As lovely as your favorite fragrance may smell, there’s a good chance that it’s a toxic chemical concoction of poisons. The ingredients used to make perfume and cologne don’t stop at natural spices and pure essential oils (no matter what those romantic commercials on your TV may imply).
The list often includes formaldehyde, toluene, methylene chloride, benzaldehyde, petroleum, and phthalates. These chemicals have been linked to a wide range of damaging symptoms, including respiratory problems, nervous system issues, reproductive issues like infertility, and various forms of cancer. Phthalates are also known to be endocrine disruptors. These harmful effects have the most impact on young children and developing fetuses. In fact, pregnant women have been advised to avoid the use of perfume altogether due to these ill effects on unborn children.
But the range of products that these synthetic poisons contaminate goes far beyond your most cherished night-out-on-the-town scent. “Fragrance” is a common ingredient in air fresheners, cleaning products, lotions, cosmetics, shampoos, and sadly enough, baby products.
Under the guise of trade secrecy laws, companies are not required to inform their health-conscious consumers what ingredients are actually in this empty word- fragrance.
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