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).
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