Educate Canadians about scent allergies - WAIT, educate the whole world

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Sweet-smelling toxins

Home fragrance products may do more harm than good, according to new studies. What does the research say, and what are the alternatives?

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Our homes and businesses stink. Or that’s the impression you might get from the media. Clean, welcoming homes are associated with fresh scents, and busy wives and mothers can rely on air fresheners to give their home a boost. The ads feature happy family members sniffing carpets and enthusiastically inhaling the freshly-scented air.

Sure, it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but what are we really breathing in when we use these products?

It’s no surprise that we don’t want unpleasant smells around. After all, we spend an average of 90 per cent of our time indoors (according to Health Canada), and we’re willing to pay to make our environments more pleasant. Air fresheners are a booming business—it’s a $200 million market in Canada, and an estimated three out of five Canadians use these products in their homes. Air fresheners also appear in many public places including offices and institutions.

However, fragranced products are anathema for people with chemical sensitivities and allergies—and new research is warning that air fresheners can pose a threat to everyone. Air fresheners contain chemicals that mask odours or deaden or interfere with our sense of smell. Some chemicals actually line the inside of the nasal passage.

But where is the proof scientific proof?

Air fresheners have been the focus of a few studies over the past couple of years. A 2007 European study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine found that regularly using fragranced sprays increased the risk of asthma by as much as 50 per cent. Another study by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that most sprays, gels and plug in air fresheners it tested contained phthalates (known hormone disruptors), even if they were labelled as “all-natural” or “unscented”.

But that’s not all… In July 2008, a University of Washington study published in Environmental Impact Assessment found that six top-selling fragranced products (three of which were air fresheners) contained nearly 100 volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Ten of those VOCs are classified as toxic under U.S. Laws. Further research is underway.

In addition, scientists in Korea found that many household products such as air fresheners emit toxic compounds. All 42 products they tested contained acetone, ethanol, limonene, perchloroethylene (PCE), phenol, and 1-propanol. Another 10 per cent of products also contained other potentially hazardous chemicals.

Closer to home, the CBC recently tested air fresheners currently available in Canada. They found that nearly one third contained DBP and/or DEP (the same two phthalates banned from children’s toys in 12 European countries). The phthalates are used to make the scent last longer.

While many people are questioning the safety of these products, not everyone agrees. Companies that produce these products claim they are safe and that they meet all safety regulations. Further, they claim that the levels of any chemicals present are too low to be harmful and that the studies as misleading.

Trade associations such as the Consumer Specialty Products Association (CSPA) also say air fresheners are safe. The CSPA’s website says that the items are subject to strict standards and that manufacturers choose chemicals with low toxicity. The products do not contain known cancer-causing ingredients and are not known to cause or exacerbate asthma. In addition, its consumer information attributes health benefits like reduced stress, increased productivity and enhanced mood with the use of “air care” products.

There are currently no recalls of these products due to health concerns, and no government agencies have issued any warnings to consumers based on the results of these studies.

So what’s the bottom line for consumers? As is usually the case with allegedly harmful chemicals and products, more research and investigation is required. A direct causal link between the product and specific disease states is hard to prove, and the risks to children, pets and the environment haven’t been thoroughly investigated.

In the meantime, there isn’t much information available for curious and concerned shoppers. Currently, manufacturers in Canada and the U.S. aren’t required to list all of the ingredients on the packaging. As a result, University of Washington researcher Anne Steinemann argues that consumers don’t have enough information about these products, and may even have a false sense of security about the information they do have. She, and many other researchers and activists, advocate that people need more access to information about the products they come into contact with on a daily basis, and laws need to provide better protection for customers.

The alternatives

What if you like a little fragrance now and then or cleaning won’t get rid of a persistent smell in your home? You still have options if you want to avoid any potential risk from commercial room fresheners—and many of them are easy on the wallet.

To get rid of odours:

- There’s something to be said for a good “airing out”. Open the windows when weather and outdoor air quality permit. Good ventilation is important to disperse and dilute odours.

