That fragrance? It’s not fresh!
Secret Scents How Hidden Fragrance Allergens Harm Public Health (WVE)
Toxic Chemicals in Fragranced Laundry Products and Health Effects
Toxic Chemicals in Air “Fresheners” and Health Effects
Fragrance Decision Undermines EPA’s DfE Program
Allergic to a World Full of Cats
(check the sidebar and tags for additional links)
Seriously "Sensitive" to Pollution 
I think we are causing neuro and cardiac issues for alot of people. And now the hospitals are pushing smelly oils to relax people, give me a break, mt throat and heart hurt!!!
Some fragrances definitely contain neurotoxic ingredients. Also respiratory irritants, and carcinogens and endocrine disruptors…
See my recent post about the health groups registering a complaint about the DfE including hazardous chemicals in a supposedly SAFER list… grrr…
Here’s another great resource, an excellent Fragrance Fact Sheet from The Canadian Partnership for Children’s Health and Environment (CPCHE)
http://www.healthyenvironmentforkids.ca/resources/fragrances
I know with MCS how exhausting it can be just to survive and to add to that the energy to keep getting the word out there… Thank you for being an advocate for the “voice of reason”. Hopefully, more and more people with get “it” and add their voices to ours. Have a fragrance-free day :D
Thank you, and hope you not only have a fragrance free day, but that we can all enjoy a toxic petrochemical free life soon!
I actually had fun for a couple of days making up several of these signs and am thinking of making either a blog post or a page to post them all here. Right now they are just available on fb.
Aah, more links for my Linda folder. :-D
I love the “Eau de Petroleum” picture. Photoshop? Very nice.
Yeah, forget the perfumed oils. No thanks. There’s a skin blogger I used to follow who’s so happy she can use fragrance and commercial makeup … Umm, hello?
Linalool and limonene are also allergens. They are on the patch test my dermatologist gives. Just adding insult to injury.
I think I was in the middle of commenting on one of your other posts and spaced out the other day, so you may have half a comment somewhere.
I found the background photo online somewhere, looks like it was used for an editorial, but I don’t know where it came from originally. There’s an artist’s name on it that I can’t make out…
I use a free photo program called PhotoScape to add text and more, as I figure out things I can do with it (sometimes I find a tool once and never again)
There are many fragrance allergens, some are extracted and modified from plants…
The Women’s Voices From the Earth’s report “Secret Scents” deals with a lot of the problems.
And most essential oils are also petrochemical contaminated (pesticides, solvents, even fake fragrances) unless they are certified organic (or you know the person harvesting and making them).
And re the partial comment, I don’t think you clicked on post!
I probably didn’t click post. It was the one with the fragrance-free cleaning people. I have been very brain foggy.
Yeah, I used to use essential oils. Not anymore. Aromatherapy — haha.
My friend wears patchouli. Is there a tactful way to mention the petrochemical issue? I think she would want to know. As I said, I THINK she would want to know. Not sure. Maybe I should just buy her organic patchouli for her birthday, since she really loves the stuff. Personally, I think it is hideous.
Patchouli oil was one of the first fragrances I ever had a bad reaction to! I was an adolescent, off to the CNE with friends (Canadian National Exhibition) and I bought a little bottle of it and put some on as we walked down the midway. Well, it wasn’t long before I was vomiting…
I later found out that Patchouli is a sensitizer (which can lead to more problems). A lot of people have no tolerance for it :-(
I don’t know how to approach the subject with your friend. If you can still see her on the days she doesn’t “use”, it may be ok to get her a bottle of certified organic oil, but I can’t be around the residues that stick to people’s clothing and everything else they’ve touched… Maybe just talking with her heart to heart? I don’t know…
I may resurect my material about scent marketing issues, but for now, here are Dr John Molot’s thoughts (which are surprisingly similar to mine)
http://johnmolot.com/common-scents-marketing/
Have a fragrance-free day!
Thanks!
I wish everyone could have a toxic-chemical-fragrance-free day, month, year and life!
She’s into the patchouli. I don’t think you need full-blown MCS to loathe it. It’s vile. I didn’t even know it was a sensitizer. Unsurprising. She doesn’t seem to be sensitive to much. Don’t get me wrong, she has many other health problems, but you know that gene that is supposed to be responsible for methylation and eliminating toxins? The MTHFR? I bet she has four good copies. I have a bad copy, of course. When the doctor told me I had a bad copy, he asked me if I got hives a lot. I started to laugh. I pretty much AM a hive.
A toxic-chemical and fragrance-free life sounds like just the ticket.
Eeks re hives!
I had some twice (from henna on my hair and some essential oil a massage therapist snuck into the massage oil despite me discussing fragrance free)
I haven’t gone for the DNA testing (no money, no access to safe offices or health pro’s who could take samples, no brain to do anything with the results).
I’m hoping for a ticket to a new community (in the mountains of Quebec) for people who have MCS/ES and are therefore non polluting…
I’d like to be able to spend more time outside again, going for walks, tending to a garden, talking with more than an occasional human face to face…
I really hope you get into that community! It sounds great. Sending you good wishes.
That really, really sucks about the lack of access to doctors. I always thought MCS/ES doctors should do housecalls, as the patients have to risk exposures just to go to the damn appointment. It is ridiculous. Of course, I guess then the doctors would be bringing contaminants into the patients’ homes.
Whatever happened to doctors who do housecalls? I think they still have them in other countries …
Thanks :-)
House-calls make so much sense (but a dr can’t have 6 patients an hour).
A good dr would be safe, and contaminants could be minimized or tyvek suits used to cover them up.
Ah, good point, you could just have a Tyvek suit for the doctor to wear. Also if the person was an EI doctor one would hope she or he would use fragrance-free products. Bring back the house calls, I say! No more six patients an hour. If they need to see a lot of patients, well, let them drive quickly, LOL. Back in the days before HMOs the doctors had to have a fast horse and carriage, right?
(I may have been watching too much Downton Abbey and period dramas.)
No seriously, my acupuncturist does house calls, but only if someone just had surgery or something. He is from
China, so maybe doctors do them more frequently there. Have to ask him. I have a friend who does phone appointments, but you can’t get a blood test that way. I’m not sure what she does…maybe she gets the bloodwork at a lab and then sends it to her doctor. It’s complicated; she wanted to see a really good Lyme doctor and there was no one in her state.
For people who are disabled, medical/dental house-calls are simply a means to allow access to services.
HMOs and other medical schemes have become focused on profits, not health.
True, they all have become focused on profits and not health. Even disability insurance, which disputes payments for pricier brand-name drugs, even when people are allergic or have extreme reactions (such as increased seizures in epileptics) to fillers in generic drugs.
I am curious if Canada is any better.
Canada has a taxpayer funded public health system (I hesitate to say health “care”) that has been undermined for years by those who want to profit. For some things it is still way better than the US system, but the quality has declined in life threatening ways for anyone with serious conditions, and many of us have no safe or appropriate care available anywhere in the system.
There is a woman who recently had a lung transplant but can’t get some of the very expensive but necessary meds she is not allergic to funded as they are only funded for cancer patients. Well, possibly due to other bureaucratic bungling issues, (I don’t know all the details, but have read quite a few instances of things that should never have been allowed to happen, and I think it’s only due to her mother’s constant vigilance that this woman is still alive) it seems she now has a form of cancer in those new lungs and might qualify for a drug she is not allergic to.