Fragrance Wars

The other day I realized that I had accidentally purchased disposable razors with scented handles.

Scented. Fucking. Handles.

As a society, we have apparently decided that it's not enough that every product we put on our body has a smell, now the tools we use to do so must smell as well. I am fanatical about avoiding artificial perfumes, but I never even thought to check goddamn RAZOR BLADE HANDLES.

Don't mind me, just heading to the shower.

There are plenty of very good reasons to avoid synthetic fragrances, but let's back up a minute and make the assumption that you, like many people, don't mind and maybe even enjoy perfumed products.

You step into your shower, where you use your Berry-scented shampoo, Lily Essences conditioner, Pink Grapefruit body wash, Mint Julep facial scrub, Cashmere Rain shaving cream (wtf?), and your stupid ass Venus razors with the "tropical scent" handles.

Grrrrrrrrrr.....

You step out into your bathroom and take a big whiff of your Clean Linen plug-in. You slather some "Pasión de Tango" deodorant, moisturize with your Rose facial oil, and spray a little "Fresh Fragrance" hair product into your hair for some texture. Gotta moisturize those newly-smooth legs, so you grab some Pumpkin Latte and Marshmellow body lotion (it's fall, after all!) Perhaps you're expecting your period, so you make use of a "Clean Fresh Scent" pantyliner, then wash your hands with some Crisp Morning Air handsoap and follow up with Berry Blossom hand lotion. Oh, and let's not forget a puff of Chanel No. 5!

You walk into the other room to get dressed - your laundry detergent claims to smell like a Butterfly Kiss, but you're not sure how that's even possible. Next it's time to slap on some lipstick that smells curiously of Gummy Bears, some Watermelon blush, some Chocolatey-smelling bronzer and Vanilla-scented mineral eyeshadow. When you come out into the living room, looking fab and ready to start your day, you realize that it's smelling a bit musty in there- but hey, it's nothing that a little Midnight Storm Febreeze won't take care of. Just for good measure, you light up a Summer Wish (equally perplexing) candle.

At this point, you smell like a Yankee Candle shop operating upstairs from a funeral home. You are the olfactory equivalent of taking everything in your fridge, putting it in a food processor, and calling it soup. Migraineurs scream and run at the first whiff of you. Airplane seatmates sniffle and dab at watering eyes. Dogs are confused by you.

But honestly? Unless you're actively trying to avoid scented products, this is probably the sort of stuff you'll end up with in your home. Fragrance is ubiquitous- it's in EVERYTHING. It is literally even in products marked "Unscented", I shit you not. (Men, you are not exempt- your soaps, shaving creams, colognes, deodorants, detergents, and god-help-you "body sprays" are just as bad. Though I don't think we've started scenting your goddamn razors yet.)

Of course, you can't smell these smells. Your nose is used to them, so except for that first powerful whiff when you open up the bottle or light up the candle, you don't even notice them. One of the most shocking things I learned when I gave up scented products was just how much EVERYTHING smells- once your olfactory receptors have recovered from their constant fatigue, you'll be amazed what you can smell.

So you don't smell particularly good to yourself, since you don't notice. Other people either also don't notice (being used to synethtic fragrance themselves) or notice and find you, frankly, unbearable (and that's if they're lucky and don't end up with a splitting headache, nausea, or congestion.) And all the while, the dang stuff is fucking with your hormones and slowly giving you cancer (among a jillion other things.)

So why? Why do it? Marketers want you to buy perfumed stuff because our olfactory memories are so intensely strong and linked to emotion- if you associate a particular smell with someone or somewhere you love, you'll want to smell more of it, and you'll pay money for the privilege. (It also nicely covers up the odors of the other nasty chemicals used in a lot of products- which is why "unscented" often...isn't.) Stores will pump scents into the air to affect your buying behavior and mood state - it sounds like some creepy Big Brother shit, but it's true. Restaurants will slap an air freshener into the bathroom outlet to hide the fact that it smells like pee all the time. They don't care if they're pumping you full of neurotoxins, just as long as you keep giving them money. Please, stop encouraging them!

There is a 0% chance that your handsoap smells like this.

