Clean living is NOT a lifestyle you buy in one cart. It's a more intentional way of making everyday choices: the food you bring into your kitchen, the soap you wash your dishes with, the lotion you put on your legs, the spray you use on your counters.
That's it. No ceremony. No $800 haul.
Wellness online is drowning in perfectionism, and a lot of that perfectionism is marketing dressed up in lip gloss and beige kitchens.
Here's my take. Clean living looks different for everyone. The goal is NOT purity. The goal is understanding WHAT you use, WHY you use it, and whether there's a better option for your priorities and your budget.
I've been in healthcare and wellness for more than 23 years. I started volunteering in hospitals at 15, shadowing ER doctors and general surgeons. I have a biology degree. I was on the founding team of a nuclear pharmacy, then spent years as a West Coast director of sales for medical equipment. Today I run Kate Curtis Wellness, a root-cause practice where I get to the foundation of wellness and have spent the last six years focused on parasites and gut health.
And my clean living journey started with dish soap.
Not a detox. Not a cleanse. Dish soap. Then I changed my water. Then I stopped eating dairy. Then my acupuncturist took me to the old school Whole Foods (back when it was actually WHOLE FOOD) and walked me through the aisles, showing me how to read ingredient labels, which ingredients to be leary of and which brands she trusted.
Today I drink distilled water, run an air purifier, and my cleaning cabinet is about three bottles deep. None of it happened in a weekend.
If I could tell my beginner self one thing, it would be this: don't throw everything out at once. Clean living is a snowball effect. You get one win, you feel a little better, and the next swap gets easier.
[PHOTO: Kate's current under-sink cleaning cabinet, or her dish soap next to the sink]
Clean Living for Beginners: What It Actually Means
Clean living means being more intentional about what you eat, what you put on your body, what you clean with, and the daily habits that shape your home. It's about progress, not a perfect lifestyle.
Most people break it into four areas:
Food: more whole foods, fewer ultra-processed ones
Personal care: toothpaste, deodorant, lotion, shampoo, anything that touches your skin daily
Cleaning products: dish soap, laundry detergent, surface sprays
The home: water, air, food storage, and what you breathe in every day
You don't need to tackle all four. You need to start with one.
Benefits Of Living Clean
I won't promise you glowing skin and a new personality. But here IS what changes when you make healthy choices one at a time…
You Actually Know What's in Your Home
Once you start reading labels, you can't unsee it. You stop buying on vibes and packaging and start buying on ingredients.
Fewer Everyday Exposures Over Time
The EPA notes that cleaning products, air fresheners, aerosol sprays, and cosmetics can release volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and that indoor levels of some common organic pollutants run higher than outdoor levels. Every product you simplify is one less thing off-gassing into your kitchen.
More Fruit and Vegetables on Your Plate
Packaged food gets annoying FAST once you read labels. Twenty ingredients you can't pronounce versus ‘an apple’. But then you find out that Gates is putting a plastic coating on apples, so you can’t eat the skins… STAY in the ORGANIC section…You drift toward organic fruits and vegetables because there's no label to decode.
A Simpler Routine With Fewer Products
My cleaning cabinet used to look like a chemistry set. Now it's a multi-purpose cleaner, dish soap, laundry detergent, baking soda, and vinegar. Fewer bottles, fewer decisions, more cabinet space.
It Can Save You Money
Baking soda costs about a dollar. It scrubs sinks, deodorizes the fridge, and handles a greasy stovetop. White vinegar does windows and counters. The "clean living is expensive" myth only holds when you replace everything at once with the prettiest brand on Instagram.
How To Start Clean Living
These steps run from easiest to most involved. Do one. Sit with it. Then do the next.
Step One: Pick One Area To Start With
Kitchen, bathroom, or cleaning cabinet. Pick one, not all three. I started at the kitchen sink. Your hands are in dish soap every day, and it touches everything you eat off of.
This week: Choose your one area and take a photo of everything in it. That's your baseline.
Step Two: Replace Things as They Run Out
This step saves your wallet and your sanity. A complete overhaul is wildly expensive, and it has a second problem nobody talks about: you can't track what's actually making an impact. If you swap twenty products in one week and feel different, which one was it? No idea.
Swap one thing at a time and you get real information about your own body.
This week: When the next product in your chosen area runs out, research a replacement before you rebuy the old one.
