Once I started looking, answers started to appear….
NEW BLINDS
As I mentioned previously, my home had been flooded, so while we did the renovations, we had moved into another home. When we first moved, I felt fine. But we found the house to be too bright so as many people do, we had purchased new wood Venetian blinds. The day they installed them I arrived home to the smell of new blinds. Or should I say the smell of lacquer. I literally couldn’t function. I was shaking, I had no voice. I couldn’t stay in that house. I immediately booked a flight to a vacation home and had to stay away while the blinds off gassed. This was one of the first times I realized that it was the newly finished lacquer pieces that had impacted my health. A lesson for the canary in the home.
I realized that I had to be much more intentional with items that were brought into the house. And I soon started realizing that there was also something about all of the products that had the smells attached Io them. Whether it was something that was burning like toast, or my wife and daughter as they blow dried their hair. The chemical smell was becoming even more prevalent to me.
I started on the journey of reducing chemicals in my life and looking at the how they were affecting me.
Like many people I had bought shampoos based on smell or the look of a bottle or maybe the brand as well. So I bought and tied new shampoos for myself to see if I felt better. And I did.
I tried four different deodorants, and I found one that didn’t bother me.
I changed my clothes and realized that I couldn’t wear synthetic clothes - no polyester golf shirts and pants. I changed to all cotton or wool. And again I started to feel better.
These were all changes that I could make, and they helped me. But I didn’t stop here….