Tips for Going Fragrance-Free (or at least Freer)

• Read the labels. As I mentioned above, "Unscented" is sometimes meaningless, but "Fragrance Free" or "Free and Clear" is usually okay. Still, to be safe, look at the ingredients labels- avoid anything that lists fragrance, perfume, parfum, or fragrance oils. It's important to do this even when shopping at "natural" stores or for "natural" products, as many things claiming "With Lavender Essential Oil!" will also sneak in some artificial fragrances as well. One of the grossest things about fragrance is that companies don't have to tell you what's IN them because it's considered a "trade secret"... it could contain pretty much any kind of nasty poison they want to include. 
• Don't forget things like dish soap and laundry detergent! Laundry detergent is particularly insidious, and if you start un-fatiguing your sniffer, soon you'll realize just how bad it is- when I buy second hand clothes, I have to wash them repeatedly and let them air out in the basement for months before I can stand to wear them. (New clothes usually need at least a wash or two, but aren't as bad.) Vinegar in the wash water helps, especially if you soak it (baking soda helps too, but may cause it to fade a bit.) 
• If you want smells, consider natural sources. Essential oils do give some people headaches (or sniffles) but by and large are much safer than synthetics, and more and more products rely on them instead of their chemical alternatives. They're much less "sticky," too- if you wash your hands with soap scented with EO, the scent will fade very soon after, whereas conventional soap smells can stick for HOURS. (Just remember- don't use EOs on your skin at full strength, dilute them with a milder oil! A little goes a long way.) Many beneficial skin oils and butters have lovely scents on their own- my current deodorant is made with cocoa butter and coconut oil, and while it's not very strong, my armpits definitely smell like some sort of delicious confection. Linens can be stored with sachets of dried herbs to help keep them from getting stale in the closet (or you can just wash them again right before you use them, if they've been away for a long time.) 

Hello, I am delicious, and oh so useful.

• Even if you don't choose to ban fragrances from your life entirely, at least be picky. If you want to smell like your expensive perfume or fancy body lotion, you shouldn't be using 20 other products with different smells at the same time. Soaps, hair products, detergents, shaving creams, etc really do not need to have smells- all they do is cling and compete with whatever smells (deodorant, perfume, lotions) you are actually intending to put on. (And don't even get me started on scented make-up, wtf is THAT about?) Figure out what you actually want to smell like and eliminate the rest so you don't smell like potpourri vomit.

A Disclaimer:

Yes, cutting artificial scents out of your life will probably make you more sensitive to them. Walking past Abercrombie & Fitch will feel like chemical warfare, and if you're a hugger you'll soon learn what detergent all your friends are using. But the trade-off (besides all that "not putting poisons in your body constantly" stuff) is that a healthy, less-fatigued schnozz is much better for smelling good smells- things like actual vanilla, actual pumpkin lattes, actual clean air and autumn leaves. Given how entwined smell is with taste, I wouldn't be surprised if there were benefits there too.

(By the way, those scent names up there? All totally real products. I think Gain detergent wins for originality- Sweet Sizzle, Icy Fresh Fizz, Moonlight Breeze, Dreamy Desire..... and I'm always amused by scents claiming to be "Fresh" or "Clean Air." Oh the irony.)



Gas mask photo by Vivian Aubrey, butchered by me... she would never commit such crimes against Photoshop.

Something Different Friday: Everything in your life is poisoning you

When I was in high school, one of my teachers introduced the concept of "Something Different Fridays." On Friday, instead of teaching math, he'd teach us something else he thought was worthwhile, like how to play the stock market, or Piaget's theories of development. I am stealing this concept here to indulge my occasional urges to blog about something unrelated to crafting- not every Friday, but once in awhile. Sometimes they'll be silly, sometimes serious. I hope you'll find them an enjoyable diversion!

So this is a new thing I'm trying! And we're going to start off with something that's been on my mind a bit lately.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I have what I would call a "passionate interest" in not feeling shitty, getting cancer, and otherwise dying horribly. To this end I've become a bit obsessed with trying not to poison myself. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, since pretty much everything around us is poisoning us at all times.

I want to take this time to recommend two books:*

It's My Ovaries, Stupid!

I know, it's a stupid name. And it appears to be out of print, though there are some used copies. But I genuinely believe that anybody who has or has ever had ovaries should read this book. It's way too complicated and indepth to go into here, but let me summarize in one sentence:

Pesticides, household chemicals, and nasty food additives are fucking the hell out of your hormones and making you feel awful.