- If you don’t have an air exchange ventilation in your home, place a fan in the window pointing outwards to blow air out of the room. Open a second window to promote a breeze

- Make sure areas of your home where moisture builds up, like the bathroom or basement, are well-ventilated to discourage mould.

- A box of baking soda works well in small, enclosed spaces (not just your fridge or freezer). You can also sprinkle it on carpets (which tend to absorb odours) and vacuum up.

- Try setting out bowls of vinegar or put it in a spray bottle and mist the room.

- Make your own air freshener. There are many good recipes on the internet such as RecipeZaar, or check your local library for books on making all-natural cleaners.

- Try an odour-absorbing product like the Volcanic Deodorizer from Lee Valley ($17.50 for a bag covering up to 4800 cubic feet). Some time in the sun every six months and a yearly rinse with salt water will keep this product going indefinitely.

- Look for environmentally-friendly odour neutralizing sprays, such as those that contain enzymes like Nature’s Fresh. The enzymes work on “organic odours” like urine and smoke.

- Purchase an air purifier or filter for use in the home to reduce odours and allergens in the air. These products can be a little pricey, ranging from $50 – $300, so assess your needs carefully and watch for sales.

To add some scent:

- Try an essential oil from your local natural food or health food store. A few drops in a diffuser will add some chemical-free scent to the room.

- Simmer some citrus rinds or other spices like cinnamon in a pot on your stove top. Lemon is a good way to banish cooking odours.

- Place some dried flowers or herbs around your home. You can cheat a little and add a drop or two of essential oil to refresh it.

- Grow a fragrant plant such as certain flowers or herbs.

Many sources note that home fragrance products aren’t a necessity, and many of these alternatives are as easy on the pocket book as they are on the environment.

References:

CBC News: Dangerous chemicals showing up in some air fresheners
CBC News: Scented consumer products contain undisclosed toxic compounds
CSPA: Aboutaircare.com
The Environmental Health Association of Nova Scotia: Guide to Less Toxic Products
Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Fresh scent may hide toxic secret

Photo ©iStockphoto.com/Ravi Tahilramani

So, my new campaign is school. I struggle in most of my classes but try to identify the perfumers so I cna avoid them, anyone who get sto know me knows I am allergic and most people are cool with it. I avoid the perfumers like the plague in all all other settings too. So it’s a chore and its tricky but I can for the most part make that work.

BUT, the library is like a death zone. There is not a place in the library I can go. At my old school, where I had the same prob I would just order the books and pick them up at the desk and walk back out. So fast the breeze hardly had time to settle and set me to reacting. At this university tho I don’t have that option. Got to do the work yourself. Which is nice because the old school had a library search engine that let you cruise the titles on the same shelf as the one you selected…Not at this library. I don’t think I have pulled a book from the same shelf yet.

When I go to the library I take my pills before I go. I try to go a low traffic times, but there is a specialty library that has weird hours so I am limited. I go an research 4 or 5 papers at once. Spend 5ish hours or whatever it takes so that I do not have to have more than one perfume enducem migraine. I keep a running list of new books that might be helpful so that one day if I go to class with a migraine, I can stop at the library. Everything in my plans for the week involve planning arond a migriane and how not to get one.

The trouble is once I have one I get sick and nauseos and the pain is nearly uncontrollable and I can’t concentrate, I often can’t read. And usually get to the point where I shouldn’t be driving myself home.

All that to research my papers.
It’s stupid. And Annoying.

SOOOOO. the other day I wrote a letter to our suggestion box complaining. I felt like I could because APERANTLY the school has a scent sensitive employee policy…sooo We shall see. I’ll try to remember to keep you posted.

