2009-11-05
Smell Good, Hold the Cologne
Written by: Hadley Henriette
Do you know somebody who can’t wear perfume, who can’t even tolerate people around them wearing a lot of perfume? I used to think they were freaks and now I’m one of ‘em. It didn’t happen overnight. It started with a desire to wear lighter and lighter fragrances until I was wearing barely-there citrusy stuff. After a while even that made me nauseous and gave me a headache and eventually the smell of my soap was about all I could take. We’ve all felt some sort of side-effect (in varying degrees), even the most die-hard spritzer feels a little lightheaded after an afternoon at the fragrance counter at Bloomie’s. Why? Because all the commercial perfume on the market these days is more toxic than Brittany Spears in 2007!
Commercial perfumes can have up to 4000 chemicals, but there are 20 common ones you’ll find in every bottle on the shelves. You’ll find acetone which causes nervous system disorders, methylene chloride which was banned by the FDA in 1988, because it is a carcinogenic that reduces the body’s oxygen carrying capacity and benzaldehyde which is another central nervous system depressant. When you spritz, you’re absorbing these cancer-causing chemicals both through your skin and inhaled through the lungs. Don't think you can give it up? You may actually feel “addicted” to your current stuff, and that’s very real because the body can actually become physically addicted to certain of those chemicals you're absorbing. Everyone knows that industrial chemicals cause asthma, birth defects and tons of other maladies, most people just don’t realize their cologne might be the cause.
But people have been wearing perfume for centuries? Right? Wrong. Not like this they haven’t anyways. Sometime around the 60’s and 70’s traditional flower and herb based formulas gave way to synthetics. While these pressings were always expensive, the new chemical cocktails are cheap, cheap, cheap costing only pennies to produce. So why charge $80 a bottle? To pay for fancy packaging, a sexy ad campaign and generate lots and lots of profit. Why do you think everybody and their brother has a perfume. Wanna really smell like you’re favorite celebrity? Then buy the good stuff not synthetics, trust me, loaded celebs are not dousing themselves with glorified paint thinner. So what do you wear? Easy - go natural. Essential oil from your local Whole Foods or Aveda shop will open you up to a whole new world of good smells. Try it you’ll like it. An instead of giving that girl sitting next to you a giant migraine, maybe she’ll move in a little closer.
Of course everybody thought I was crazy eight years ago when I told everyone to throw out everything in their cupboard with partially hydrogenated oils, now it’s illegal to sell at restaurants in some cities. In ten years I think we’ll see similar legislation about perfume. Be an early adapter.
Commercial perfumes can have up to 4000 chemicals, but there are 20 common ones you’ll find in every bottle on the shelves. You’ll find acetone which causes nervous system disorders, methylene chloride which was banned by the FDA in 1988, because it is a carcinogenic that reduces the body’s oxygen carrying capacity and benzaldehyde which is another central nervous system depressant. When you spritz, you’re absorbing these cancer-causing chemicals both through your skin and inhaled through the lungs. Don't think you can give it up? You may actually feel “addicted” to your current stuff, and that’s very real because the body can actually become physically addicted to certain of those chemicals you're absorbing. Everyone knows that industrial chemicals cause asthma, birth defects and tons of other maladies, most people just don’t realize their cologne might be the cause.
But people have been wearing perfume for centuries? Right? Wrong. Not like this they haven’t anyways. Sometime around the 60’s and 70’s traditional flower and herb based formulas gave way to synthetics. While these pressings were always expensive, the new chemical cocktails are cheap, cheap, cheap costing only pennies to produce. So why charge $80 a bottle? To pay for fancy packaging, a sexy ad campaign and generate lots and lots of profit. Why do you think everybody and their brother has a perfume. Wanna really smell like you’re favorite celebrity? Then buy the good stuff not synthetics, trust me, loaded celebs are not dousing themselves with glorified paint thinner. So what do you wear? Easy - go natural. Essential oil from your local Whole Foods or Aveda shop will open you up to a whole new world of good smells. Try it you’ll like it. An instead of giving that girl sitting next to you a giant migraine, maybe she’ll move in a little closer.
Of course everybody thought I was crazy eight years ago when I told everyone to throw out everything in their cupboard with partially hydrogenated oils, now it’s illegal to sell at restaurants in some cities. In ten years I think we’ll see similar legislation about perfume. Be an early adapter.
Comments
So well researched and informative! Who knew?!
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