Remember DDT and how it ruined all those bird eggs and generally crapped on everything it touched? Did you know that we still use very chemically similar products, and that we still manufacture DDT and send it to other countries where it's still allowed? And then, of course, those countries send their produce back to us, and we eat it, and it sits in our bodies for upwards of THIRTY YEARS. And that's just one chemical, there are plenty more that are still legal here and just about as dangerous. When it comes right down to it... if it's going to kill bugs and small rodents, it's not going to be good for you either.

To make matters worse, that shit is *everywhere*. It runs off of fields and into water supplies, it's in the air, it's in the soil, it's in the rain. In small amounts, it's in the grass that your all-organic-grassfed-hamburger-to-be is munching on, and therefore in the meat, eggs, and milk we eat, even when we do our best to avoid it (though it's still a far sight better than the cows that might as well have cyanide mainlined into their veins for all the crap they're given.) Not to mention the stuff that's in our cleaning products, beauty products, and food. They get all up into your body and start pretending that they're hormones and clogging up your receptors and generally being total dicks. (Another fun fact: the manufacturers of these chemicals are only required to test for cancer-causing effects- they don't have to look for ANY other toxic effects on the body. If it doesn't immediately give a mouse cancer, it's good to go! At least, as of 2003 when the book was published.)

These guys know what I'm talking about.

Hormones are important. When they're out of whack, your whole body starts sucking. Migraines, fatigue, digestive problems, skin problems, period problems, mood disorders, PCOS, infertility- even major things like autoimmune disorders and cancer. Your hormones want to work properly and be your friend, but it's a very delicate system and they've been under attack since the day you were conceived. This book is aimed at women (who are lucky enough to have an insanely complicated hormonal system. Woo) but this crap messes with male hormones too. For some reason, doctors never want to deal with this stuff (as I learned when I was trying to sort out my crazy hormonal migraines and was prescribed baby aspirin. No thanks, I'd rather, y'know, fix the problem.) As this book explains, reproductive hormones aren't really the domain of any of the medical specialities- gynos are only focused on what's going on with your immediate reproductive system, endocrinologists focus more on thyroid hormones, etc etc. Hormones are rarely checked unless you're being treated for infertility, despite the fact that they affect so much more. This book will talk you through (in AGONIZING DETAIL) the many affronts on your ovaries, the problems they cause, and what you can possibly do about it - starting with avoiding as many of those poisons as possible, which brings us to the second book, which is a bit more fun.

No More Dirty Looks: The Truth about Your Beauty Products--and the Ultimate Guide to Safe and Clean Cosmetics

This book (and the blog that goes with it) are a little bit hippy-dippy and a little bit "OH MY GOD $20 FOR THAT TINY BOTTLE OF LOTION??" but nonetheless, a super invaluable resource when it comes to eliminating nasty toxic shit from your body and cosmetic products (you know how people are always complaining about headaches from people wearing strong perfume? There is a very good reason for that.) A lot of the stuff they recommend is a little pricey, but there are some good cheaper alternatives and they give you a very handy list of ingredients to avoid. As a bonus, a lot of the yicky chemicals in body products are actually just cheap filler, so when you switch to the good stuff, it works a lot better too (nothing has ever helped my dry hands as much as that stupid $20 bottle of lotion... and it goes a pretty long way, I swear!) Plus, when you treat your skin more kindly it rewards you with fewer breakouts and irritations, and my hair looks better than it has in a lonnng time- did you know that the ingredient in most conditioners that helps your hair feel silky (silicones and other "-cones") actually locks the moisture out of your hair and dries it out in the long run? Which, of course, causes you to buy more conditioner. Which dries your hair out....you see where I'm going. Companies want to keep you coming back and they don't always do it ethically. Silicones show up in a lot of lotions, too, btw. Ahem.

Anyway, that's my soapbox. Some other Friday I'll do a run down of the reasonably-affordable products I've found and recommend. It IS possible to detoxify your products without having to sacrifice any anal-retentive cleanliness, by the way (most of them, anyway.) A lot of people recommend no-soap or "no-'poo" routines, and there are a lot of super non-toxic products that frankly don't work for shit. That's great for people who don't mind it (it's better for your hair and skin anyway), but that stuff doesn't fly with me, I want to feel just as squeaky clean as I did when I was using drugstore crap :-P Luckily the hippies have evolved, and they're putting out some pretty awesome things now.




(*BTW, these are affiliate links so if you use them to purchase things, I get like, a few cents. Feel free not to use 'em, but I figured as long as I'm recommending books anyway...)