Making Better Scents
For most of us women, putting our best face forward means delving into our stash of brand name cosmetics and personal-care products. After all, we’ve got to look good, right? But those pricey perfumes, moisturizers, foundations, lipsticks, shampoos, antibacterial soaps, and deodorants come with a hidden cost–to your health and to the environment. Modern day perfumes and cosmetics of all kinds, even the big name brands, contain very deadly chemicals and substances, in other words, carcinogens.
Increasingly, perfumes and fragrance products are being blamed for contributing to health problems such as asthma, migraines, neurotoxic effects, and upper respiratory irritation. That’s because although perfumes were once distilled simply from flower essences, today’s fragrances are complex mixtures of more than 5000 chemicals, 84 percent of which have never been tested for safety.
Think about the last time you felt nauseous or had a headache for no apparent reason. Could it have been from the perfume you smelled in the elevator? Or from walking down the detergent aisle at your grocery store? Recently, my daughter and I went out to dinner. We had to ask our waiter to move us to a different table because the lady sitting next to us must have bathed herself in her toxic fragrance before going out to dinner. It was my daughter who noticed the chemical aroma right away. She had to plug her nose to prevent herself from getting sick. These reactions are our body’s way of telling us that something is wrong with the air we are breathing. And perfume happens to be one of the biggest olfactory offenders!
While many popular fragrances evoke natural scents, 95 percent of all perfume ingredients are derived from petroleum, which the National Academy of Sciences has identified as capable of causing cancer, birth defects, central nervous system disorders, and allergic reactions. When EPA researchers tested thirty-one fragrance products, they found that more than half the products contained ingredients listed under the EPA’s Toxic Substance Control Act.
The use of fragrance for women, including perfumes and scented lotions is a personal choice. But once fragrance becomes airborne, they’re inhaled by everyone in the area, creating public health problems identical to second-hand smoke. The problem is not so much the smell but the chemicals that produce the smell. Many perfume ingredients are the same as those used to make gasoline and cigarettes. Then inhaled, thesemolecules enter the bloodstream and travel through the nasal passages into the nervous system. Many have a “narcotic” effect, which is why some people seem addicted to their perfumes. Because the chemical formulas of fragrances are considered trade secrets, manufacturers aren’t required to list their ingredients. If all of these fake manmade-synthetic fragrances were banned tomorrow, the world would be a dramatically healthier place the following day. However, that’s not likely to happen.
So, if chemicals in perfume are as damaging as tobacco smoke and the vapours can kill mice in research laboratories, is the government regulating the fragrance industry and protecting the public? NO. The fragrance industry self-regulates and is not required to register its formulations, test results or consumer complaints with the FDA. Due to fragrance and cosmetic “trade secret” status, little information is available to the consumer as to what is really in fragrances.
Using safe products is as important as recycling. If everyone stopped buying chemically-scented products, companies would stop making them. Nex time you reach for that bottle of perfume, remember that you’ve purchased powerful chemical products regulated solely by the industry that sells them.
It’s time for us women to take a stand. Stop purchasing chemical laden perfumes and scented lotions. Use products that contain only pure essential oils.
An investigation of chemicals in perfumes: http://www.greenpeace.se/files/3000-3099/file_3002.pdf