New Perfumes Worse?

Posted by Victoria Anisman-Reiner Jul 25, 2008

In my non-writerly day job, I deal face-to-face with the public. I've always been sensitive to smells, particularly aromas of perfume, hairspray, and cologne; anything with a synthetic chemical fragrance, even less-than-pure essential oils, can trigger headaches and nausea.

After a great deal of work to cleanse my system - cleansing and removing toxins has been known to decrease sensitivity and reactivity to allergies such as those to scents, pollen and dust - and energy work to clear my allergies, I haven't reacted to perfumes in years - until recently.

Doing crowd control this past weekend, I was overwhelmed with the scents around me. It's possible I need to do another cleanse - in fact, I was planning on starting one in the next few weeks - but it's equally possible that the perfume industry has upped its ante.

The chemicals in perfumes have included toxic preservatives, aroma enhancers and stabilizers for years; why wouldn't they add more to this chemical soup if they felt it increased the scent, or extended the length of perfume's fragrance? All I've got is speculation, but to those who have been having increased reactions recently to new perfumes: I'm with you.