Step Three: Learn To Read Labels
My acupuncturist taught me this in the aisles of Whole Foods and it changed everything. Shorter ingredient lists are usually a good sign. Ingredients are listed in order of quantity, so the first few matter most.
Also, "natural" on a food label is not the guarantee it sounds like. The FDA has never established a formal definition for "natural." It's a policy, not a rule.
This week: Flip over three products you buy on autopilot and read every ingredient.
Step Four: Cut Back on Synthetic Fragrance
Here's a fun fact. Under FDA rules, companies can list the components of a scent simply as "fragrance," and the FDA itself notes that some fragrance components can cause allergic reactions or sensitivities in some people. One word on the label can cover a whole formula you'll never see.
This is where your body starts talking. Today when I smell Fabuloso, my body says no before my brain does. That didn't happen overnight. It happened because I stopped living in it.
This week: Skip one scented product. Dryer sheets, plug-ins, and air fresheners are the easiest to drop. Crack a window instead.
Step Five: Simplify Your Cleaning Products
You don't need a separate spray for every surface. Baking soda, vinegar, and one good multi-purpose cleaner handle most of a house. I use Koala Eco as my all-purpose (I like the smell better than Branch Basics) and Truly Free Home for laundry and dishes. If you want a shortcut, the EPA's Safer Choice label means every ingredient in the product was reviewed by EPA scientists.
Laundry detergent is a good example of how sneaky this is. When I switched, I didn't feel any different. Nothing. Then I stayed at my dad's house, where Tide was still king, and my legs got irritated within days. That's when it clicked. The swap had been working the whole time. I just couldn't feel it until I went back.
This week: Make a baking soda paste and scrub your sink with it. Notice what you don't smell afterward.
Step Six: Add More Whole Foods, Fruit and Vegetables
Notice the word "add." You don't have to banish anything to start. Crowding your plate with fruit and vegetables does half the work for you, because there's less room left for the packaged stuff.
I stopped eating dairy after a few home swaps. It was a bigger shift than dish soap, which is exactly why it wasn't my first move.
This week: Add one extra serving of vegetables to dinner every night. That's the whole assignment.
Step Seven: Audit Your Personal Care Products
Start with what you use every day, especially twice a day. Toothpaste is the perfect first audit because it goes in your mouth and you use it constantly. I've rounded up my picks for the best non toxic toothpaste if you want a head start. After that, look at deodorant, body lotion, and shampoo.
And yes, I still wear Le Labo. It's my one indulgence. There's no reason to be good if you can't be bad. Clean living means you know your bucket and you decide what goes in it.
This week: Read the label on your toothpaste. If it lists "flavor" or a dye you don't recognize, look up what it is.
Step Eight: Swap Plastic Food Storage for Glass
Plastic containers break down with heat. A 2023 University of Nebraska study published in Environmental Science & Technology found that microwaving plastic food containers released millions of microplastic particles and billions of nanoplastic particles per square centimeter in some cases. You don't need to toss every Tupperware tomorrow. Just stop heating food in it.
This week: Reheat leftovers in a glass dish or on the stove, not in plastic. Replace containers as they crack or warp.
Step Nine: Filter Your Drinking Water
This is the most involved step on the list because it usually means buying a piece of equipment. It was also my second swap, right after dish soap, because you drink water every single day.
I use a MyPureWater distiller. AquaTru is a solid alternative if you want something countertop and simpler. Whatever you choose, start with what's actually in your tap water so you're solving a real problem.
Of everything I've changed, WATER made the biggest difference in my house. It’s something you consume A LOT of and I’ve seen it make a huge difference in people’s health- JUST by changing the water they consume.
This week: Look up your local water quality report (your city publishes one every year) and see what's in it.
Common Clean Living Mistakes Beginners Make
Trying to change everything at once. It's expensive, it's exhausting, and you can't tell what's working.
Trusting "clean" or "natural" marketing without reading the label. Those words are packaging, not proof.
Buying expensive swaps you don't need. Baking soda and vinegar are not glamorous. They are effective.
Stressing over perfection. Stress is its own toxin. Nobody is scoring you.
Clean living is a long game. Start with one area, one swap, one week. Focus on healthy choices you can actually keep up with, and let the snowball do its thing. Your body will start giving you feedback faster than you think. Mine still does every time I walk past a Tide display.
