I believe synthetic perfumes

are not good for you. It's no different than many of the other countless chemicals tht are part of our lifestyles.

When I've looked at the safety data, I've found a lot of concerning things, although you have to dig to get at it.

The perfuming industry is so secretive that it gets away with a bit more than it should.

Consider it a

"calculated", though unknown, risk. This is another argument for small doses of perfume.

I prefer essential oils

and natural substances; and synthetics judiciously, in small quantities. Some of the finer perfumes do take this

approach, but many don't, such as Chanel, which is full of alipathic aldehydes.

I'm not a big commercial

perfume guy, for this reason.

Synthetic musks, along with certain other perfume chemicals, can and will affect

hormone levels. That is cetainly one reason why some of them seem to function as analog pheromones, to greater or

lesser extents. (Galaxolide is a unisex, but fairly weak, example; as is ambrettolide.) To me it's a bad thing only

when overused.

Eugenol is in many, many perfumes, especially spicy ones (most all of them, such as carnation

scents) and men's aftershaves. But I don't worry about contact dermatitis so much, since you would know it, and

since amounts are so small.

I'm not a big fan of vanillin (Benzaldehyde, 4-Hydroxy-3-methoxy)and the other

synthetic vanillas, which are indeed toxic and way overused. It irks me that it is so popular. If you smell

synthetic vanilla up close, at a store or whatever, you'll notice you won't feel that great afterwards. Almost no

one uses real vanilla anymore (there is a lot of it in Pheros, however).