Chemical of the Week: Parfume or Perfume or Fragrance(Synthetic)
Although they may smell good to some and a headache to others, popular brand fragrances reek of long term health issues. A 2010 study found that fragrance/perfumes (i'll call them frafumes) labels don't list the harmful ingredients that are linked to sperm damage, disruption in hormones, cancers, thyroid issues, reproductive toxicity, allergy and asthma, headache/migraines, dizziness, nervous system disorders, obesity, contact dermatitis, and skin rashes to just to name a few, which we absorb through skin, inhale, and ingest daily.
Farfumes, including popular brands like: American Eagle Seventy Seven, Chanel Coco, Britney Spears Curious, Giorgio Armani Acqua di Gio (for men), Old Spice After Hours Body Spray (for men), Quicksilver (for men), Calvin Klein Eternity for Men, Bath & Body Works Japanese Cherry Blossom, Calvin Klein Eternity for Women, Halle by Halle Berry, Hannah Montana Secret Celebrity, Victoria's Secret Dream Angels Wish, Jennifer Lopez J. Lo Glow, AXE Body Spray for Men, Clinique Happy Perfume Spray, and Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue, contains 19 to 300 or more different synthesized chemicals that absorb directly to the blood stream through the skin.
American Eagle has 24 hidden chemicals alone. And if you didn't see your beloved frafume, doesn't mean it's in the clear. In fact, these seemingly harmless farfume ingredients are in thousands of popular everyday products.
Want to know something even more wonderful? Manufactures, by law, don't even have to list warnings or the actual blend on the label. Manufactures are after profit. It's cheaper to scent products with synthetic farfumes than using natural ones. They also make fragrance that are long lasting which don't break down easily making them stick to skin and clothing.
Farfumes cloud many of us on a daily in the form of scented cleaners, detergents, dry sheets, hair spray, dyes, air fresheners, candles, shampoos, soaps, perfumes, lotions, body butters, baby/children products, conditioners, body sprays, body washes and more. Many of these scented products interfere with our hormones, which regulate how our bodily systems function. Mess with your natural function and risk receiving diabetes, cancers, obesity, thyroid disease, and all sorts of ailments that seem to increase over time. Even if it's fragrance free, products can still contain fragrance ingredients masking the unpleasant chemical smells.
Check your labels: Blanket terms are listed as Parfumes, Fragrance, Perfume, Linaloo, Limonene, are petrochemicals (Yep. Crude oil), benzene derivatives(carcinogens), compounds, fixatives, toluene, solvents, phthalates, aldehydes.
So what can you do instead? Look for essential oil based scents on labels, non-synthetic fragrance oil, natural fragrances, naturally derived or plant based. Buy or research how to make Green Cleaning recipes. You can also visit Environmental Working Group's Skin Deep Cosmetic Safety Database to find safer fragrances and other personal-care products. For candles, look for soy candles with clean burning wicks and non-synthetic fragrance.