Summary
On this episode Sasha chats with Ashley Rinehart, wife, Mama to 2 littles and beloved Christ-follower. Ashley spends my days homeschooling, growing their new homestead (Raising Healthy Roots Homestead), continually learning, and empowering women on their journey to reduce toxins in their household and personal care products to live free and abundantly, like God intended.
Ashley shares briefly about her infertility struggles led to her discovery and digging into toxin free living and since has gone deep down the rabbit hole. She uses her information to inspire, empower, and educate moms on how they too can intentionally lead their homes with less burden from the toxins were constantly being bombarded with.
Listen in for information and tips on some simple swaps you can make right now and how to step into a community of mommas on the journey to lead more toxin free homes and lives with the freedom that comes along with Ashley’s approach.
1.2.3. Toxin Free Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/194794285023135
Follow Ashley on IG: https://www.instagram.com/ashrnhrt/ & FB: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=9602827
————-
Are you in the Productively Peaceful Moms Club yet?!? Come chat about the podcast episodes, participate in more content created around the episodes, and join other moms just like you on the pursuit of Intentionally Abundant Living: https://www.facebook.com/groups/IntentionalAbundance
Ready to join us for the Simple Biblical Selfcare MasterClass?!?! Register Here: https://intentionalabundance.life/simpleselfcare — Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/intentional-abundance/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/intentional-abundance/support
Transcription
Sasha Star Robertson 0:08
Hello sisters and welcome back to another episode of the Intentional Abundant Life podcast I’m your host Sasha Star Robertson and we are back with another special guest today. Her name is Ashley Reinhardt and she is a wife and mama to two littles. She is a beloved Christ follower. And she spends her days homeschooling her kids, growing their new homestead, continually learning, and empowering women on their journey to reduce toxins in their household and personal care products to live free and abundantly as God intended. Ashley, thank you so much for being on the podcast today and joining us. I’m so excited to dig into this conversation. Is there any more introduction you’d like to add?
Ashley Rinehart 1:10
I think you did a fantastic job. Freedom. It’s all about freedom. That’s what I focused a lot on. And toxin-free living just happens to be the space that the Lord has me sharing in that right now.
Sasha Star Robertson 1:22
I love it. And I see that and feel that from you a lot. So, Ashley, I want to know more about how did you get started in this toxin-free living and toxin-free space?
Unknown Speaker 1:45
It’s been over seven years now. My husband and I were having fertility issues. And a sweet friend of mine asked me if I knew of the link between chemical-filled products and reproductive issues. Well, no I didn’t, but I dove in. And once I learned that a lot of the chemicals in our everyday products that we’re used to have really negative effects on our reproductive system I was floored and I started kicking out all of the chemicals out of my house that I could. Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with two children. But it didn’t stop there because then it was about keeping my household as clean as possible and as safe as possible to raise our children in that abundant living. And so we cleaned up our house and it’s been a journey and I’ll talk a little bit more about that. That toxin-free living is not just a one and done. But from there it was like we got so much freedom from it, and I couldn’t help but want to share that with other people.
Ashley Rinehart 2:55
And so by improving our environment by reducing toxins, a lot of times we see side effects improve, negative emotions and depression and that sort of stuff we can see lift. Skin issues, breathing trouble, a lot of our body systems are being affected by these chemicals, and we don’t even know it because they’re just so normal to us. Society has told us that these symptoms are normal and so we just go along with it. And that is not how God intended us to live. And so He has given me a fire in my spirit to just shared far and wide how to reduce chemicals in the household in a way that is simple and that produces freedom because it can be a very overwhelming, you know, feat to try to remove all the toxins, but it doesn’t have to be we can make it simple and doable and move the needle toward that freedom and toward cleaner products every day. And so it’s just a matter of just being committed and finding the right, I guess the right tools and the right path for you to make that happen.
