25 Clean Swaps for 2025
Start the new year off right by incorporating clean, natural goods into your home! Here are 25 swaps we’ve made (not affiliate links, just things we’ve tried and loved). When you use something up, or if it’s looking worn, replace it with one of these!
Bathroom / Personal Care Products
1. Lotions/Creams/Facial Moisturizers → Our Tallow Butters
You probably guessed this one was coming :) We’ve replaced all the moisturizing products in our house with tallow, which means less stuff in our house and the highest quality natural skincare. Your skin is your largest organ, and it absorbs whatever you put on it. Skincare is one of the most impactful swaps you can make!
2. Retinol Serum/Cream → Our Rejuvenate Tallow with Bakuchiol
Instead of retinol, try bakuchiol, a natural alternative with proven results. We incorporate it into our tallow butter, along with other oils known for their anti-aging properties.
3. Facial Cleanser → Oil Cleansing with Tallow or Tallow Bar Soap (Etsy has lots of other options, or look for natural soaps at your local farmer’s market or Facebook Marketplace)
When you’re washing your face, make sure you’re using something gentle that doesn’t strip it of its natural oils and protective barrier. This will cause it to go into overdrive oil production, or will leave your face constantly dry and flakey. Try oil cleansing with tallow or with jojoba oil (or something similar). If you prefer the soap feel, a tallow soap or goats milk soap might be your best bet!
4. Chapstick → Our Tallow Lip Balms
Have you checked the ingredient lists on mainstream lip balms? Some even tell you to keep away from children…not great for a product you will be essentially eating. We were so excited when we nailed a lip balm with just tallow, beeswax, and essential oils.
5. Baby Diaper Cream and Lotion → Our Calendula Tallow
BONUS: For tough rashes, use our tallow to make this zinc oxide diaper balm!
For baby skin problems, we usually turn to our calendula tallow, which harnesses the power of an herbal flower that has been used for centuries. You’ll find calendula extract in many baby skincare products, and we infuse organic calendula flowers directly into our tallow.
The zinc oxide balm works almost immediately every time, even on the most stubborn rashes!
6. Shampoo/Conditioner → Rocky Mountain Soap Co
Both have been great for Stephen, Hannah is still looking for a shampoo that doesn’t make her hair greasy (send any recommendations if you have them!).
7. Bath Bombs/Salts → Make your own with Epsom Salt, essential oils, or herbs like lavender if you have them on hand
Mix the salts and EOs together before bathing, and give them a few minutes to infuse before adding to the tub. You can also find lots of recipes online if you want to try something more complicated or want step-by-step instructions.
8. Dry Shampoo → Make your own with 2 ingredients
This works like a charm, can be customized to your own hair color, and can be stored indefinitely.
9. Tylenol → Genexa Acetaminophen (Kids and Infant also available)
Hopefully you won’t need this one too often, but Genexa is an alternative to Tylenol without artificial preservatives, sweeteners, dyes, and common allergens.
Kitchen
10. Non-Stick Pans → Cast Iron
There are so many nontoxic pan options out there! We chose cast iron for skillets and our dutch oven, for the affordability and quality of cooking. The Lodge brand has worked well for us and is very cost effective. You can also often find cast iron at thrift stores for even more savings.
11. Plastic Strainer/Colander → Stainless Steel Colander
This one perfectly sits over the sink, and it’s one of our favorite kitchen items!
12. Plastic Tupperware → Glass Snapware
You can often find sets at Costco too! You can safely heat food in them, and they won’t get discolored like plastic.
13. Plastic Cutting Boards → Wooden Cutting Boards
Wood draws moisture into itself, which then kills any bacteria, creating a surface that is more sanitary than plastic (research study on the antimicrobial characteristics of wood). It’s also beautiful and natural! If possible, look for options that are unfinished so you can finish them yourself with something like our Wood Restore wax. If you’re new to caring for wood, it’s best to dry them propped up so both sides have airflow.
14. Mineral Oil Wood Conditioner → Our Wood Restore Conditioning Wax
Mineral oil is a product made from petroleum, and while it’s generally considered safe, we love our more natural alternative of organic fractionated coconut oil and quality beeswax.
15. Aluminum Foil → Unbleached Parchment Paper (check your grocery store)
Avoid leaching aluminum into your food by lining your pans with parchment paper instead.
16. Packaged Taco Seasoning → Make Your Own
Most seasoning packets contain additional ingredients besides just spices. Mix up your own in larger batches, then store in a glass spice jar for the next time you need that seasoning!
As a reference, here’s the ingredient list for Old El Paso Taco Seasoning Mix: Corn starch, chili pepper, maltodextrin, salt, spice, onion powder. contains 2% or less of: vegetable oil (high oleic canola and/or soybean oil), silicon dioxide (anticaking agent), natural flavor, modified corn starch.
17. Salad Dressing Bottles → Homemade Dressings
The salad dressings you’ll find at the store are made with industrial seed oils (canola, vegetable, soybean, etc), so if you’re trying to avoid those and don’t want to spend a fortune, making your own is the way to go. For simple dressings, it doesn’t take more than a few extra minutes, and you don’t have to store all those bottles in your fridge! Here’s one of our go-to favorites. We usually simplify the recipe even further to just olive oil, apple cider vinegar, maple syrup, and salt. Or try this Caesar dressing with a grilled chicken salad for an easy weeknight dinner.
18. Dishwasher Pods → Molly’s Suds Dishwasher Pods
These have been cleaning our dishes just as well as the standard dishwasher pods, without fragrances or harmful chemicals.
19. Plastic Kids Bowls → Stainless Steel Bowls
These bowls are a staple for our toddlers! They’re unbreakable, unstainable, last forever, and are just the right size.
20. Plastic Baby Bottles → Glass
These glass bottles have a silicone sleeve to avoid shattering (my main concern with glass).
21. Plastic Kids Cups → Glass or Stainless Steel Water Bottles
Stainless Steel Water Bottles: These do have plastic lids, but they are an easy, cheaper option with fun patterns that are kid-approved.
Glass Straw Cups: We haven’t tried these personally but they look like a good option with less risk of breaking.
We were given the little glasses that Costco’s tiramisu comes in, and they have been perfect! (And free :)) They are thick enough to take a beating before they actually break.
Home Decor
22. Plastic Faux Greenery → Real greenery, house plants, flowers
There’s no better way to appreciate the beauty of nature than bringing flowers, plants, and dried greenery into your home! Grow your own flowers during the summer, get a little cactus or houseplant for the winter, dry grasses in the fall, or pick up some dried greens (Trader Joe’s often has nice bouquets). Our dried strawflower wreath tutorial is a fun craft to try with friends!
23. Paraffin Candles → Beeswax (a friend’s business, make your own with online tutorials, or browse Etsy)
BONUS: Make a Simmer Pot for the amazing scent without the artificial fragrances
Beeswax candles are beautiful and produce less volatile organic compounds when burned! We especially love beeswax tapers, but a good jar candle brightens a room so well. If you’re missing the smells of fragrance oils, a simmer pot will make your home smell delicious without the chemicals. Or bake some bread or cookies!
Clothing
24. Kids Clothes → 100% cotton when possible
We try to look for natural fibers instead of synthetic, which are made from chemical compounds and trap heat. We thrift most of our kids’ clothes, but we can often find 100% cotton options or other natural fibers (wool, linen, etc).
25. Men’s T-Shirts → Organic Cotton T-Shirts
Stephen recently wore through all his t-shirts and upgraded to Pact organic cotton t-shirts. He’s been loving the quality!
If you have any favorites swaps, send them to us! We'd love to feature them!