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This seems simple, and perhaps most of you have heard this. But it bears telling. We’ve found that a quick way to rid something of fragrance - such as clothing or pillows - is to give it fresh air and sunshine. The sunshine probably does the most good to get rid of the odors. Of course, this assumes there’s not any air pollution. Generally, a few hours in the sun will take care of many fragrance odors.
Will being fragrance free help if you have COPD, asthma or other respiratory problems?
Yes, it will. Even avoiding ‘natural fragrances’ or essential oils will help. Here’s why:
Anything ‘extra’ that is put into the air will be taken in each time you breathe. When you smell a fragrance, it is because you inhaled it. It’s the same as if you inhaled smoke or ashes. Or the coal dust that miners inhale. You breathe it in, it gets into your lungs and can clog your airways. If your system is already compromised, it will make it worse.
My husband says that I am the best thing to happen to his asthma. (Before me, he dated a woman who bathed in fragrances.) In the 14 years we’ve been together, his asthma has been well controlled. Why? Because I don’t allow fragrances into my home.
If you have COPD, asthma or another respiratory problem, I invite you to take the Fragrance Free Thirty Day Challenge. It could be the best thing to happen to your health issue too!
Well, I haven’t sent this yet, but I plan to:
Dear Oprah,
The strangest thing happened to me at the dentist’s office last week. In the waiting room I found the September Issue of your magazine 0 - The Oprah Magazine. Seriously, the September 2007 issue, in a dentist office on August 13, 2007. Thought there was a law requiring magazines in office waiting rooms to be at least 2 years out of date.
On the front cover there was a headline that caught my eye “Do What You Love!” I flipped through to find the article. I realized I wanted to read it, but it was time for my appointment. So, on the way home I stopped to buy a copy.
It was a strange feeling wandering through the women’s mag. section of the bookstore. I used to visit it quite a bit, but rarely get there any more. Couldn’t recall why.
I found and bought your magazine. As soon as I got it home I remembered why I don’t get to that section of the bookstore anymore. It literally reeked of perfume. There were 2 ads for perfume in there. I don’t recall which ones and I wouldn’t put them up on my blog if I did. The samples were semi-sort of sealed, but not really. I really thought they had passed a law requiring them to be sealed, but I guess not.
Because of MCS, I live in a fragrance free world - at least at home. The smallest amount of fragrance will trigger a headache, at best, and at worst a killer migraine that lasts for hours or days.
So, I put the mag. in the sun for a couple of hours. Then I just let it sit for a few days. On Thursday, I flipped through while riding my stationary bike. It still reeked. No change from Monday. So, I tore out the pages I was interested in and put the rest of the mag. in the recycle bin - outside. And today, nearly a week later, those few pages still reek.
I did have to laugh at one point while looking at the magazine. There was actually a small plug for TheDailyGreen.com. It talked about green laundry techniques. I noticed it was carefully worded though. It mentioned solvents and pollutants but it stopped short of talking about any of the fragrances (aka solvents and pollutants) in your average laundry detergent. Probably has something to do with your agreement with the perfume industry, you think?
I love your television show, when I can watch it. I love what you do for people. I especially love your book club, for the simple fact that it has gotten more people to read. I even liked your magazine. But I won’t be buying it again.
Maybe one day the world will realize that we are poisoning ourselves with those chemicals. Now that would be a better world!
And I still don’t know if it was worth the cost of the magazine since I still can’t be near it long enough to read the article. Maybe I’ll ask my hubby to scan it and I can read that…
Many times, I’ve found that someone found this blog because they were searching on “Fragrance Free Sign” or “Perfume Free Sign”. I’m happy to announce that now you can find those here! I’ve created a button, magnet or poster through CafePress. Click on on of the images below to go to my shop.
A button - I’m Fragrance Free. Please help keep my that way!
A magnet - I’m Fragrance Free. Please help keep my that way!
Or a Poster
Here’s the Text of the Poster:
Fragrance Free Zone
In consideration of those who are sensitive to the chemicals in fragrances, this area has been declared a Fragrance Free Zone.
Please refrain from wearing perfumes and colognes in this area. Also, no air fresheners.
The chemicals in these products can affect anyone at anytime causing incapacitating and even disabling illness. Who can be affected by these chemicals?
* People with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)
* People with migraines
* People with Asthma
* Developing Children - Before and After Birth
* People with COPD or other breathing disorders
* People with Emphysema
* People with Autoimmune Disorders (MS, Lupus, and others)
* People with Allergies and Sinus Headaches
* People with frequent colds or respiratory infections
* People with Fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, ADHD
* Formerly Healthy People who’ve been exposed to too many chemicals
* Even YOU!Want more information?
FragranceFreeWorld.com
My plan was to make several posters in different colors, but there’s a limit to what you can do with a basic shop.
If you like them, please let me know. I’ll be designing more products soon.
No, I’m not talking about the price of your favorite perfume and cologne. I have absolutely no information on that subject.
What I’m talking about is the hidden costs that you may not have thought about.
Let’s look Susan McBride’s Lawsuit. One of the suggestions that senseless, ignorant, anonymous people on the web had for her was for her to quit her job. Suggesting she had no business in the workplace with her problems. So what happens to those who just quit working?
There are a couple of options. First, one that I’m even considering for myself, is to go on disability. As in through the SSA. Sure, sounds like an okay option, right? But guess what? The taxes that you and I pay are what funds this type of program.
Another option, out of desperation, would be Welfare. Another government program. And even though the government pays Welfare recipients; we, as taxpayers, provide the money that the government uses.
Other costs can include time off for illness. You help pay for that if the person out sick is a government employee. And likewise for their medical appointments, prescriptions, etc.
