I Have Crunchy Fatigue

There's no shortage of beautiful women on Instagram and TikTok who are always keen to list out all the household or beauty products in our home that are causing infertility or cancer. Maybe it’s your foundation or your drinking water or perhaps even a medication that you took five years ago. There’s no denying that we live in a world with countless hidden toxins, and much of the non-toxic trend has been helpful for women as they navigate their health journey, but there comes a point where the constant crunchy lectures and fear-mongering grow tiresome.

Over the past decade, the “non-toxic” movement has evolved from a niche wellness interest into a full-scale cultural and economic force. What began with ingredient-conscious shoppers reading labels in health food stores has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry shaping how Americans buy beauty products, clean their homes, raise their children, and think about their health.

The data tells a clear story. The global clean beauty market (products marketed as non-toxic, chemical-free, or “clean”) is projected to more than triple over the next decade, growing at double-digit rates year after year. Organic and non-toxic personal care products now represent tens of billions of dollars globally, while eco-friendly household cleaning products are following a similar growth trajectory. In the U.S. alone, spending on organic and clean personal care products has surged, with forecasts showing continued expansion well into the 2030s. The global clean beauty market (products marketed as non-toxic, free from certain chemicals, and sustainable) was valued at around $8.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to quadruple to $33.2 billion by 2034, showing robust long-term growth. The global organic personal care market, which overlaps heavily with the non-toxic trend, was around $21.8 billion in 2022 and is forecast to grow to $44.8 billion by 2030.

This rise isn’t happening in a vacuum. It reflects a broader cultural shift in how women, especially millennials and Gen Z, relate to consumerism. After decades of convenience-driven purchasing, fast beauty, disposable products, and opaque ingredient lists, many consumers are questioning what they’re putting on their bodies and into their homes. Concerns about endocrine disruptors, environmental toxins, fertility, autoimmune conditions, and children’s health have moved from fringe conversations into mainstream dialogue.

Social media has accelerated this shift. Clean and non-toxic content now racks up billions of views across platforms, while podcasts, influencers, and brands increasingly center their messaging around “low-tox living,” ingredient transparency, and long-term health. What once sounded extreme now feels practical, even necessary.

What once sounded extreme now feels practical, even necessary.

Corporate America has noticed. Major consumer goods companies are acquiring or launching “clean” lines, signaling that non-toxic products are no longer a trend to ignore but a market to compete in. At the same time, surveys show that a majority of consumers actively consider ingredient safety when making personal care purchases, proof that this movement is consumer-led, not just marketing-driven.

However, it’s impossible to ignore that the non-toxic trend has become extremely consumerist. Corporations never let a trend go to waste, and that's certainly the case with the crunchy side of social media. Every time you log onto Instagram or TikTok, there's a new non-toxic product being advertised to you. There's a new swap that you need to make. There's a new item you need to purchase. After all, you care about your health, right? Right?

The energy has shifted from “here’s a helpful swap” to “stop using that toxic product immediately or else you will get sick and die, and here is an expensive alternative instead!” We’re being told that we need $180 glass humidifiers, $150 water bottles, $400 linen dresses, and that only the women who truly care about their health will pull out their credit cards and make the sacrifice. And many (not all) of the podcasts that are about non-toxic living have become one giant infomercial. You can’t get through 10 minutes of content without a shiny new low-tox item being shoved in your face. And let’s be real, the majority of these products will end up in a landfill in the next three to five years or simply get flushed down the drain.

It’s ironic that we ended up here because the original non-toxic girlies were the hippies, usually a collection of yogis or New Age-curious women who wanted to take a break from the consumerist rat race. They left the big cities and reconnected with nature, composting their food scraps and finding different ways to clean their homes and wash their hair. The philosophy for the OG non-toxic girlies was all about simplifying your life and getting rid of most cleaning and beauty products altogether. It was about downsizing, not buying more and more stuff from the corporations that were always trying to make an extra buck. I would know; I once lived that life during my nomadic yogi phase as I trekked through Australia, Peru, Thailand, and more.

Nobody is saying that we should throw the baby out with the bath water. There's a lot of merit and usefulness in the non-toxic mindset. But two things can be true at once. We can desire and work toward a more non-toxic, sustainable lifestyle while acknowledging that the consumerist, product-driven version of non-toxic living has become exhausting and counterintuitive.

There is far too much fear-mongering in the movement now, and the social media game is all about clickbait and outrage content. Next time you scroll, take a look at what you see. Most of the low-tox podcasts and brands will post a clip in which the first three seconds include some kind of bombastic declaration like “wearing a bra will give you breast cancer!” or “here’s why you need to be more worried about the antibiotics you took 10 years ago!” I even once saw an influencer say that the air freshener in the Uber you took last week should make you feel more concerned about your health and fertility. The 10-minute Uber drive. Is this what we’re doing now? This approach to social media is not about educating and helping others; it’s about garnering more clicks and views, and thus more subscriptions, purchases, or follows. The primary goal is not reducing exposure to toxins; it’s sparking a controversial conversation so people argue in the comment section for engagement’s sake.

We can desire and work toward a more non-toxic, sustainable lifestyle while acknowledging that the consumerist, product-driven version of non-toxic living has become exhausting and counterintuitive.

Here’s the thing about your mental wellness and your fertility: arguably, the single most important thing you need to think about, or at least one of the most important things you need to think about, is stress. Stress is the silent killer. It’s a major cause of chronic inflammation, it can wreak havoc on your egg quality, and it can cause acute mental health episodes. So why are so many non-toxic advocates constantly trying to freak us out and cause us to stress about even more things in our lives, especially things we can’t even control?

I like to think about some of the “Blue Zones” in this case. These are parts of the world where people live significantly longer, healthier lives, with unusually high numbers of centenarians (people living past 100). Okinawa is known for the longest-living women in the world, with very low rates of heart disease, cancer, and dementia. Sardinia has exceptional longevity among men, and you will see many mountain villages with physically demanding daily life. One thing that both of these areas have in common is that many people smoke cigarettes on a regular basis and drink fairly high amounts of alcohol. Of course, both of these habits are known to be unhealthy and are usually associated with obesity, sedentary lifestyles, and poor eating habits. But in places like Okinawa and Sardinia, the elderly population who live long, healthy lives may drink and smoke, but they also place a huge emphasis on community and family, spend a lot of time outside, move their bodies daily, and have a strong sense of purpose.

I’m not making the claim that we should all start chain-smoking and drinking wine every single night, but my point is that longevity is multifactorial, and a key factor in the equation is the amount of stress we put on ourselves. If the old ladies in Okinawa can handle and detox the toxins that come from a few cigarettes a day due to their exceedingly healthy, low-stress lifestyle, you can enjoy a diet soda every now and then if you’re craving one, stress-free. Don’t let the non-toxic content creators make you lose sleep over it.

This isn’t about bashing any particular influencer, brand, or podcast. It’s certainly not about throwing out the non-toxic philosophy in general. But it is about finding a more balanced, healthy approach to our lifestyle that's not so heavily rooted in the consumerism that plagues America and results in massive amounts of debt for so many individuals and families. Let’s continue to educate each other and pass down healthy habits to the next generations while simultaneously being more conscious about what we’re purchasing and how much unnecessary stress we’re causing for ourselves and those around us. And just enjoy that Diet Coke every once in a while. It won’t actually kill you.