The downstream dangers of your perfume

[trof]

(time to go stinky?)

By Robert C. Cowen
That morning trip to the bathroom - to brush your teeth, wash your hair, and put on perfume or cologne - may not be as benign as you think. Every day, those chemicals wash down the drain. While they are not themselves poisonous, they may affect biological processes in unexpected ways. Now, Stanford University biologists have the mussels to prove it.

Recent research about musk fragrances and mussels illustrates this point. When gills from live mussels were exposed to water with low concentrations of six commercial musks, they were not poisoned, point out postdoctoral fellow Till Luckenbach and Prof. David Epel of Stanford. That was expected. But after two hours, the researchers washed the gills and put them in musk-free water that also contained a red dye. Cells in the gill tissue took up the dye. That was not expected.

Those cells have a mechanism to detect a foreign substance, such as the dye, and keep it out. That worked for cells not exposed to the musk in the first place. Cells that had been exposed lost this natural defense. That finding has a disturbing global implication, notes the California Sea Grant program, which provided part of the funding for the study. Cells in many animal species, including humans, use the same protective mechanism to ward off foreign substances.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1216/p17s02-sten.htm

[DemBones DemBones]

1. We're a constant danger to ourselves and the

rest of Earth's biota. It may be impossible to stop doing harm unless we all return to a pre-industrial state.

We can probably stop using musk xylene. If Japan has banned it and Germany has a "voluntary ban" (sounds oxymoronic to me!) on it, I'd suggest we in the U.S. should start avoiding it. Time to read those labels.

[countryjake]

2. Gills? Imagine what your lungs look like!

Then imagine what the toilet bowl cleaner does!

Stinker & proud of it!

[liberalmuse]

3. Perfumes are horrible...

I'm allergic to them and it's excruciating when some woman at work douses herself with it. I was training a guy last week. He was fine the first day I met him, but the next day came to my desk doused with aftershave. I felt terrible, but it was either throw up, or tell him to move back and explain my reaction to strong, unnatural scents. He ended up washing it off. I can't imagine what this crap with the large molecules does to the natural creatures. :(

[countryjake]

8. Have trouble buying soap?

I can't even walk down the soap aisle at the grocery store without gagging. And there's always some mama, with her cart parked in the middle & babies in the seat. I don't know how people can stand it or why they don't notice how overwhelming those smells are.

[MADem]

18. It IS astoundingly strong, ain't it?

Funny, it never seemed to be that way in the bad old days. Of course, back then, you had few choices--Comet or Ajax, Ivory Snow or Tide, 20 Mule Team Borax, Spic n Span, dishwashing liquid, and the ever-present WINDEX. And there never was an "aisle" devoted to this shit--it was a section within an aisle.

Now, there's so much shit out there that one hardly knows what half the stuff is to be used for!

[demigoddess]

19. Everybody shop for soaps at a health food store!! Great products

I have a problem(allergic to toxic ingredients?) with soaps and toiletries because of the FROMALDEHYDE that they contain as a preservative. You'd be surprized where you'd find it. That stuff never washes off or goes away and it poisons you through your skin. I spent 2 or 3 years reading books on the ingredients in every day items. Thank god someone steered me to a health food store but even there you have to be careful !!!!
Try Dr. Bronner's soap, Desert Essense toothpaste and Aubrey's Organics at aubreys-organics.com. And nothing beats Bi-O-Kleen for laundry products. Use white vinegar in the rinse cycle to get out perfume smells and cigarette smoke from clothing. But be sure to use the vinegar that is made from grains not the one made from petroleum. PS the reason they use perfumes so much is that laundry detergent really does not get the dirt out of your clothes so they have to cover up the stink with perfumed fresh scents. Also your petroleum based skin soap has perfume because of the same reason. After I stopped using petroleum based soaps my skin felt so much more alive because the upper layer was no longer a dead layer on top.

[countryjake]

24. I've used Dr. Bronner's soaps...

But the soap I was raised on was Kirk's Castille & Grandpa's Pine Tar soap. They're getting hard to find in normal groceries anymore, (especially when you're trying not to breath as you search) but the Castille has lye, which is not too good if you're sensitive. You're spot on about the petroleum based stuff...just like polyester or acrylic clothes, that crap makes my skin crawl & gives me hives. I try not to buy anything which began as oil. And good old vinegar is one of the best cleaners known to man.

[Ms_Mary]

23. I can reccomend some great natural soaps if anyone wants to PM me.

No, I don't make them. But I haven't bought regular soap in several years because of my skin sensitivity.

[Mandate My Ass]

14. I can't even walk through dept stores' perfume deptartment

without getting pounding headache. Then they have those aggressive "sprayers" all over the place.

It doesn't surprise me in the least that these products have a detrimental effect on aquatic life.

[Ms_Mary]

22. I was at a mall yesterday and by the time we left, my eyes were burning.

They were bloodshot and I thought I was going to have to take my contacts out and toss them. The perfumes and air fresheners kill me. Ever walk into the candle aisle of a store? My eyes start stinging.

[LiberalFighter]

28. Can you imagine how strong it is when it can be smelled in a factory

from about 20 feet or more?

[JPace]

4. You don't know how miserable your life can be when you become

"chemically sensitive". It gets really hard to live in the world as we know it. These chemicals are slowly killing us and big business fights science and twists their own science to hide this fact.

[ElectroPrincess]

5. Beyond all the above scientific and noble reasons not to use

scents such as perfume or aftershave, think about us poor bystanders in a closed elevator?

Because I can be such a smart a**, at times I've been tempted to exit whistling the "Old Spice" commercial tune.

