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Hydrogen Peroxide: the "Missing Link" in Green Cleaning and Personal Care Products?

proxi home cleaning products

Maybe I’m just not paying close enough attention, but hydrogen peroxide doesn’t seem to get a lot of love from the green DIY crowd. Sure, there are a few posts here and there touting its benefits beyond ear cleaning and hair bleaching, but I’m guessing vinegar and baking soda (for instance) get a lot more attention as a relatively benign, environmentally safe ingredient for household and personal uses. So I was intrigued when one of my PR contact friends offered me the opportunity to try out PROXI’s line of household cleaning and personal care products. The common denominator in all of them: yep, hydrogen peroxide.

I’ve been using some of these products (primarily the toothpaste, body wash, hand soap, dish soap, and daily shower cleaner) for a few weeks now, and have been impressed all around (and – full disclosure – the company did send me free samples of its products for review). That limited experience tells me that the company’s products live up to its tagline “Clean You Expect. Ingredients You Trust.”

Do PROXI Products Work?

You’ve always got to answer this one with “green” products, don’t you? The short answer: yes. Of the products I mentioned above, I’ve been completely satisfied with the performance of each one. Β The dish soap’s a good example – I have to have a good product here because we don’t have a dishwasher. I’ve used PROXI’s dish soap concentrate daily for a few weeks, and have yet to come across a food mess it couldn’t handle. On the personal care front, the body wash leaves me feeling clean, but without drying my skin out or feeling like I’ve taken some sort of chemical bath. There is a faint scent of hydrogen peroxide with every product, but I guess that’s to be expected…

But How “Green” are They?

Truthfully, I was concerned on this front at first. Yes, they all contain hydrogen peroxide, but that’s not the only ingredient… and if you look at the list of ingredients on the products themselves, you’ll see lists of hard-to-pronounce compounds – often a dead giveaway for chemicals you really don’t want to clean your home, or your body, with. So, when I saw phrases like “naturally-derived” in the press materials, I thought “Hmmm… that’s suspicious.”

Fortunately, PROXI doesn’t ask you take such characterizations at face value: on their website, they provide a complete list of the ingredients in each product, along with information on each ingredients purpose and safety. It’s very easy to check this information against other sources, and verify that the company is telling the truth about the safety and environmental impact of the ingredients it uses. So, suspicions allayed… I’m satisfied that these are quality products that any good light greenie would be happy to have in their kitchen and bath.

Have you tried any of PROXI’s products? What did you think? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image credit: PROXI on Facebook

2 comments
  1. Justin Van Kleeck

    Thanks for the review, Jeff. Do you know if there are any particular benefits to using hydrogen peroxide for cleaning that other common components, like vinegar (my personal fave) or baking soda, do not offer? I have always been impressed by vinegar’s cleaning ability, as well as its antibacterial qualities. We also have made citrus-vinegar cleaner by soaking orange peels in vinegar for a few weeks, which adds an extra punch to the cleaning qualities.

    1. Jeff McIntire-Strasburg

      Thanks for chiming in, Justin! I don’t know that hydrogen peroxide is necessarily any better on the qualities you mention; it definitely whitens better when that’s a concern. I think you could probably use vinegar and H2O2 interchangeably in a lot of cases.

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