Sasha Star Robertson 4:06
Yes and Amen. I totally agree. And I will vouch for Ashley right now and share a little bit of my testimony because I feel the freedom when working with Ashley. And so, it’s kind of fun right now, we have this reciprocal relationship. We’re both paying each other to coach each other in our areas of expertise. And Ashley is walking me through a six-week room-by-room refresh and we’ve only done week one, and I already feel so much freedom and release, not overwhelm and not burden. And so for myself, I started my toxin-free journey probably not as long ago. I think it started with cleaner eating. And then it moved into realizing like what kind of stuff was in the home and detoxing in that sense, but it’s like why am I detoxing if I still have all these toxins in my home, and like I used to clean my house with Clorox wipes, like with no gloves on, and my hands would always hurt and it’s like I never, I guess made the connection. But it was just it was absolutely terrible.
Sasha Star Robertson 5:17
So I started leaning more into toxin-free living when my doctor who diagnosed me with HashHashimoto’sroiditis told me that the toxins in your home can have such a load on your endocrine system and really cause flare-ups and inhibit my ability to live a symptom-free life with this condition. With supplements and diet and whatever else like the toxins need to go. She said and I was like, oh my goodness, you’re right. It’s been something that’s been on my heart. So I tried to do this shift and I tried to shift to a more toxin-free living, but it was so overwhelming and such a burden to me because I’m like, well I have all this dish soap and I tried to go on to like the websites and do this research and I didn’t know where I was looking or what I was looking at do I trust the grades or do I look into the chemicals or ingredients lists and then I was looking into the ingredients list of all these different dish soaps. And it was so overwhelming.
Sasha Star Robertson 6:15
It was hours of work and I got nowhere. and I still could not come to like this peaceful decision from a place of freedom on what new dish soap I’m going to use. And this was like, well over a year ago, you guys, and so now I’m partnered with Ashley. I’m walking through. I cannot wait to get to the kitchen week because it’s so great. But I will say that in walking through this, I already she’s already given me so much peace and freedom to realize all the small and tiny steps that I have made for my family to reduce the toxins in our home and that load on our bodies. And I was like week one in the six-week course of like ridding our home from these toxins and I already feel freedom, and I already feel lifted and lighter and more confident in moving forward because I know what I’ve already done and she’s given me so much peace about that. So I love all of that. And you know, infertility is part of our story and I don’t know, you know, how much chemicals are playing into that because it definitely has to do with chromosomes as well in our situation but would you mind sharing any more about your story like I know that you were talking about you really dug in and it was for the well being of your family but what else is there?
Ashley Rinehart 7:44
What else is there like in terms of what else to look out for? Or… Kind of, give me a little bit more of what you’re asking for on that.
Sasha Star Robertson 7:52
In terms of your story, is there anything more? What symptoms did you notice that had left or like behavioral changes? Or like what did the process look like for you? Was your husband on board with this? Did you find anything in particular that helped move your journey along?
Ashley Rinehart 8:12
Okay, yes. So, as far as symptoms I used to personally I used to have terrible migraines quite often. I no longer have those very, very infrequently, and I usually can pinpoint it back to a certain something if I do. Thankfully in my children, I learned about the importance of removing toxins before they were born. So I haven’t seen a lot of changes with them. But I do see they actually, they go to a little school program twice a week and when they come home and they smell like Lysol because they’ve like all been hosed down in it. And no judgment because I used to use Lysol too, right? But it’s just like, oh my goodness, you know, and I might hear them complain about a headache or you know, just a lot of times I see their behaviors coming in from school, but it’s hard to pinpoint exactly that because we know that you know, there’s oftentimes not a lot of rest and food that isn’t that healthy, which all plays into it. Right? All of that is environmental. So that’s just a little bit on kind of symptoms.
Ashley Rinehart 9:22
As far as bringing my husband along, that took a while because oftentimes, we don’t associate some negative symptoms that we’re having as being anything other than normal, right? If you’ve always had headaches, if you’ve always had skin issues, if you’ve always had asthma or trouble breathing, you just think it’s normal for you. So, a lot of it is breaking those societal norms and stepping outside of the box, and saying I am choosing to not live a lifestyle full of symptoms. And you know, environmental toxins are only a piece of it. So I can never guarantee that those symptoms are going to go away. But our environment plays a huge factor in our lives right from the food we eat the water we drink to the air we breathe to the products we put on our skin.
