How Toxic Are Perfumes?

Have you considered that sweet smell you just put on or smelled on someone else may be the cause of long-term health problems?

The idea isn’t to scare you but it is rather a scary because the use of perfumes is common among us all today but it may pose dangers to our health.

Many of the ingredients used in perfumes are believed to be derivatives of petroleum and research has linked them to be a cause of hormone disruption causing cancer, obesity, diabetes or thyroid disease, sperm damage, allergies or reproductive toxicity.

Related: Essential Oils For Beginners

How Toxic Are Perfumes?

Perfumes labels don’t list all the ingredients due to the protection of their trade secret so you don’t really know what you’re actually applying on your skin when you are applying perfume.

The toxins used in these perfumes can easily be absorbed into our skin and cause damage over prolonged use.

Analysis conducted by Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a nonprofit along with the Environmental Working Group, Breast Cancer Fund, And Clean Water Action among others found many top-selling perfume brands containing a dozen of the toxic chemicals that are known to be damaging to our health.

The team of members from all the non-profits tested perfumes of popular brands such as Chanel Coco, Calvin Klein Eternity for Men, Cherry Blossom, Halle by Halle Berry, Hannah Montana Secret Celebrity and among other.

Overall they tested 17 popular fragrance brands.

The results of the study on average revealed that:

  • Perfumes contained at least ten sensitizing chemicals that are known and responsible to cause allergic reactions. These can range from headaches, wheezing, and asthma to contact dermatitis.
  • Perfumes contained four types of chemicals that are known to cause hormone disruptions, which can lead to cancer, sperm damage, and thyroid damage
  • Twenty four hidden chemicals were found in American Eagle Seventy Seven, which was the highest number of chemicals found in any product of the sample.

Takeaway

All seventeen perfume brands that were analyzed are listed here if you want to read more about them.

If you do not use one of these perfumes, don’t be so quick to feel glad because chances are that if popular perfume brands are using toxic chemicals to produce the good smell, others are as well.

Perfume manufacturers sadly aren’t required to disclose all the ingredients on their labels nor are they required to paste a warning meaning that only if after you have tried one of the perfumes and started feeling allergic can you know it contains something that doesn’t suit you- possible a toxic chemical!

The analysis revealed how toxic perfumes are but other beauty products are also just the same. Toxins are being used in everything from beauty care products such as makeup, deodorants, and soaps to other house cleaning products as well.

Our exposure to them is limitless and if you must smell nice, make it not at the risk of these toxins.

What You Can Do

Find organic and toxic-free products to help keep you smelling fresh without the toxins by researching at the EWG.org SkinDeep website. Products are listed and given ratings.

I gave up perfume years ago and found a few essential oils that I dab on to smell nice and I get therapeutic benefits from them as well.

If you don’t know much about oils you can get my free report Essential Oils For Beginners.

What Do You Think? Will you make some changes to the type of perfume you wear?

Have you thought about that perfume you are wearing and how it could be the cause of your health problems? Crazy huh? Find out why perfumes could be dangerous to your health