Some people still think buying products marketed as green, natural and even organic—with splashy bright green or clean-looking white labels—carrying words like “natural,” “eco-friendly,” or “no PCBs or parabens [or whatever]” is the answer to living naturally.

But flip to the back ingredient labels and 95 percent of the time you will encounter a lengthy paragraph full of synthetic chemical names you can’t pronounce let alone know the consequences of using them. This happens even with products labeled “organic,” so beware!

The fact is, according to the Breast Cancer Fund’s State of the Evidence Report, about 87,000 synthetic chemicals are registered in the U.S. today, and 1,000 or more are added each year. More than 90 percent of these have never been tested for their effects on human health. Does this seem scary?

What Does it Mean to Go Truly Green?

I like to call it “going beyond green” because of what green has come to represent due to the plethora of marketing campaigns that pander desperately to those of us who seek to live healthier lives.

There’s a lot involved in going beyond green, but you only need to start with baby steps. Chances are, once you make the commitment to start—and your health and your family’s health are a great reason to make the commitment—you’ll find your results are so wonderful you can’t help but expand your efforts to the next step and beyond.

Is Going Green Really That Important?

I give credit to my commitment to beyond green living to YHC Magazine and its publisher, Ann Castle. I began writing articles for YHC early in 2008, and Ann kept assigning articles that made me realize the dangers of chemicals in our environment and in the products we use every day.

My interview with Jean Rizzo, now president and CEO of The Breast Cancer Fund, was the one that pushed me over the edge. We spoke for a full hour-and-a-half, and the statistics she quoted that struck me hardest were that no more than one in 10 women with breast cancer have a family history of the disease, and today, one out of eight women will be diagnosed with breast cancer.

I had always felt invulnerable to breast cancer because no one in my family had it. X-ray technicians still give this impression before giving mammograms by asking if anyone in your family has had breast cancer.

But around the time of my interview with Rizzo, I had been diagnosed with a type of cyst that makes a woman four times more likely to get the disease. Today I go for annual mammograms, ultrasounds and sometimes MRIs instead of just the routine mammogram.

Current studies show that one out of every five products we use contains ingredients certified by government authorities as known or probable human carcinogens. And cancer is not the only risk—there are allergy, illness, neurological, organ-damage and reproductive risks in addition.

Armed with these statistics, I came home and proclaimed to my husband, “I am going to rid our entire house of chemicals!” I visualized bottles, boxes and cans being swept up in one spot like a tornado, vanishing quickly through the roof. The purging left only positive energy behind and it felt so good!

The Progression to Green for One Committed Green Advocate

From that moment on I began to study green, sustainable living and how to accomplish it. Thank God for the Internet, because it is full of information on these subjects, but unfortunately I quickly realized that finding the right products to replace the old, chemical-laden ones was going to be a real challenge.

No longer could I go to a single store, load up my basket and bring home all the products that would make my life a breeze. Where would I even find them? I realized I was going to have to slowly pick through source after source, read every label, buy new products and try them—and when I didn’t like four out of five of them for one reason or another, start the search over again product-by-product. I saw nothing ahead of me but time and expense.

But Rizzo’s positive words kept racing through my mind: “I envision a future…when I can send my granddaughter down the beauty aisle and not even have to think about what she takes off the shelf, when the values we hold are that the health of the planet and the people living on it are vital and interconnected and that our decisions come from that place.”

Knowing how long the search was taking me and how daunting it was to reach success, that’s when I  realized very few people would have the time to do what I was doing, let alone have the energy and patience to do it for themselves—even if they really wanted to commit. That was the day I decided to start www.whitelotusliving.com to serve as that one-stop shop for safe products. People could go there and not have to think about what they take off the shelf.

Since that day, our home and our lives have become as clean and green as possible. And I can tell you that the gratifying experience of using truly healthy, truly natural products is what spurred me to move from category to category to larger category until I had replaced everything in our home with green alternatives that are affordable and that do their jobs as they  promise. We have even moved on to sustainable living on a larger scale.

Mother Nature Will Spur You On

The natural smells of my new moisturizers are what made the first impact. Before, I would buy shampoos, conditioners and moisturizers that promised to smell mostly like flowers or fruits. I remember actually thinking they did. But the fragrances were made up of hundreds of chemicals—volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) which I had learned were dangerous to my health.

