I work in a spa where I am in a small room with my clients for an hour at a time. Sometimes their perfumes can be almost overwhelming. People with asthma or allergies can be harmed by perfume just by walking past someone on the street. These people avoid elevators for fear they won't survive the trip up several floors if someone is wearing perfume in the elevator. Even some essential oils worn as perfume can be hazardous, but only if someone is allergic to that particular herb. Air fresheners in your home cover up healthy odors with unhealthy ones.
As lovely as your favorite fragrance may smell, there's a good chance that it's a toxic chemical concoction of poisons. The ingredients used to make perfume and cologne don't stop at natural spices and pure essential oils (no matter what those romantic commercials on your TV may imply).
The list often includes formaldehyde, toluene, methylene chloride, benzaldehyde, petroleum, and phthalates. These chemicals have been linked to a wide range of damaging symptoms, including respiratory problems, nervous system issues, reproductive issues like infertility, and various forms of cancer. Phthalates are also known to be endocrine disruptors. These harmful effects have the most impact on young children and developing fetuses. In fact, pregnant women have been advised to avoid the use of perfume altogether due to these ill effects on unborn children.
But the range of products that these synthetic poisons contaminate goes far beyond your most cherished night-out-on-the-town scent. "Fragrance" is a common ingredient in air fresheners, cleaning products, lotions, cosmetics, shampoos, and sadly enough, baby products.
Under the guise of trade secrecy laws, companies are not required to inform their health-conscious consumers what ingredients are actually in this empty word- fragrance.
So how do you protect yourself and your family?
Read ingredients labels! Become familiar with the names of these adverse chemicals and don't buy products that are made with them. The sweet connotation that you may have associated with your favorite perfume will change drastically once you learn what its regular use actually does to your body. Everyone wants to smell nice, but is it at the expense of your health and your family's?
Read those labels to get a better idea of what's in these magic potions you're spraying on yourself. If the ingredients are not clear and straight-forward, but rather hidden under the catch-all term "fragrance," be very suspicious!
Skin Deep Cosmetics Database offers an online resource where you can look up the ingredients in your favorite perfumes. You'll find that the most popular brands are also often the most detrimental.
Be proactive about researching the chemicals in the products you use. Perfume, air fresheners, and lotions just won't smell as good anymore once you really know what's in them.
References:
"Fragrances and Perfumes Can Be Toxic,"
http://www.preventcancer.com/consum...Skindeep Cosmetics Database,
http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/?nothanks=1"Women warned not to wear perfume during
pregnancy," by Kate Foster,
http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.co...