Ashley Rinehart 10:15
You know what we put on our skin, our skin is the largest organ, within 26 seconds it is in the bloodstream. So it is really important when we’re using those Clorox wipes without gloves or putting lotion on that’s full of toxins that may affect our reproductive systems or our hormones. And so getting him on board was a little bit challenging, just because he didn’t necessarily see it for himself. But the more that we cleaned things up. You know, he started getting really sensitive to smells and sense of things when something would come in that had chemicals in them. He could start to identify it. And now we’ve cleaned up our lifestyle so much that I mean we can’t even walk down the cleaning aisle at your local grocery store without getting a headache because we’re so used to not having so many of those harmful chemicals in our day to day.
Sasha Star Robertson 11:05
Yeah, I hear you there on so many levels. My doctor said You don’t realize how good you’re meant to feel until you eliminate all the stuff that’s causing you to feel terrible. And then you’re like oh my goodness, this is what you’re supposed to feel like. And so this is in terms of toxins in your environment as well as you know the food that you’re consuming. And we are talking about it in terms of gluten is a big no-no for Hashimoto’s and my mom has Hashimoto’s as well but she’s like oh no gluten doesn’t bother me. Like, okay, well if you didn’t have it for you know, three weeks, for a month, whatever, then you reintroduce it you would be like oh my goodness, this is how I used to live every day. And so I hear you in that too with you know once you get rid of it then now you notice and so I’m the same way with going down the cleaning aisle at the grocery store. I can’t.
Sasha Star Robertson 12:04
It’s so powerful of a smell and so I noticed when my son goes to like nursery at church and there’s a particular lady and I don’t think she listens. If she does, maybe this is not a bad thing. But whenever she is working in the nursery, he always comes home smelling like perfume because the perfume that she uses is just so powerful and she put so much on even all the kids in the room end up coming home smelling like it and I remember when he was like a little bitty baby I kind of like freaked out because she was holding him and then I put him in his car seat brought him home and I had to like take his whole car seat apart and wash it and everything because the perfume was just so strong. It would give me a headache every time I was near his car seat and then I was thinking about him as a little baby and I’m like oh my goodness, he probably feels as terrible as I do with all of this constant smell so you know I’m definitely in that boat with the sensitivities now on account of like ridding our home so much of it like our my perfume for several years has been essential oils.
Sasha Star Robertson 13:15
And I remember when I first started using essential oils, my husband was like yeah, it’s probably just placebo but whatever else if nothing else, it’s a cheap perfume that you can start using. And so speaking of my husband, very similar, it’s difficult for him to like get on board with different things. But over time he’s come to realize and I think he, you know, he noticed the difference when we were cleaning with Clorox wipes versus what we use now. So definitely, definitely a big difference. In terms of toxin-free living, like what are some of the number 123 Whatever, takeaways that you could give the listeners who maybe are new to this idea of what toxins are in their home?
Ashley Rinehart 14:09
Yes, so before I give a few tips, I just want to say something really quick. There are… And I don’t have all of the numbers with me specifically. But as an encouragement to you guys, I want you to know that every single product ingredient that is not good for your body that you remove, you are making a positive impact. And there are several studies but one in particular that I’m thinking of. They took teenage girls and they completely revamped all of their personal care products and makeup that they utilize on a daily basis. So all of their shampoo, makeup, body lotion, those sorts of things. And they did some blood samples, no they did urine samples, and it came back with really high levels of some common chemicals like parabens and phthalates and some different things like that, within three days of them using the cleaner products without those dangerous chemicals in that, their levels from their next urine analysis came back significantly lower.
