Fragrance-Free Encounters and No-Fragrance Spaces--------Not just a personal preference, but a Vital Matter Of  Health

 Re:  Sue Sanders who has Environmentally Illness which, is the result of  chemcial injuries caused by pesticides, herbicides or solvents. 

As person who is Environmentally ill (MCS) not only do I need to avoid personal use of scented products but also I need to avoid other people who use such products and places that have picked up their smells.  Trying to explain the need to avoid exposure to scented products is not an easy thing.  As you probably can imagine, this is difficult both because "smelly stuff" seems to be everywhere these days and because any one person's life intersects with the lives of many others.  An EI person has to deal with this difficult task everyday, but to you the whole concept may be new and  strange.  It's understandable that you may feel puzzled, annoyed, hurt, intimidated, or even vaguely insulted by a request to leave off the scented stuff when you're going to be around a certain person or going to be in a certain space.  How are you supposed to understand this request when you've never had it explained to you before?  Here's your chance to understand and to protect your own health at the same time.  As in many other situations, the best way to ounderstand is to not misunderstand.  And most misunderstandings about this subject arise from two common assuptions:  1.  that the no-fragrance request is somehow about you as a person, and 2.  that the request is about smells as such.  But in fact it's all about chemicals.

It's Not the Smell, It's the Chemical

The problem with scented products is not so much the smell itself as the chemicals that produce the smell.  Nearly all scented products currently on the market are made largely or entirely of synthetic chemicals, usually derived from petroleum or coal tar.  Nearly one-third of the chemical additives used in perfumes and other scented products are known to be toxic.  And it's not safe to assume that the other chemicals are safe just because they aren't yet known to be toxic.  (Keep in mind that most of the chemicals used in this country, including 90% of the pesticides, have never been tested.)  And just one perfume can contain more than 500 chemicals.  Expensive products are just a likely as cheap ones to contain synthetic chemicals. And words like "hypoallergenic," "natural scent," "floral," and the names of various flowers don't mean that you can trust the product under label--they just mean that the manufacturer wants you to think that the product is safe.  Even "UNSCENTED" MAY ACTUALLY MEAN THAT A MASKING FRAGRANCE HAS BEEN ADDED TO THE PRODUCT TO DISGUISE THE SMELL OF CERTAIN INGREDIENTS.    The ony safe assumption about scented products is that they contain numerouse toxic chemicals which constantly vaporize into the air and attach themselves to the hair, clothing, and surroundings of anyone who wears them.  These chemicals are skin irritants, suffocants, eye and respiratory tract irritants, and neorotoxins.  That's why being around someone who's wearing a scented product(or who's wearing clothes that have picked up smells from past use of scented poducts) can cause an EI person to develop obvious allergy symptoms (sneezing, coughing, watery eyes), to have an asthma attack, to develop a headache, to become dizzy or nauseous, to have trouble focusing or thinking or remembering, to experience sudden mood changes, to develop muscle cramps or spinal subluxations, or even to have a seizure or lose consciousness.  And that's why wearing scented products isn't just a personal choice.  It's a choice to impact the air  space of others--and in ways you may not be able to predict or control.  And that's why "Im just wearing a little!" or "It's not perfume, it's must my soap" are irrelevant responses.  The chemicals don't care.  They don't care how much you're wearing or in what form you're wearing it -- they're going to vaporize into the air around you and do their chemical thing, even if you weren't planning to harm someone. 

TO BE CONTINUED. ..........................................