boost self-confidence.
For most people, the process of smelling gives little information about the ingredients of a
particular scent. Most of us think, What the heck, one spray won’t hurt! The same with food: we may
diligently cook organic vegetable meals at home, but sometimes we need to “recharge the batteries”
with a chocolate milkshake or a burger. In one meal, we consume a hefty dose of FD&C colors and
preservatives. One slip, and a week’s worth of pure and clean eating goes down the drain!
This is when technology comes into play. While perfume makers hire famous “noses” to create
perfume compositions, mass production of artificial fragrances relies heavily on smelling machines,
or “electronic noses” that use chemical sensors to produce a fingerprint of any scent. It is now
possible to dissect any natural scent and recreate it using synthetic fragrances. While advocates of
synthetic skin care insist that everything comes from nature and nothing is created via alchemy, in the
case of serious fragrance synthesizing, it’s simply not true. Today, the chemical industry can recreate
any scent known to man, including dirt, earth, leather, snow, or freshly cut grass—and all of them can
be surprisingly beautiful when mixed in the right proportions with floral and wood notes.
It is now possible to dissect any natural scent and recreate it using synthetic fragrances.
Every year, fragrance compositions are becoming more and more complicated. More and more
products become heavily scented: laundry detergents, dryer sheets, cosmetics, stationery, candles,
and pet products come in a variety of “naturally inspired scents.” Even baby toys are now infused
with lavender and vanilla. To meet these needs, hundreds of new fragrant chemicals are being
developed. Of the more than 5,000 materials currently available for use in fragrances, only 1,300 or
so were tested for safety. Many of them are known fragrance sensitizers that have to be used in
microscopic doses, if at all. Bear in mind, these synthetic fragrance molecules are programmed to
turn on switches in our brains! Scientists believe that the ubiquitous nature of synthetic fragrance in
modern society, coupled with the growing number of fragrance products for children and men, likely
contributes to the sharp increase in allergies and respiratory illnesses.
Smart manufacturers rarely disclose the full list of ingredients that go into a fragrant composition.
Fragrance formulas are considered trade secrets, and manufacturers do not have to tell anyone,
including health authorities, what is in those formulas. However, many manufacturers attempt to list at
least some ingredients. For example, a full list of ingredients of the average musk body mist reads as
a huge list of synthetic and organic fragrance ingredients plus a “secret” fragrance, which most likely
contains synthetic musk that has strong potential for triggering adverse effects in sensitive people.
There are plenty of organically derived fragrance ingredients used to enhance and enrich existing
trademark compositions. All of the following naturally occurring fragrance ingredients are capable of
causing allergic dermatitis and rhinitis: citronellol (found in citronella essential oil), linalool (a
floral, slightly spicy odor chemical found in many plants, including mint, scented herbs, and even
birch), geraniol (a fragrant component occurring in geranium, lemon, and many other essential oils),
farnesol (found in citronella, neroli, cyclamen, lemongrass, tuberose, rose, balsam, and tolu),
cinnamal (a flavor component in the essential oil of cinnamon), and eugenol (extracted from spices
such as clove oil, nutmeg, cinnamon, and bay leaf).
what
science
says