Over the years, I have made many failed attempts to “clean up” both my personal care products and household products to those that are less toxic, more environmentally friendly and healthier for my hormones.

The products I would try would disappoint me in performance, and I would give up and go back to my gucky stuff that got the job done.

In the past few years however, I’ve noticed a huge improvement in this market. While I haven't switched all of my cosmetics over to cleaner / non-toxic, I have made some big changes in our home that make me feel so good.

I’ve never been excited about cleaning products in my life. What’s to love? But somehow, switching to cleaning products that don’t require replacing plastic bottles constantly, horrible toxic scents giving you headaches and making you feel cringy when the baby touches a just-cleaned surface with all those chemicals… It’s a great feeling. And the sparkle!

{I’d like to preface this share with the fact that NONE of this is incentivized. Zero. This is a pure, genuine gushy announcement about how much I love these products. The world needs more genuine reviews, right? It’s getting so confusing as a consumer with ads and incentivized posts everywhere.}

The first cleaning product purchase I made was Branch Basics. I started with the trial kit for $5, which included the concentrate to mix with water for an all purpose cleaner. Once I used that unscented product everywhere in my house, I was sold. Everything sparkled. It felt SO clean, and so healthy - so satisfying to wipe down the high chair, sinks and countertops knowing there were no lingering harmful ingredients for my 15 month old who sticks his mouth on everything. I quickly purchased the full starter kit, which includes laundry detergent, hand soap, glass, bathroom and all-purpose cleaner, all made from the same concentrate. It also includes an oxygen boost powder for laundry. You can check out the starter kits here.

Once I was happily using Branch Basics (cleaning with JOY for the first time ever?! very strange), I started getting targeted ads from Blueland. Naturally.

I hummed and hawed and eventually tried Blueland’s full starter kit as well. I love it, too. The quality of clean is great. I feel like Branch Basics sparkles that little bit more, but Blueland won me over in a few other areas. The kit came with dishwasher tabs, dish soap powder, laundry tabs, glass hand soap dispensers, and the three main cleaners: glass, bathroom, and all purpose.

Blueland’s cleaners come in a tablet that you mix with water for each type of cleaner or hand soap. This makes mixing a new bottle VERY easy. Blueland’s cleaners are very lightly scented. I don’t love scented, but they’re mild enough I don’t mind. The scented hand soaps, however, linger too much for my liking. I refilled my Blueland hand soap dispensers with Branch Basics concentrate and added water.

Blueland’s kit also provides a dish soap powder for hand washing in a convenient shake bottle. You shake the powder onto your wet or damp dishes, and scrub and lather. I LOVE this product and will absolutely be using forever. They have excellent dishwasher and laundry tabs that come in reusable tins, so when you refill, you simply get a package of new tabs and the eco footprint is very small which I love. The laundry tabs did not fully dissolve one or two times, and I discovered this because my youngest son was putting the near-dissolved tab in his mouth off the fresh bedding. I caught it just in time. This is obviously not ideal, and has me preferring Branch Basics for laundry detergent to be safe. The dishwasher tabs, however, have brought peace to our household! My husband loved chemicals and wants things squeaky clean. I HATE smelling intense dishwasher cleaner on our dishes and thinking about that stuff in my kids’ mouths/bodies. The other clean dishwasher tabs we had tried were leaving dishes soiled - Blueland’s are awesome. Squeaky clean, no smell, no chemical taste on the dishes.

I bought Blueland’s toilet bowl cleaner tablets and they’re the BEST. A fresh lemon scent, no chemical odor.

I’ve settled on Branch Basics for my bathroom and all purpose cleaner. You simply follow the instructions on each bottle for the concentrate to water ratio, specific for the job. I’m also sticking to Branch Basics for hand soap and laundry detergent + oxygen powder.

I’m going to Blueland for the hand soap glass DISPENSER as my Branch Basics plastic one got clogged after the second refill. Blueland also wins for dishwasher tabs, dish soap powder, toilet bowl cleaner and glass cleaner. The Branch Basics glass cleaner doesn’t have quite the same de-smearing effects as Blueland.

Now that I’ve babbled this extensively about cleaning products, I’ve decided to toss personal care items into a separate future post. I’m really excited to share about the shampoo bar that’s ticking so many boxes, my favourite clean cosmetics and natural deodorant that actually works. I’ll share this next week.

Have you tried Blueland or Branch Basics? Which ones are your favourites? Let me know in the comments!