Between scent allergies, migraines (often as a result) and my diabetes I wonder why I even bother leaving my house. I have this huge HUGE paper that I need to use microfiche for and the only microfiches at my school are in one big public area lab and TWICE today I had to leave because of too strong perfume….I hate my life, I hate my allergies, I hate that perfume exists and what the fuck did I do in a past life to deserve to have to live like this every single day of my life. I spend all my time avoiding perfume and scents that I don’t have time for anything else, and when I am not absorbed with that I spend my time doing everything else not to get a migraine, don’t eat this, don’t drink that, don’t let my neck kink, don’t read to much, take a break…I mean fuck…It’s not fair.
At this rate I won’t get my research done in time to hand in my paper. I am considering just giving up on it and working on the other ones that are due the same week…what am I supposed to do if I can’t spend any time in the freakin library and you can’t take microfiche out of the library (not to mention I have nothing to play it on at home).......

Not to mention, I can hardly spend time in any classrooms…
I try so hard to not let this get me and not make it a huge issue but I mean seriously…it’s getting to me.

So I walk into the staff changeroom the other day to put my lunchbag away and I just aboue threw up all overthe place because the smell of perfume was wicked. So I come out and I ask one of the girls I work with who has been there forever who would be the best person to tlak to re health stuff and perfume stuff. She didn’t know. My sometimes jerky boss happens to walk by as I am posing my question, pull me aside and is all what’s the problem here?

So I told him straight up. I am super allergic to perfume and it has been getting worse in our changeroom. It gives me like an instantaneous migraine and makes me want to barf and this particular brand of cheap crap makes it hard to breath.

He says, I didn’t know people could be allergic to scents?

So I said, do you know how scents work? They are airborne chemicals that are designed to stick to the cillia (scillia sp? – nose hairs) and burn out everything else. How could people NOT be allergic to that?

He says, well I have never heard of it. (At this point I think, do you EVER watch the news? Busdriver in Calgary versus nasty perfumed pedestrian? Hello?!)

So knowing that he likes to know about things I explain it to him. He says, Diana, maybe it’s not that the perfume is getting stronger but your allergies are getting worse. Couldn’t get much fucking worse but I say, that’s unlikely considering I have suffered at the same rate for like I don’t know…mmm 10 years.

So then I explain, I have to use uncented detergenat, soap, shampoo, hairspray, cleaning products the fucking list goes on.

He says, do they even make that stuff? Yes of course it is sold on the shelves right here at Canadian Fucking Tire you moron.

So then I explained how some businesses will make a scent sensitive request to their employees in employee areas. We can’t control what they want to do but we can educate them and let them choose what they want to do. And I have no problem being the shit disturber, go ahead and fucking tell everyone it’s me.

He of course has never heard of that. Really? Well I had never heard of it until I actually worked somewhere that implemented it BEFORE my arrival. Oh and all Canadian government buildings are scent sensitive. Most professionals work at having this professional courtesy. Maybe it’s just too much to ask for a bunch of minumum wage workers.

So he says, bring in a doctors note and we can talk about it. Yup, my doctors note is going to say how it makes me ill, and i have ot go to the hospital for migraine meds yadda yadda, and how I have to leave because it can be so bad….and then I better be getting compensation from my employer re missed work. Not my problem if all your staff has nasty bo and covers it with skanky perfume. Now it’s yours hehe….

He was such an insensitive jerk about it. I would quit over this issue.

A person who always wears too much fragrance around me told me that she is allergic to perfume. Now I am thoroughly confused.

I wish there were a better way to ask people on the subway not to sit near me if they’re going to drown themselves in cologne.

And I wish there were a way to make people in my building realize that when they walk through the hallway, all their nasty perfume comes straight into my apartment and makes me feel ill.

Ok, so I used to eat at this restaurant all the time but I never used the bathroom because they used so much air freshner I practically gagged when I walked in. It was never a big deal though.

So then one day something happened and the scent started to waft out of the bathroom into the area where you wait to be seated. Since I go there all the time I mentioned the strong scent and they just brushed me off.

Well, that night I was seated near the bathrooms. At first I was ok but as my meal progressed I started to get a migraine from the scent and eventually left before I finished eating because I felt like I was going to vomit, which I couldn’t do there because I couldn’t even breath in the bathroom!

