Asthma & Perfume

Perhaps an emotive title and it could be argued that this belongs on my Soapbox blog.

It was routine that I would pick people up as I passed by if I knew them, or if I thought it safe or helpful. I had no particular rule and I just used my judgment.
I would not pick up certain women. There were women who applied perfume(s) fill the cab with toxic valor that made my head ache, my eyes water, my tongue tingle and gave me chest pains. These symptoms would last the day.
I have picked Maasai people up who had been walking for days, or living in smoke-filled houses with their goats. Their smell never left me with any ill symptoms!

See, it does fit in!


I have been suffering for the last 10 or so days from headache, chesty cough and numb tongue which started with Mags giving the house a 'good clean' using an Ajax product with lavender colour and fragrance - that smells nothing like lavender. I was just getting over that when in the toilet I blew my nose using toilet paper. Now we haven't bought scented toilet paper for a long time and maybe this wasn't [though scented toilet paper does set me off]. We had bought a large pack of toilet paper so loose rolls were put in the cupboard with laundry products - maybe the toilet paper blotted up the fragrance. Whatever, try blowing your nose without inhaling - yet I sucked in a lungful of that poison!
Two questions here 1. Why would anyone want to wipe themselves with poison? 2. Scented toilet paper is the same cost as unscented, so unscented users are subsidizing the cost of applying the poison!

Now there personal products.

Somewhere on the internet you can find that chemical manufacturers do not have to disclose what is in fragrance because it is 'commercially sensitive'. But apparently there are some 4000 chemicals used and a good number are carcinogenic. Wow!

We are bombarded with the stuff and what it does to my chest tells me that fragrance is contributory to asthma, bad temperament and even hallucinations!

Let me list how people dress themselves up in chemical cocktails - funny though the same people want to eat organically grown produce and understand the dangers of chemicals (in the wider sense.

Anti dandruff shampoo - perfumed with whatever.
Hair conditioner - perfumed with whatever.
Shower gel - perfumed with whatever.
Body lotion - perfumed with whatever.
Deodorant - perfumed with whatever.
Perfume or body spray - perfumed with whatever.
Aftershave - men- perfumed with whatever.
Hygiene pads - women - perfumed with whatever.
Hair gel (or other) perfumed with whatever.
Clothes washed in laundry powder - perfumed with whatever (lasts for ages).
Fabric conditioner - perfumed with whatever (lasts for days) - your bed sheets are so treated!

That's a pretty impressive array of poisons most of us apply daily - the reason is down to peer pressure and advertising - maybe a little vanity. Then let's not forget the lip gloss, nail polish and other cosmetics.

Mags' 'natural' Tea Tree Oil Deodorant set me off - actually the vapors came off the hotter the day became.
But what are these chemists try to achieve? The smell isn't nice and what a mix.
Melaleuca - Australian tee tree.
Chamomilia - 2 types of chamomile.
Urtica - nettle (stinging).
Melissa - balm mint.
Tussilago - Farfar (never heard that name) - coltsfoot, reputed to stop coughs (hello) a cause of liver disease.
Aesculus - Horse chestnut (the nut is known to be poisonous).
Equisetum - horsetail - there are a number of (types) these.
Rosemarus - rosemary.
Salvia - sage.
Betula - birch.
Achillea - yarrow.
Trifolium - clover.

Clover flower has a sweet smell and maybe horse chestnut flower. The rest are unmemorable when it comes to a nice smell. So maybe these things are to stop sweat and not to smell 'nice'.
So there is added citronella plus of course parfum/fragrance whatever that contains!

There are the additives:
Butyl-something.
Methyl-something.
Triethanol-something.
Ethoxy-something.
Glucol-something.

Surely these things must be a worry!

All of this in one small roll-on bottle. For the chemical companies it is all win, win! They produce the poisons, making a fortune, then they sell us the remedies like paracetamol and inhalers!
From the days of using just 'Parmolive Gold' (don't wait to be told) when soap was enough, to see you through the day, peer pressure, advertising, vanity and to some extent personal insecurity causes the population to bathe in toxic chemicals.

This must be a growing problem and few manufacturers are taking steps to alleviate the problem. Roll on and all power to the companies that produce fragrance free products!

But any more on this had better go to my Soapbox blog.