Featured
Your Ultimate Guide to Successful Celery Juicing
We all know the benefits of drinking celery juice – the internet is full of articles when you type in
June 13, 2024 No Comments
What’s the Big Deal about Fragrances?
What’s the Big Deal about Fragrances?
Pearline Foo
Everyone loves clean smelling laundry, and a clean smelling home. Wait! Did we say smell? If you are judging your household cleaners and detergents by how they smell, think again. Do you know what’s actually in that fragrance?
Fragrances or “Parfum” are added to virtually everything from cleaning products to personal care products like shampoo and even toothpaste. But do you know fragrance usually contains a rather a long list of ingredients that manufacturers aren’t required to disclose to the public?
It is nearly impossible to know the ingredients that actually make up a fragrance, and fragrance in itself may contain more than 100 different chemicals. In fact, there are currently no known regulations nor requirements for safety tests on parfums and fragrance cocktails that are being added to household cleaning or personal care products.
Why you should be wary
Do you know that chemicals in fragrances can pass through the skin and enter the blood stream? They are often manufactured from petroleum and coal tar and are classified as carcinogens, hormone disruptors, neurotoxins, skin and respiratory irritants. Plus, many “natural” fragrance ingredients are as dangerous as the synthetic ones.
5 things you need to know about Fragrances:
- Fragrances are linked to major health risks. Synthetic chemicals used to make fragrances are classified as allergens, hormone disruptors, asthma triggers, neurotoxins & carcinogens. Key: fragrances are highly toxic and can cause allergic reactions.
- Fragrances also commonly contain phthalates – chemicals that help the scents last longer. Studies have shown that more than 75% of products with fragrances contain these endocrine disruptors. Phthalates can act like hormones in the human body, which can cause a host of health problems. Health risks for phthalates are startling and include cancer, human reproductive and developmental toxicity, endocrine disruption, birth defects & respiratory problems, genital malformations and undescended testes in baby boys, and lower sperm counts in men.
- Manufacturers are not required to list their fragrance ingredients on product labels, nor are there any requirements for safety testing to be confirmed by regulators before products are sold.
- “Natural Fragrances” can be just as toxic as synthetic fragrances.
- A good smell doesn’t always mean it’s clean. Fragrance has no bearing on a product’s performance. It merely gives one the perception by teasing our senses.
How to Avoid Harmful Fragrances
We believe the safest choice is to always choose fragrance-free products, and when that is not available, to only choose mildly essential oils scented. This is because these manufacturers have been conscious enough to use essential oil instead of “fragrances” (and usually only in minute amounts to enhance their product’s mass acceptability) and aren’t afraid to list them transparently. A couple of key tips you should keep in mind:
- Don’t be fooled by products labeled with the words “natural fragrance”, because there is no standard criteria for what these words mean. These can be just as unsafe.
- If you see “fragrance-free” or “unscented”, it is important to check the ingredient list, because sometimes manufacturers use masking fragrances to cover the chemical smell of their products.
Some of our recommendations:
At Clean Food Haven, we’re always looking for effective and non-toxic personal care and household cleaning products that don’t become a hindrance to your healing journey as you cleanse from inside out. We believe in an inside out, outside in approach to health.
Some of our most recommended products are Force of Nature multi-purpose cleaner (a highly intelligent DIY cleaner that replaces most of your household cleaning products), Force of Nature Laundry Detergent Sheets (an all-natural laundry detergent sheets packed with ultra-concentrated stain and odor removal powers that clean, freshen, whiten, and brighten laundry without any bleach, dyes, or fragrances) and Brixy Soaps (a range of personal hygiene bars that are not just effective and efficient, but planet-friendly as well).
Related Products
Share this post!
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
You may also like
Featured
Healing Yourself and The Environment – The Great Divide
It is interesting how when speaking with a fellow MM community that during the course of healing ourselves, we may
August 22, 2024 No Comments