So, right then and there I went from eating there 4 or 5 times a week to like once a month. So the next time I went in the hostess recognized me and asked why I hadn’t been around so I tactfully explained the smell of your bathroom made me vomit. (I swear it was more tactful than that). She apologized but kinda stopped talking to me after that.

So another month goes by, I go in again, same thing happens. I love their soup though and I hate that I don’t get to enjoy it anymore.

So I go in the other night and they are remodelling, so I asked if with the renovations they had plans to make the place scent sensitive and the girl behind the counter says, we can’t ask our patrons to not where perfume! So I explained that it is not the patrons but the bathroom and sometimes the staff, mostly the bathroom. I explained to her that sitting by the entrance on the otherside of the room I can still smell the airfreshner from the ladies room. Further more, it STICKS to people coming out of the bathroom and trails them into the dining room. FURTHER more, I am sick and tired of spending $25 on an amazing meal that I don’t get to finish because I have to rush home to throw up because the smell of the bathroom is getting to me. I explained about scent allergies and migraines and the breathing thing some people suffer from. The hostess looks at me and says, maybe you shouldn’t leave your house then.

What an ignorant little bitch, I wanted to crawl over the counter and rip her face off. All I am saying is go a little easier on the freakin air freshner. I can’t believe they don’t notice it, it’s so nasty. I am surprised no one else complains. I can’t say women frequently use their bathroom and I suspect it is for the same reasons as me.

Needless to say they have totally lost my business and that of my friends.

cause working in a call centre, many bodies with many odours. Worse is after a smoke break and they come sit beside me. My eyes tear up. It’s a migraine trigger for me too.

And I found a statement she made in the Calgary Herald

“I pay $70 for a public service,” she said. “I don’t see why I should have to alter my hygiene.”

Well, if I was riding that bus with you I would be paying the same thing for a public service, why should I have to subject my health to your vanity?

Furthermore, she is a chiropractors assistant.
For a long time I saw a chirpractor who treated me for my scent related migraines by trying to manipulate my pressure points.

If I had walked into his office and smelled heavy perfume he would lose my business. If her employer had a policy in the office perhaps she would not be wearing so much perfume.

Her own vanity embarassed her, not someone standing up and saying something.

OH, and apperantly, she had been wearing this perfume on the same bus with the same driver for 2 weeks with out incident.

Well, do you think that we like to point out ot people that their excessive perfume is making us ill? Do you think we like to make a scene? Do you think we want to suffer the way we do, no. I know that I always give the person a chance. Maybe I was just having a particularily sensitve day, or maybe they tried something new, or maybe the spray got stuck that day….I always wait until it happend repeatedly before I bring it up.

I still side with the bus driver.

Okay, so when you sit down next to me at work with your over powering perfume and it hits me like a tonne of bricks and I have to go to the bathroom to throw up as response to the insane PAIN I suddenly am hit with where are my rights?

Why should I have to
A) Throw up in public because you are vain and need to wear too much perfume
B) Lose out on wages because I have to go home sick
C) Spend two days with an incurable migraine
D) Spend hours at the ER in an effort to get prescribed medicine to alleviate pain
E) Halt my entire life, because for two seconds I got to BREATHE in your perfume.

My civil liberties are being attacked every time you spray your perfume. And by you I mean ALL perfume wearers.

I am not saying that people should take the drastic unscented measures that I have but I am saying that they should use perfume the way it was designed to be sprayed. One spray, not reapplication 6000 times a day in every bathroom and public place you come to and not a bath in it before you leave the house for a public place.

There are no smoking laws, there should be laws that encourage some sort of scent sensitivit, or, scent wearer training.

I am not the only sufferer. Every office I have EVER worked in has had a scent sensitive policy and if employees have had to go home sick, the offender had to go home as well.

I know 100’s of people out there who suffer in silence. But I just want to remind everyone that migraine sufferers are not the only ones. People who suffer from allergies have a similar reaction.

At an office I worked in I once had to call an ambulance because a girl had an asthma attack when someone sprayed perfume in the office. One spary, 10 feet away and she almost died becuase she could not breath.

Wield your vanity weapons wisely my friends.