Ashley Rinehart 15:11
God created our bodies. They are miraculous. They want, our bodies want to work for us to live right whole and free, and abundant like we’ve been talking about. A lot of times we just have to get out of the way. And so even by removing those toxins coming in those girls bodies, were able to detox and get rid of that stuff in just a few days’ time. So you really can make a difference with just a few changes and not very much time. And so in that, I’ll give you guys a few quick swaps. One thing that would be really great, the air in our homes can be up to five to seven times more toxic than the outside air. And so I want to encourage you guys to open up your windows. Do it on days that the skies are clear, okay, because you know that there are less environmental toxins in the air on those days. But let’s get some fresh air into the house that helps clear out with that with the toxic air in our home. It’s from all the products that we’re using. It’s even from the out gassing of like our paint and carpet and different things, furniture, different things like that, but don’t, don’t get hung up on all of those things because we all have them. Okay. So we just do the best we can.
Ashley Rinehart 16:25
Another thing is to remove your shoes when you come in, we track in so many germs and chemicals and all kinds of things on our shoes. So just take those off at the door. And then like two more tips. One is and this is going to be a big one for some of you guys but hear me this is in love. Get rid of your candles, throw them in the trash. They are dangerous. There is a chemical compound of formaldehyde when they’re burned that’s released into the air. Well, that’s terrible for so many of our body’s systems. And so a great replacement is one just nothing. It’s okay to just have nothing or essential oils are another good option with a diffuser or even like safer room spray that you can use.
Ashley Rinehart 17:13
And then Sasha, one more, I want to give you guys a little bit of a challenge. If you are like I don’t even know where to begin on label reading. One, I want to encourage you on that if you would start watching and stop buying products with the ingredient fragrance. It can also be called parfum or perfume. You will significantly decrease the amount of chemicals coming into your home. And the reason is a word “fragrance,” it can hide up to anywhere from three to 4000 chemicals in that one word because it is considered a proprietary blend for companies. For their smells right so they don’t have to disclose what is in that term fragrance. So we see it as one word on an ingredient list when really it can be literally up to 1000s of chemicals and that one word. So just slowly the next time you go to the store, look for an unscented option, look for something that doesn’t use fragrance or parfum or perfume and that will lead you on this road to toxin-free living and really give you a good Jumpstart.
Sasha Star Robertson 18:23
Awesome. Yeah, “fragrance” is huge. I thank you for bringing that up because you’re the one I learned that from and it is just so eye-opening to know how many 1000s of chemicals can be hidden in that one word. I wanted to touch base on the candles a little bit because I know in my mind it’s like oh well there are people who make soy candles or whatever there’s more natural I guess you could say candle options like it Have you noticed or have you looked into at all if there’s a difference in those are like is the chemicals you’re talking about in the wick in the burning process? Or?
Ashley Rinehart 19:06
Yes, so it’s in the wick, you know, whenever you feel a wick it has kind of the waxy feel on it a lot of times and also just the ingredients that they use in the actual wax of the candle because they all have scents, you know, spring rain or whatever it is and so yes, you can definitely… Soy-based candles are oftentimes a lot cleaner. I just would look at the ingredient list. I don’t personally use candles anymore just because I’ve gotten out of the habit and also because you know you can accidentally leave a candle burning and you can burn your house down, right I use a diffuser because if I leave a diffuser on, it’s okay. And I have little kids now so candles are just personally a no-no for me for a few reasons. But so yes, if you look, it’s all about your ingredient list, like a wood. Wood wick is better. And then yeah, just talk to you know, whoever you’re buying it from or look at your ingredient list, and just like the soy or beeswax is another good one just so I think the last time I got a candle it was just beeswax with a wood wick. So, I felt a lot better about that.
Sasha Star Robertson 20:11
Okay, cool. I’m with you on the burning your house down and the little kids. So I don’t have candles either, but as an alternative to candles, what I started using, which you and I have talked about recently is the like glade plugins, right because they’re this alternative to candles and I think sometimes they I’ve even found them what’s called greenwashed which I would love if you could touch on explaining that a little bit. But the glade plugins are those types of things and even finding natural more natural ones that just say that they’re natural and putting those around my house but ever since not having them you know in removing this toxic load in our home. I can’t even stand one to be plugged in for five minutes. I can hardly even stand to be next to the containers, and just continuing on with this little testimony. My, right before, literally days before we started this room-by-room refresh, my son actually grabbed a hold of one of those in the laundry room because I still have them sitting there even though they haven’t been plugged in for like over a year. I’ve got all these ones I bought multiple packs at Costco, actually. And he grabbed one and then he was like chewing on the top of it and I was like no! And so then his hand smelled and his mouth smelled and I’m like trying to wash it out and wash it off. And I was just like, Mom fail. And then instantly just like throw them all in the trash. So all that to say, what would you recommend about these plugins and could you tell us a little bit about what greenwashing is?
