the labels. Each bubble bath and hand cream was made like a pie from scratch, and I personally delivered them to my neighborhood customers in Chelsea. One daysimply out of needI created a laundry detergent with essential oil of lavender and natural laundry soap. It was an instant hit. Turns out I was not the only one seeking cleaning products that had a recognizable smell and not some made up scent called orchard. With that one product, we grew by leaps and bounds; awards and press were daily occurrences and a new industry was formed.

This could have been it, and I definitely thought it was my story when in fact it was just a chapter.

For someone who had worked twenty years in the natural products category, no one was more surprised than I was when I got the diagnosis almost two years ago of breast cancer. (However, I am pretty sure you could poll anyone who has received a cancer diagnosis, and they will tell you it is always shocking).

Although it certainly is not something I ever hope to receive again, for me, cancer was a gift. I was diagnosed extremely early, and after surgery and daily radiation for three months, I was cured. My risk of breast cancer returning is 5 percent or less. Having lost several friends to cancer in their midforties, I felt incredibly fortunate to be a survivor and greeted my daily treatment with joy and appreciation.

When given a life-threatening disease, you are guaranteed to go through some changes and analysis of your person. For me, the lesson was clear; I was being called to share the research I was uncovering and bring awareness on how so many of our day-to-day products are detrimental to our health. Most of usincluding methink that the government does safety checks. Surely everything is tested for its safety to our health and environment; in fact, this couldnt be further from the truth.