1 Year to a Non-Toxic Home: Tom's of Maine's Awesome Product Line for Kids

Since giving myself the challenge to make our home non-toxic in a year’s time, I’ve been on research overload. Once you really start looking into the myriad of products you and your kids use in daily life, it is shocking.

So much so that I needed a game plan on where to start.

To me, it made sense to start with the products that we come into contact with the most… The bed and bedding we sleep in all night, the lotions and soaps we use directly on our skin, and the toothpaste we use everyday inside our mouths (talk about direct contact).

Around the time I was diving into all of this, I was contacted by the folks at Tom’s of Maine about joining their Goodness Circle– a group of bloggers who are committed to a healthy lifestyle and who love to share their best ideas on the ways we can all take care of our health, community, and our planet.

I knew Tom’s of Maine from when I was a kid. In fact, I think it was probably the only natural product I knew about back then. But looking into the company more deeply, I was so impressed by what I found.

Started in the 1970s, the founders Tom and Kate were thinking about their kids when developing their business:

We want safe products for our kids, and we want to teach them stewardship and conservation. This is exactly how Tom’s began with the same motivation of green parenting.

The company takes pride in their naturally sourced ingredients and they really want you to know about each one of them. So much so that they even go the extra step of putting up a search feature on their website where you can look up each ingredient and see information about it’s purpose as well as it’s source.

Furthermore, Tom’s has a commitment to volunteerism. 5% of employee time is spent volunteering in local communities, and 10% of profits are given to “human and environmental goodness” projects.

After seeing all of this, I was super excited to come on board the #GoodnessCircle!

Tom’s has a lot of great products from deodorant to lip gloss but the items I’m most excited about are the ones that are made with my kids in mind.

Before I get into how great the products are, though, can we just take a moment to acknowledge how cute this packaging is? I’m a total sucker for good-looking packaging (it just makes me happy to fill my day with pretty, happy things).

Much more important than what’s on the outside is, of course, what’s on the inside. As soon as my eyes were opened to the crazy amount of toxins present in the products my family uses, priority #1 became to overall the things my kids use.

Tom’s of Maine baby care line offers a baby shampoo & wash, baby moisturizing lotion, a new baby sunscreen, and – my personal favorite – a new baby diaper cream. (I’m so happy not to have to turn to something full of chemicals when M gets a diaper rash anymore!)

It’s made with only 6 natural ingredients including zinc oxide, sunflower seed oil and vitamin E. Most importantly, their formula is without artificial colors, fragrances or preservatives and it’s hypoallergenic and pediatrician-tested.

The other product line that we are getting tons of use out of around here is the range of Tom’s of Maine toothpastes for kids. Right now M (who is barely 2-years-old) is still working on spitting after brushing so he’s still using the fluoride-free training toothpaste.

My bigger kids (ages 7 and 5) are all about the silly strawberry natural toothpaste for kids (and there’s also a flouride-free version of this too if that’s your jam).

So that’s where we’re at in the kids’ bathroom on our journey to 1 Year to a Non-Toxic Home. Yay for major progress!

I’ll be back in a few weeks with some more info. on Tom’s of Maine products we’re using around here, including a super cool collection they put together for Target (gotta love anything I can easily nab at my favorite store).

*Disclosure: As a participant of the Tom’s of Maine Goodness Circle, I’ve received compensation for my time and product samples for review purposes. Opinions are my own.

Photos by Jordan Swain