From yoga to wheat grass, Americans are increasingly health-focused. But in the process of going loco for om, herbs, stretches, and nutrients, we’re really only covering one base — what we put inside our bodies. What about the outside?

Bostonians, ever the earthy-crunchy pioneers, have recently come up with a new health concept: the chemical-free home. Specifically, two local shops are paving the way for healthy houses, from the closet to the bedroom.

Operating out of Watertown, Fred and Barry Shapiro manufacture furniture without any chemicals ($2500-$3500). The purposely misspelled Furnature Incorporated, says Fred Shapiro, builds furniture free of toxins. Stuffing is made from organically grown cotton, slipcovers are made of cotton grown chemical-free, and wood is from sustainable forests that don’t emit outgases. The family-owned store, which has been around for 12 years, offers a selection of 50 styles, which can be viewed on its Web site.

"We got a call from a lady in Belmont 12 years ago," Shapiro explains of the furniture’s origins. "She said, ‘I have Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. I’ve been sitting on a wooden bench covered with a cotton blanket. I can’t sleep on bedding because it has the same problems.’ She asked if we could make a piece of furniture without chemicals. It took me about a year, but we made a sofa for her. It was the first thing she could sit on in 10 years! That’s how we got started."

Since then, the organic-furniture biz has been booming. The company was recently featured in Organic Style magazine, and they’ve become part of a cottage industry serving chemically sensitive post–September 11 New Yorkers. (One of Shapiro’s current clients lives near the World Trade Center site and is looking for chemical-free furniture to counteract the copious amounts of polluted air she’s been inhaling).

For the chemically aware consumer, though, organic furniture isn’t enough. If you get your clothes dry-cleaned, you may be dousing yourself with other chemicals. Enter Ecoluxe Modern Organic Dry Cleaning, a chemically forward-thinking dry-cleaner. While normal dry-cleaning typically uses "perch" — a chemical that has been shown to increase cases of spontaneous abortion in dry-cleaning employees and has been linked to high rates of breast cancer — Ecoluxe’s proprietress Shelly Mars has introduced a cleansing service that uses water rather than potentially toxic chemicals.

Since the prices are comparable ($5.25 for slacks, skirts, blouses; $1.85 for laundered shirts), and the service is just as speedy, it’s certainly worth a shot. "Dry cleaning is a hazard to people — a real hazard," Mars observes. "We really need to protect ourselves — and the environment." Now that’s something to sleep on.

Where to find it:

• Furnature Incorporated, 86 Coolidge Avenue, Watertown, (617) 926-0111, www.furnature.com.

• Ecoluxe Modern Organic Dry Cleaning, 1 Harvard Street, Brookline, (617) 566-4407; 1018 Beacon Street, Brookline, (617) 232-2658.

Nina Willdorf can be reached at ninawilldorf@earthlink.net