And even if the person is not a government employee, you’ll wind up paying in higher insurance premiums.
Another area where you help pay are those who get a military disability discharge because of their health problems caused by fragrances. Yep, the taxpayers pay that too.
So, when someone insists that they have a right to wear fragrances and use “air fresheners” and then complains about the taxes they pay; you may want to inform them that there’s a relation between these two.
This could be a boon to those of us who are highly sensitive to fragrances. Susan McBride works for the City of Detroit and is suing to have her co-workers banned from wearing perfume at work. Seems the perfumes cause her severe headaches, nausea and coughing fits. She is citing disability laws - which is correct. Frankly, there are so many business in violation of disability laws for the same reason.
For me, I currently work out of my home. And I’ve done so for over 4 years. I honestly don’t think that I could go back to work in an office environment. My husband comes home from work and his clothes literally reek with perfumes from his co-workers.
I hope that she is successful in her lawsuit. It will make great headway in resolving this health issue.
I’ve seen this on a tv commercial recently. I don’t recall the brand, which is OK because I wouldn’t give them a plug if I did remember it.
It starts out talking about how their deodorant works continuously to stop odor. Turns out that it does this by time-releasing a fragrance.
I had always though that a deodorant would work to prevent or destroy body odor, not mask it. But I check the dictionary and it defines deodorant like this:
a substance that removes or conceals unpleasant smells, esp. bodily odors.
So, masking body odor is a valid function of a deodorant. If you have problems with fragrance chemicals, you may want to keep this in mind when you look for a deodorant you can use.
I love shower time because my mind is allowed to wander aimlessly. Occasionally, it comes up with good ideas.
I don’t usually like to even think about living my life over type questions. I think they’re pointless, and can often lead to negative thoughts. BUT, sometimes, it can be a good learning tool for yourself or others, so here goes:
If I had my life to live over, I think I would have avoided ALL fragrances. I was 16 when I had my first migraine. I was able to trace it to a single perfume and deduced that I was allergic to it. (Which wasn’t technically correct, the response is not an allergic reaction.) Other perfumes didn’t bother me. At first. Then, over time, more and more fragrances began to bother me. I eliminated all perfumes and colognes from my life. I found unscented hair products, deodorants, laundry products, etc.
I kept adding to the list. I used to make a huge batch of spaghetti sauce a few times a year. I’d start it early in the morning and let it simmer all day. The aromas filled the entire house. Then I’d freeze it in dinner-for-two size portions. It makes a pretty quick meal. But in late ‘03, I wound up with a bad migraine from smelling the sauce all day. And trust me, everything in that sauce was natural.
It’s one thing to have to (try to) avoid fragrances. It’s another when you have to avoid natural smells such as cooking smells.
A common migraine theory is that the triggers for a migraine are additive. So that if I get enough in my system, I wind up with a migraine. My personal theory as to why I began having migraines all the time a few years back is that the is an accumulation within the body. Thus my system reacts more readily to things that never used to bother me. So, IF I could live my life over again, here is what I would do different:
Would all this help? Can’t say for sure. But perhaps it is worth a try. I have a good friend who has bad reactions (worse than mine) to one or two perfumes. I think she believes I’m a bit “over the top” with all my preaching against perfumes. Except that she hasn’t really put together the fact that, in the 7 years I’ve known her, I’ve watched her add more than one fragranced product to her list. Hmmm….
An article in the papers says that “federal guidelines due this summer are expected to urge doctors to more closely monitor whether treatment is truly controlling eeryday symptoms and improving patients’ quality of life - and to adjust therapy until it does.” It goes on to suggest a campaign to teach patients they need better help, but does it go far enough? Why do we only want to treat the symptoms? We should be looking at the environment of the asthma sufferer as well. But what else is contributing his asthma attacks?
I was 47 years old when I went from and having occasional migraines caused by exposure too much perfume to having daily migraines. In fact, it was at this time that I learned that they were even migraines. I went through a lot of doctors and neurologists at first. Each time I saw a new one, they gave me a different drug to “prevent” the migraines. None of them helped. And I kept asking, “Why am I having these problems now? What happened to suddenly make me have this head pain all the time?” And I got no answers. No one seemed to care about Why, they only wanted to make them go away. But I felt that Why was an important part of how we would make them go away.
I knew that fragrances played a role, but it seemed there had to be more. Even working from home didn’t help 100%. Finally, one doctor’s office gave me a five page list of foods that are known to be migraine triggers - nuts, nitrates, msg, aspartame, chocolate, and on and on. As I began eliminating those items from my diet, I found some relief. I have since been able to pare down that list to those items that I know are a problem for me. And no, the migraines aren’t gone, but they are less frequent. They now seem to be only triggered by fragrance products.
The bottom line is that we had to go beyond the symptoms to determine what was triggering the migraines in order to gain any kind of control. And curiously, I am now on one of the drugs that was tried five years ago. And it is helping.
Rather than just treating the symptoms of your child’s asthma, perhaps you should first try to determine what triggers attacks and try to eliminate them from their environment (as much as possible). My husband has had asthma since he was a child. But since we’ve been together, it is much better controlled because our home is Fragrance Free.
Since the ingredients may not tell you that there is a fragrance in a product, you might be tempted to use the “sniff test.” But there are 2 problems with opening a product in the store and smelling it.
First, there are a lot of competing smells in your average store. You may not detect a fragrance specifically coming from a cleaning product in the store. This is especially true if the store has chosen to “freshen the air.”
Second, there could be a masking fragrance in there. If you have severe reactions to fragrances, or are concerned for the environment, then these are still a problem.
The best solution is to seek out companies and products that spcifically state they have no added fragrances.