Ashley Rinehart 21:47
Yes, so I want to tell you, I love that you one, kept him obviously from having any negative interactions with the plugin, but that’s a perfect example of why it’s so important to get rid of the toxins or products in our home because then we can feel a little bit safer having our kids around one that they don’t get into something they shouldn’t but two, as they get older depending on your age of children, they can help clean and you can feel okay about sending them into the bathroom with a safe you know, spray cleaner and rag and say go wipe down your own sinks right? It’s not like that shouldn’t have to be just a mom or dad task because it’s toxic and creating damage to our bodies. So that’s just a little side note and that’s huge because I feel like so many more families have felt like they can get their kids involved in that chore which of course frees up mom and dad right to do some other things. So that’s a little side note.
Ashley Rinehart 22:44
But yes, let’s talk about greenwashing. Greenwashing is when the marketing the label or the commercial or the ad is showing your product as being safe, whatever product you’re looking at, a lot of times they will use like green leaves or you know natural colors right greens and browns and flowers or they will say, it’ll say natural or it will say you know, safe or non-toxic on the front of the label. All of that means nothing. All that is is marketing and advertising and they are geniuses at it. The front means nothing; you’ve got to turn it over and look at your ingredient label that is what matters and something really big. Because even with greenwashing you’ll see this nice pretty bottle that makes you think it’s plain you turn it over and they’re still warnings like flush your eyes for 15 minutes if this touches your, you know if it gets in your eyes or you know, wear gloves or whatever it is and it’s just like what in the world like so, you know, myself included so many of us get duped because we think that these companies have our best interests at heart and unfortunately they don’t. The bottom line is money. And our industry of cleaning products and household products and personal care products is significantly under regulated. These companies can say about anything and unfortunately the United States does not do a good job in regulating what they say and what ingredients they’re allowed to use.
Sasha Star Robertson 24:13
Yeah, that’s powerful. And I’m just like, I’m continually blown away at like the regulations kind of like you’re saying. There are ones that were deemed safe that shouldn’t be and they’re safe. Because they’re within certain limits, you know, but then when you have all of your products have these certain limits in it, you’re really going over that. So I really appreciate you being on here. I know this is just like a brief. So brief touching the surface at toxin-free living. And I know that you’ve got so much more to share. So where can people find you to share I think you have something coming up soon that people can jump into and kind of learn even more.
Ashley Rinehart 25:09
Yes, so the main place you can find me right now is called 123 talks and free community on Facebook. It’s a free community where I just drop in little nuggets and tidbits of information. And then I like to be, I like to share like through video format, you know, one on one in groups actually getting the feedback and interacting with people. So, you’ll see me doing a lot of workshops. My next one is coming up in mid-April. And it is, it’s just it’s an intro to toxin-free living. It’s getting you some of those first steps, getting that ball rolling, encouraging you and empowering you and showing you that you too can make the necessary changes in your home. Every one of us is capable. We just, I’ve simplified it to where you feel like you can do it and know that you can and then that will propel you along to continued successes in the toxin-free space.
Sasha Star Robertson 26:05
Yeah, I love it. And I think that’s one of the things that I love the most about your teaching is that it’s not overwhelming. It literally is simplified and, and brings freedom instead of the chaos and overwhelm that I’ve often found in my toxin-free journey. So I appreciate you showing up in the way that you do. I appreciate sharing a part of your story and just so much powerful information about toxin-free living in this episode today. And I really, really encourage all the listeners to jump into the 123 toxin-free community and to jump into that free class that she has coming up because I’ve been in it myself and it’s amazing. And it led to another class and it led to me being in this six-week room by room refresh with Ashley right now. So, Ashley, I know that that’s kind of like your main offer. Do you want to touch base on that a little bit? What does the… I could speak on it? What would you say about this room-by-room refresh? What’s it like and who’s it for?
