From our hand soap to our surface spray, our body wash to our perfume, air fresheners and candles, household cleaners and laundry liquid; scents are all around us, but using them makes little sense according to new research.
In fact, 98.5 per cent of us are exposed to fragranced products on a daily or weekly basis and although they may smell good or clean, they may be making us sick.
The study, by the University of Melbourne, found that one in three Australians report adverse health effects from fragranced products, including breathing problems, migraine headaches, skin irritation and asthma attacks.
The lead author Professor Anne Steinemann, a world expert on environmental pollutants, air quality, and health effects, says the findings echo those of an American study she published last year and a yet-to-be published British study she has just completed.
"I'm investigating this fragrance problem in Australia and around the world and what I'm finding is that it's an epidemic and that there aren't that many differences among countries," Steinemann said.
Among the findings in the nationally representative survey of 1098 Australians, were that 7.7 per cent of respondents lost work days or lost a job in the past year due to the adverse effects of fragrance products in the workplace, while one in six said they would enter a business and leave as fast as possible if they smell an air freshener or fragrance product.
"There's a belief that fragrance products in some way improve air quality but the opposite is actually true: fragrance products impair rather than improve indoor air quality and they pose a range of health and economic risks," Steinemann said, adding that the problems were not exclusive to any subset of the population.
"It's not like city dwellers are more affected - everyone is getting sick from these products," she said.
"Some people have immediate, severe and disabling health effects. But the effects can be very subtle and insidious and people may not realise they're being affected until it's too late."
Although Steinemann explains that it is not only fragrance chemicals that can be potentially toxic, her previous research has found that "the fragrance products emit a range of hazardous air pollutants" including formaldehyde and acetaldehyde.
Separate research has showed that being too heavy-handed with fragrance products affects our mood and performance negatively, but generally, are well within safe levels. Steinemann however says regardless of levels, there appears to be a problem.
"There's something about these fragrance chemicals. It doesn't matter whether the product is called 'green', 'organic', 'natural' or with 'essential oils', basically if it has a fragrance it can cause health problems," she said. "When I've analysed these fragranced products called 'green', 'organic', 'all-natural', there's little difference in the hazardous chemicals they emit compared to regular versions."
Steinemann adds that no law requires the disclosure of all the chemicals in a fragrance or a consumer product.
"You may see a few chemicals listed on the label, but those are typically less than 10 per cent of all chemicals," she said. "Also, these fragrance chemicals are typically mixtures of several dozen to several hundred chemicals, primarily synthetic and even so-called 'natural' fragrances can have synthetic chemicals in them.
"We have very little information on the toxicity of these mixtures - there's a focus on individual chemicals. Also very little information on the toxicity of a natural versus synthetic version of a chemical."
Steinemann is currently conducting research to try and understand why fragrance chemicals may be causing adverse health effects.
In the meantime, she says there is a simple way to solve the problem: as well as calling for fragrance-free policies, in hospitals, schools and workplaces, Steinemann says we can choose different products.
"People may think they need these fragranced products to clean the air or disinfect but it can only make the problem worse," she said. "Instead of using these strongly scented chemical cleaning supplies simply use bicarb and vinegar or even just plain water.
"It's simpler, it's effective, it's less expensive and it doesn't have the health risk - so things our grandparents or great-grandparents used. People think that to be clean they need to buy these multicoloured, fragranced cleaners, but they don't. The very simple things are the best."
30 comments
New User? Sign up