The world can be a pretty stinky place--literally. I am so over the current trend of consumer goods manufacturers pumping artificial fragrances into everything from laundry detergent to moisturizer. I don't have the strongest nose, but the fragrances in these products are often so overwhelming that if one of my neighbors is washing their laundry with one, I'll detect it. Want your sheets and tighty whities to smell like a tropical island, a lavender field or "Freshness Powder," whatever that is? Well I don't. What's wrong with clothes smelling like good old fashioned outdoor air, the way your grandma cleaned them?
Then there's the onslaught of the Yankee Candle craze, the plug-in-freshener craze, and don't get me started on the Febreeze craze. Seriously, why the need for these products?
To the best of my knowledge, consumers never asked for a perfume factory in the detergent aisle. It's not like we have crummy hygiene or a lack of plumbing that makes us all smell like we're living in 18th century France. Growing up in the 70s and 80s, I only remember Tide as available in one scent--Tide. Today, Tide comes in Original Scent, Tide Plus Febreeze Freshness, Tide with a Touch of Downy (which is available in the scents "April Breeze", "Clean Breeze" or lavender) and Tide Totalcare, which is available in the scents "Renewing Rain" or "Cool Cotton." You mean they actually found a way to artificially reproduce the smell of "cool cotton"? I am forced to use Tide Free and Gentle, which is free of fragrance and dyes. The others are simply too stinky, and it's not like the smell fades once the clothes are rinsed and dried. It lingers until you wash the item again using a fragrance-free soap.
I'm one of those women who has never really been into perfume. In fact, I only own one bottle of it that I rarely use--Clinique's Happy--and I choose fragrance-free products for anything and everything whenever possible, because I can't stomach them otherwise. Artificial fragrance is in everything now. Would you believe that Proctor and Gamble even managed to ruin Ivory soap? Those simple white bars, touted as "pure", were always completely scent free up until a few years ago. Now I get a distinct smell of something floral when I wash my hands with it. But the thing that I don't really get are the odd products that get the scented makeover treatment. My brother and I waxed my car over the summer with a product he uses that smelled like perfume--car wax! WTF? While attending an outdoor public event earlier this summer, free ladies razors were given out. I like the razor a lot, but the plastic handle is raspberry scented. It reminds of me of the scented watches that Swatch made briefly during the 80s, with smelly bands that eventually disintegrated. What value does this possibly add to the product, especially when many women are using it in conjunction with a scented soap or shaving cream?
No offense to those who purchase and like these products, but I do want to make users aware that most of them are being made with artificial, not natural, scents. In recent years there's been mounting studies done suggesting that the chemicals that are used to make these fake-o smells may be toxic. Yeah, I know that not everything will kill you like the media would sometimes like to make you believe, but hear me out. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics looks at all ingredients used in beauty products and considers artificial fragrances to be both a phthalate (a class of chemical linked to hormone disruption) and a neurotoxin (a chemical that is toxic to the brain.) Considering that so many products also contain other ingredients that may have an unsafe cumulative effect over time, I go out of my way to buy fragrance-free products whenever possible. I order shower gel and body lotion from a great little U.S.-based company called Loving Naturals. None of their products contain any fragrance manufactured in a lab, only oils derived from real vanilla, peppermint, grapefruit and more. They also make unscented versions of many of their items.
I'm sure your mothers and grandmothers would agree that artificial fragrance is unnecessary, and a marketing ploy to get people to buy these products. A few years ago I bought a vintage 80s romper on eBay, and the smell of whatever it was washed in was so strong and sweet that I had to launder it three time to remove it. I would have preferred that in addition to looking like an 80s clothing item, that it smelled like one, too--which means that it should have smelled like nothing at all other than clean fabric. Enough is enough--if it was made in a lab, I don't want it going up my nose.