Ashley Rinehart 27:13
So I’ll tell you about it and then you feel free to jump in Sasha, because I love having your perspective as being on the other side of it as well. That’s been so helpful. But this six-week room-by-room refresh. What it is, is we go through one room a week of your home and we look at what ingredients in your products that you currently have aren’t working, aren’t safe, and then we look and we make swaps and so we swap out all sorts of different products right and give you those ideas but there’s no pressure to like you don’t have to go and buy every single product new right and throw out the ones that you currently have in the trash but you walk away with this list literally and you can go down the list and down the products and know Okay, the next time I’m about to run out a lot of detergent, I already know a safer option.
Ashley Rinehart 28:03
So I just get to pull up my list and then I get to go buy that, and the same thing with your you know household cleaners and your perfume and deodorant and all of the things and so breaking it down week by week, going room by room makes it more doable. And it again moves that needle forward. And the idea is that at the end of the six weeks, you either know what products to swap for most for the majority of your home or you’ve done it because some people will just take action and they’re like I don’t care. I want it out now. And that of course is based on budget and everything else and that’s why you know, I take all those things into account and just really help come along beside you wherever you are. And so it’s an hour of live training a week. And then we also have a private Facebook community where you can ask any questions as you go through the process and just kind of have that group support of knowing Hey, I’m not alone in this like other people are going through this, and Ashley’s been through it.
Sasha Star Robertson 28:59
Yeah, I love it. So we’ve gone one of the things I will say is, I absolutely love the extremely comprehensive list that Ashley includes in this. And it’s blank, like she gives you like, Okay, this cleaner, that cleaner and categorizes it by each room for each week. But she’s not telling you, replace this with that she’s not telling you, oh, I’m affiliated with all these different companies and so here buy from my link because I’m so attached to this company. And so it literally she teaches you how to discover that for yourself, where to go to get the information and resources that you need. But then, and then also gives us you know, warnings of certain ingredients and things to stay away from that are like the big things.
Sasha Star Robertson 29:50
And then I will say the other thing that I really appreciate is you know we’ve gone through Week One which this round was laundry and it was very freeing knowing Okay, well I’m already not using dryer sheets, I’ve already swapped to like the dryer balls. I have two different kinds of those. And so that’s really helpful. We don’t use fabric softener and we haven’t for a long time because I heard about the toxic load of that like quite a while ago. And then the laundry soap was the other thing that was a stickler for me and we are using a fairly clean one. The biggest issue with our laundry soap is it has fragrance and so I had peace knowing Okay, I am already doing really well in the laundry room category. That’s amazing for me, and like it brings about this freedom and the laundry soap is already it’s not terrible. It’s not the best. And so, we talked about all these different opportunities for swaps.
Sasha Star Robertson 30:50
I will drop all those links in the show notes. Definitely get in the 123 toxin-free community. There’s free information in there already but you can learn more about the free courses that she has coming up and learn more about this six-week room-by-room refresh. Any final thoughts or reminders or takeaways that you would like to share before we jump off?
Ashley Rinehart 33:26
I just want to thank you Sasha for being open and willing to really walk through and make the decision to actually do it because we can have knowledge and know how to remove toxins or what to look out for but actually implementing it is a whole other story. And so you being committed to making those changes and committed to walking through this process and trusting me means so much and I’m just I’m so grateful. And I look forward to being able to help more and more people in this space because it’s so important and the toxins are not going anywhere. But we are the gatekeepers of what comes in our home and so we get to be empowered and learn how to keep our space a safe haven. And so I just so appreciate this opportunity.
Sasha Star Robertson 34:11
amen. I do too. I appreciate the opportunity as well. So thank you so much, Ashley for being here. I hope you all as listeners have taken away some gold from this and I will see you over in the 123 Toxin-free community. God bless
Intentional Momlife with Jesus 