Face it men, you're scents are pretty crappy overall, if you are going to bother wearing aftershave choose something discreet but present like Drakkar.

Anything but that Old Spice and NEVER heavy ... remember, less is more. ;) <eg>

[demigoddess]

20. actually my husband smells a lot better and is nicer to be near since

I got him to give up perfumed products. He uses Tom's of Maine Soap and unscented deodorant and He smells so fine now.

[Khephra]

6. I hate perfumes and aftershaves

give me natural scents like herbal or fruit/flower mixtures. They're natural and they also smell a hell of a lot better.

[catmandu57]

7. Remember that knockoff crap

that they pushed heavy back in the late eighties, " If you like______, you'll love_____".
They sold it in gallon jugs and women would bathe in it, one whiff of that poison would incapacitate me for hours.

[RebelOne]

11. The knockoffs are still being sold.

In fact, I just bought one of Eternity at Big Lots for $1. Smells like the real thing. Only problem it doesn't last long.

[noonwitch]

9. Maybe the wash-offs will kill off the zebra mussels?

One can hope. Those things are all over the Great Lakes, clinging to boats, contributing to the 12 years of damage the Gov. Engler did with his roll back of environmental regulations.

I do wear perfume (Opium)-not too much of it, but perfumed body lotion and some cologne. I like it, and it smells good on me.

[LibertyLover]

10. Perfume

I'm not sensitive to light scents,which is what I choose to wear when I do use perfume, but some of those heavy spicy ones like Opium make me sick. Just this morning I got on the elevator as a woman was exiting, wafting her perfume trail behind her and almost gagged. At the next floor a guy got on, sniffed and then glared at me as if I was the culprit. Because I know that people are sensitive to perfumes and scents, it has been years since I've worn any perfume to work. I'll wear some on the weekends for my own enjoyment or my husband's but rarely out in public anymore.

[fortyfeetunder]

12. there is perfume that smells like bug killer

Who knows what it will do to bugs for real?

As for me, I've returned back to nature. Using only plant extract oils to scent.

[Laughing Mirror]

25. Poison by Christian Dior

I wonder if that's the scent you're talking about. It's got to be. It came out in the sometime in the 1980s. Women everywhere started crawling out of the wordwork putting it on. It smelled like wasp spray from the 1950's. I couldn't believe anybody would spray on bug spray and call it perfume. Either somebody at Christian Dior is a marketing genius, or most of the world's noses are dead from so much pollution they don't even smell it, but I learned how to detect Poison by Dior from as far as half a block away, and would dash in another direction to avoid it wafting over my way.

[countryjake]

26. Foof!

ROTFLMBO! I know exactly the one you mean! (And I think it is all that particulate matter killed people's respiratory systems!)

[KansDem]

13. As a smoker (pipe & occasional cigar) I've had to adjust to change...

Used to be a time I could smoke about anyplace...Not any more. I've had to adjust my routine to accommodate the anti-smoking crowd. No sweat!, I just indulge at home, in the car, or at smoker-friendly bars and restaurants...

However, once the smokers were driven underground, I wondered how long it would take for attention to turn to the "marinate your face with perfume/cologne" crowd.

I too have experienced perfume/cologne that would gag a smoker of cheap cigars...

[GoSolar]

15. There are many products like this.

Consider all the unnatural stuff people use, like sunscreen and make-up all flowing downstream. Even chemicals like caffeine and medicines have been found in our water. Not only affects aquatic life, but also the people who drink the water.

[alfredo]

17. they have found Prozac in water. Most likely it

passes out through the urine.

[countryjake]

27. It all ends up in the food chain, eventually.

So if it doesn't kill them at the time they use it, twenty years from now, we're all eating it. These poor mothers in Greenland is just one of the most horrific examples...like any of them ever even saw a product soaked in PCBs!

http://swisswhales.org/polarexp/polarexp16.html

[mslux]

16. The only person who should smell your perfume

is one you are having sex with. That, to me, would be the correct level of scent.

[Ms_Mary]

21. Burt's Bees stuff rocks. I have a lot of chemical sensitivites and

I use almost all natural products. At one point I was even making my own lotions but I don't have time for that now. Beauty products and scents have some horrible ingredients in them. I'm a label reader and it pays off for me. I even use a natural deodorant and I'm never stinky, really.

[superconnected]

29. I'm way allergic to perfume and cologne

in the early 90's I worked at a place where some woman wore a lot of perfume every day(don't know the brand) and you could smell it in the hallway after she walked through. My throat would constrict, I'd go into sneezing fits where I got so light headed I thought I was going to pass out because I was involuntarily sneezing so fast I couldn't take a breath. My eyes would burn up to hour afterward. I'd be in the bathroom keeping my face near running water in the sink and sneezing so hard people didn't want to go in there. I started taking stairs - 8 flights, just to get to the lunch room and back and I tried like heck to avoid her areas. If I walked in the elevator and she'd been there it was unavoidable - her lingering smell would trigger my system. A few times I didn't get out before the door closed. That elevator took off fast.

She felt it was my problem and not hers. She refused to stop wearing perfume.

I ended up with a terrible bias about people who wear so much. I called her the exterminator.

[demigoddess]

30. I can beat that story

I was standing outside on the top of a hill on a very windy day with no one inside half a block that I could see. After the lady in front of me filled her gas tank and moved on I drove up and got out to fill my tank and could smell perfume on the air. Often I can smell cigarette smoke in a parking lot when a smoker opens their car door. It has a nice side effect, my kids never smoked because they knew I could smell it a mile off.