Caring for My Home: Mrs. Meyers

I will admit, I LOVE the smell of clorox when I walk into a home. Usually when I walk into patients homes or SRO rooms it is a sign that the place has been cleaned and therefore not as likely to be hosting bedbugs. Often times I question my patient's safety when I sit with them in a counseling session surrounded by the items they found on the street or are holding for friends (because they were the lucky ones to get a permanent room). Either way, the discussion of making sure that their place stays "clean" always comes up. Studies have shown that unkept rooms are associated with poor health, and while that could mean something to a lazy teenager at home with their parents; it means an entirely different thing to someone who used to be homeless, has a compromised immune system, and may or may not have a hoarding problem: "if your environment is disorganized, chaotic and out of control, then your mindset, decision making, goal setting and motivation are likely also disorganized, chaotic and out of control."(Dr. Malone, 2013)

In my own home I have personally become a fan of Mrs. Meyers (I also may or may not have gone overboard one day while cleaning the bathroom with a bottle of Clorox which may or may not have caused me to faint). 

Mrs. Meyers prides itself as being the aromatherapeutic cleaning solution; which is really nice when you think about it while washing a pile of dirty dishes, or three weeks worth of laundry- I'm feeling calm just thinking about it right now! The company's goal is to create clean and happy homes, and that while it may be tough on grime, it will be gentle on the house. 

An item that I use quite a bite...if you can consider a bit everyday/all day is their hand soap (in particular the rhubarb scent). The ingredients, which are posted on the back do a wonderful job at informing what you can find in the bottle and what you won't find included. Active ingredients include: plant derived ingredients, natural essential oils, aloe vera extract, glycerin, and olive oil. What is missing from the hand soap you may be wondering? Items like artificial colors, formaldehyde, and triclosan are all not invited to this cleaning party, and why? Because not including those products is not only gentle on the house-but in this particular case it is incredibly gentle on the skin. BUT there is an issue here....so do not get too excited. 


Mrs. Meyer's does one thing badly...they lie about the ingredients in their product. A spin of the bottle shows you very difficult to pronounce words in a very small font. Here ingredients read like a recipe for Cheetos, and upon further investigation through a fellow bloggers like "I Read Labels for You," I came to find that Mrs. Meyer's is not so gentle- in fact, she is down-right harsh. 

The soap contains ingredients like Cocamidopropyl Betaine (a foam booster) and Sodium Benzoate (a preservative). It also contains PEGs which the soap has two of and while some “natural product” resources have determined that this is oay, the EWG has voted otherwise stating that the PEGs in the Mrs. Meyers products are not ideal for continued use. PEGs (Polyethylene Glycols) have been known to get contaminated as a result of the ethoxylation process used during production. Trace levels of 1,4-dioxane, which if you remember from the previous post is associated with cancer. Another item to look at on the soap is fragrance. While the company makes a note to state that rhubarb is one of the “first signs of spring,” the use of fragrance in the soap leads to search for signs elsewhere. Fragrance is an undisclosed mixture of chemicals, meaning that the company can pretty much just make a mixture and call it fragrance without having to report what it is they’re actually using. The EWG gave the Mrs. Meyer’s hand soap a rating of 8 because fragrance mixes have been associated with allergies, dermatitis, respiratory distress, and potential effects on the reproductive system. 

Overall I think I am going to pass on Mrs. Meyer's from here on out. While I have come to find myself growing as a conscious product consumer I still find myself looking back on the days of Clorox smelling bathrooms, but I have to keep moving towards the "Conscious Right" as I like to call it. Further investigation has lead to use Dr. Bronner's, they're ingredients not only being great for the skin, but also on the water going down the drain. When I help patients shop for cleaning products I won't advise them to buy the items that are going to get the job done (those 99.9% killing cleaning products), but instead I will work with them on being conscious consumers in regards to their cleaning products and that while it may not feel like it is getting the job done the way Clorox would, it is and it's actually a lot better for them and their new environment.