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The first thing I tell people to do when they embark of their holistic living journey is to ditch fragrances. Fragrance and hormones don’t play nice.
It’s the first but also often the hardest step to embrace. Fragrances are deeply rooted in our memories of what grandma was cooking as a child and fresh sheets on a Sunday morning. That’s why going natural and fragrance-free can be such a difficult step to take.
But today, I’m going to tell you WHY you should try to eliminate fragrances from your household. Companies have been manipulating what you buy to trigger these happy memories but they haven’t taken your health into account.
We’ll get into the specifics of what exactly is in these fragrances that makes them such a problem for your health and its direct relation to infertility, hormone disorders, miscarriage rates, and more.
But I won’t just leave you anxious about the pervasive use of fragrances in our products. Luckily, we’ve got so many options to choose in order to avoid these toxins now and I’ll dive in to the exact products I approve for my family.
IN THIS EPISODE, I’LL DIVE INTO:
- Our sense of smell connects directly to our limbic system (the part of our brain the processes memories and emotions) and why that makes fragrance such a hard thing to break up with
- A little history on the development of synthetic perfumes
- How marketing manipulation has led us all to associate the smell of laundry detergents (laden with toxins like phthalates) with being clean
- Studies have shown that women are more emotionally impacted by fragrances than men
- How the hormone disruptors in fragrances can effect fertility, miscarriage rates, and pregnancy
- My Tossing the Toxins roadmap and how it can help you differentiate the clean products from toxic ones on the shelves
- Zero federal laws or regulations prevent companies from using toxic ingredients make the companies disclose them
- What exactly a phthalate is and how it’s used to make our fragrances sticky
- Peer-reviewed published research detailing the effects of high amounts of phthalates in women who are pregnant
- Risks for high amounts of phthalates in non-pregnant adults
- My favorite brands for fragrance-free products
Why Do Companies Use Toxins?
Toxins were introduced to toxins in the last few decades. Previously, fragrances were mostly clean essential oils.
So why add toxins now?
They aren’t stupid. They know how to sell things to Americans. They know the #1 reason you’ll buy a product is the way it smells.
Today, fragrances created for cleaning, personal care, and beauty products are dominated by synthetic ingredients. Estimates show that 80-90% of the raw materials used in fragrance today is synthetic. And that’s because it’s cheap to produce.
Fragrances in Cleaning Supplies
The biggest marketing trick is putting synthetic fragrances in your cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and fabric softener. We associate a specific smell with cleanliness, so if something doesn’t smell that way, we don’t believe it works as a cleaning agent.
The thing is, “clean” doesn’t have a smell. The absence of dirt and dust doesn’t smell like anything.
That “clean” scent you smell as you take clothes out of the dryer isn’t cleanliness, but the toxic cocktail that has been added to detergents and softeners.
Your nose and brain associate that smell with clean laundry.
Fragrance-Free vs. Unscented
Fragrances are everywhere. I can’t even buy trash bags without searching for one without a fragrance.
Fragrance-free means no fragrance. Unscented means they may have used fragranced chemicals to neutralize the smell of a product to make it smell like it doesn’t smell.
Always look for fragrance-free products if you can.
Health Impacts of Fragrance
Everyone’s health is impacted by fragrance, but women are especially vulnerable to the hormone disrupting effects of these toxins that are added to fragrance.
It can affect:
- Fertility
- Miscarriage rates
- Pregnancy
Even small exposure to these toxic fragrance chemicals during pregnancy poses significant impacts to our kids.
The Fragrance Industry’s Dirty Little Secret
A single fragrance has the potential to contain thousands of hidden chemicals. Of those thousands of chemicals that could be found in that fragrance, they might contain multiple toxins.
And you, as the consumer, will never know the roughly 3,000 synthetic chemicals that may be in that fragrance because companies don’t have to tell you.
Their fragrance ingredients are protected as a trade secret and there are zero federal laws or regulations that prevent companies from using these ingredients or from making companies disclose them.
There is only one word on the label and that is either Fragrance or Parfum. That one word is a catch all for thousands of chemicals.
Ditch the Fragrances
I know this can be a hard swap to wrap your head around, but it truly is one of the best swaps you can make for your health. Fragrance and hormones do not mix.
Go through your cleaning supplies, perfume, cologne, candles, laundry detergent, fabric softeners, body washes, and lotions and see if Fragrance of Parfum are listed on the ingredient label. If so, it means that product could have a toxin cocktail. Throw it out and replace it with something on my shopping guide that has been personally vetted for toxins by me.
RESOURCES
Yes, it is possible to avoid the toxins and still smell amazing!
- Download the Tossing the Toxins Roadmap.
- Shop Skylar Perfume
- Shop Henry Rose
- Shop more Safe Fragrance
Related Episodes:
Episode 45: Understanding Fragrance Allergens and Reading Labels
Episode 46: The Link Between Fragrance and Infertility
Episode 58: Leaving the Toxins Behind: From Big Fragrance to Botanical Fragrance w/ Seda & Amanda of ESAS Beauty
Episode 88: Safe Synthetics in Perfume vs. Natural Scents
Episode 104: The Next Big Thing in Clean Fragrance: The Story of Creating Wyld Notes with CEO Gaya Samarasingha
STUDIES MENTIONED:
2002 Phthalates in Products: Safe Cosmetics Report
Risk of Diabetes in Caucasian Women
Phthalate Exposure and Genital Deformities in Boys
Reduction in Male Sperm Count and Phthalate Exposure
Phthalate Exposure & Thyroid Function in Pregnancy
NOT SURE WHERE TO FIND SAFE, CLEAN, NON-TOXIC PRODUCTS?
SHOP THE TOXIN FREE SHOPPING GUIDE
IF YOU ENJOYED THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, PLEASE:
- Leave a positive review or rating wherever you listen.
- Receive weekly Toxin Free Tips & Sips right to your inbox by joining my email list here.
- Shop toxin-free products on my Toxin Free Shopping Guide
- Download your free Tossing the Toxins Guide
- Post a screenshot, what you loved, and tag me on Instagram @wendy_toxinfreeish
- Want to ask me a question to get answered on the podcast? Leave me a voice message here.
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