When I made the switch to the real thing (botanical products), I can’t express the magnitude of elevation my spirit felt as the true, natural smells of these ingredients from nature wafted to my nostrils. This gave me confirmation that I was doing the right thing, and it made me determined to continue—for me and for everyone else.

Karen’s Botanicals was the first product that struck me this way. Karen infuses her ingredients out of all natural and mainly organic plants from the earth by placing them in certified organic, cold-pressed olive or sunflower oil, in large, glistening jars that sit for days at a time soaking up the energy—first from the sun and then from the moon. Her recipes are old-world and the aromas are real and vibrant.

Zosimos Botanicals was next, with their pure line of cosmetics. In addition to all the makeup we need, they produce shower gels made from apricot and pear, lemon and ginger, lemon and lavender and more, and their solid jasmine perfume smells just like the exquisitely-perfumed air of a jasmine vine in the spring. You can still find products from both these manufacturers and more at www.whitelotusliving.com.

Chemical Fragrances Do Not Smell Real!

I had some of the old chemical-laden products left at the time, and I opened the bottles to smell them (even smelling them is harmful though). What struck me immediately was that these products no longer smelled like the fragrances listed on the labels. I could now immediately detect the unnatural smell of the chemical ingredients. How could I ever have thought this shampoo smelled like grapefruit, apples, flowers or lemon? I was amazed by this realization and it gave me even more determination to share this information with the world.

Going Green Further, Step-by-Step

Soon I began to make my own cleaning products out of baking soda, vinegar and essential oils, and I learned that I could scrub my sinks and tubs all day if I wanted without getting that tight feeling in my chest and difficult breathing I always experienced when using cleansers, commercial tile cleaners and the like.

Later I discovered soap nuts—berries from a tree found in the Himalayas that women have used for centuries to gently lather their wash-water and render their clothing naturally clean and soft. I found a supplier that makes it so easy for us—they offer liquid soap nuts to clean not only clothing but for general household cleaning as well. A load of laundry takes only ¼ teaspoon of this marvelous, natural soap, and clothes come out so soft you can stop using the commercial softeners with the chemicals they harbor. We now also carry a soap nuts shampoo that even my niece and nephew love to use.

Soon I acquired a steam cleaner like the ones used in Europe for decades. What a miracle! Now I can clean entire bathrooms, my kitchen, floors and yes—even windows quickly and easily using just a few cups or so of water turned into steam. The unit has specialized attachments to handle every different task, and they work like magic. Not only do I avoid chemicals and the cost of cleaning supplies, but I do the job better in less time and the steam kills bacteria instead of me. Mold and mildew never build up because I use my steamer regularly. Our house is spotless and I’m proud to show it off.

Cooking and Eating with Greener in Mind

We even cook differently these days. Our food, all of which is organic, is healthier, tastier (it’s gourmet quality), and it’s much quicker to prepare using high quality, reasonably-priced pressure cookers made from stainless steel rather than Teflon. I can cook a delicious chicken entrée that serves eight to 12 people in 40 minutes including the time to clean, prepare and brown it. I freeze what we don’t need during the next few days. Side dishes take even less time, and they all come out healthier because more vitamins and minerals are preserved with high-pressure as opposed to high-temperature cooking. I even learned to make a mouth-watering Bouillabaisse in 30 minutes—something I never attempted before.

During this time we moved a few times, and our latest move gave me room for an organic vegetable garden and orchard. The orchard is yet to be planted, but the veggie garden is soon to receive its third planting. I learned to garden by joining our local garden club and by reading The Square Foot Gardner book. At first I was intimidated, but having grown container plants for years, I rationalized it couldn’t be all that much different growing a garden. I was amazed by the produce I planted for the first time last spring. Our summer garden was bountiful and delicious. I’ll never buy a hothouse tomato again!

Making Your Whole House Energy Efficient

Our latest evolution has been to install solar panels on our roof. Now all of our electricity comes from the sun and we have only two gas appliances left. We sell unused energy back to the electric company and our electric bills are decreasing each month. The last one was $1.18 and that includes our heating bill! You can acquire solar these days without upfront expenditure, and rebates are still available from the government to reward the adopters.

Our next project is to install xeriscape landscaping on our property to keep the soil from eroding on our slopes and to greatly reduce our water usage. Xeriscape makes use of drought-tolerant plants (many of them natives), mulch and efficient irrigation to conserve our precious water.

It Feels Right to Go Beyond Green!