Our lives are defined by our disabilities just as much as they are by our abilities, maybe more so. I can wiggle my tongue back and forth very fast and move my eyes independently of each other. Neither of which actually defines me or counts as any thing special; peculiar maybe, but not special.
Mostly it's a disability of mine that concerns me and defines much of my life an intolerance of fragrances. I wrote recently about my quest for a fragrance free bar soap that doesn't have some other unacceptable, to me, property. Today, I am concerned with laundry detergents and hair shampoos.
Laundry Detergents
It seems to me that way too much fuss is made over laundry detergents. All you really need is something that gets your clothes, linens, blankets and towels etcetera clean. Something that will remove the sweat and skin oils, dirt, pet dander, last night's dinner or any other element you consider to be undesirable.
Why do they need to have a color? Why do they need to smell like a spring morning or lavender or the latest designer fragrance? I've smelled an actual spring morning and I have yet to experience any man-made fragrance that even comes close.
Right now we are using 2X Ultra All, Free and Clear. It has no dyes or fragrances of any kind. It gets our fabric items clean and they smell clean. Not like the perfume counter in some department store. There is a commercial on television for an air "freshener" (what a misnomer) product of some sort wherein two males (father and son, I believe) are sitting slouched on a sofa watching television. They both suddenly smell something bad. It is coming from the kitchen. They go into the kitchen and spray the offending trash can with the product and return, happily, to the sofa. Why did they not just remove the garbage to an outdoor garbage receptacle? And since when does spraying all sorts of chemicals into the air make it fresher? Arrgh! Does putting a fragrance in a laundry detergent make the clothes any cleaner?
The truth is that we have no favorite laundry detergent. We buy what ever is the best value and has no dyes or fragrances. I guess you could say that my favorite laundry detergent is one that is devoid of those things. When the All runs out, we will use Costco's version of eco-friendly, no dyes, no fragrances laundry detergent. In the past, we have also used Cheer. They all pretty much do a fine job of getting clothes clean with little fuss or bother.
Because we have a septic system and are not hooked up to a sewer system, we don't use chlorine bleach (did you know that you can actually buy scented chlorine bleach) with our laundry detergent either. Nor do we use a detergent that has any kind of bleaching agent added to it. It tends to kill the bacteria in the septic tank and that can be a problem. So our whites get a little grey over time. I've never seen the problem with this. If people want to judge my worth by the state of my whites, well let them. This whole obsession with your whites being the whitest that they can be seems to me to be silly. I'm sure it's just a way for the manufacturer to sell more of its product; you know, create the idea that anything less than really white whites is morally unacceptable and a source of concern and perhaps fear.
Hair Shampoo
Well, this seems to be turning into more of a rant than the article on bar soaps did.
It seems to me that way too much emphasis has been put on smelling more like Calvin Klein, Elizabeth Taylor or Gloria Vanderbilt, than simply smelling like yourself. This emphasis has bled over into all sorts of other products up to and including scented trash bags. If you just tossed well, I covered that in the previous section. Hair shampoos have always had fragrances added to them, but in recent years, those fragrances have become much stronger. Also, it seems that manufacturers are not content to find one that is nice and stay with it; no they have to tweak it and make it more "designer." This happened with the one fragranced shampoo that I could tolerate. It was made by Suave and was their Tropical Coconut variety. They still make it, but it is not nearly as nice as it once was. I can still use it, but I have to be even more careful in the rest of my life because of it. It seems that I have an exposure threshold go past that and disaster strikes.
I could buy shampoos that have no fragrances added, they do exist. But having to pay more for a product that has something left out of it just irks me. And I wouldn't mind that my clean hair would smell only like my clean hair. But we are not wealthy and save money wherever we can.
I believe that the use of phthalates to make fragrances linger longer is directly responsible for the proliferation of scents. In the past, perfumes were expensive because they were made from expensive ingredients. One of those is mink musk, if you add that to a perfume, it will stay on your skin (or whatever) much longer. In the beginning, artificial fragrances did not linger long at all and so what was the worth in buying the Giorgio knock-off if two hours later you had to re-apply? Enter phthalates (which have been banned in Europe for use in anything that children might contact) and the problem was solved. So now, not only are there more fragrances around than ever before, they hang around forever and are almost impossible to get rid of once they get into something.
When my husband, Bernd, visited his relatives in Germany , he was there long enough that he needed to do some laundry. When he returned home, all his clothing was so smelly (not dirty, fragranced) that we had to wash it about ten times before it returned to a level that I could tolerate. And the smell was hard to get out of our washing machine which has a steel tub. Thank goodness we didn't dry any of it in the dryer with its plastic drum until we'd washed it many times.
I'm not saying that the whole world has to sit up and take measures to make my life more enjoyable for me. I'm more realistic than that. And when I go into another person's home (which I do not do very often), I do so knowing that they have made the choices that are right for them. I expect no less. What I have to wonder is how much harm people are doing to themselves and are not aware of it. I can't be the only person who is harmed by fragrances. Maybe we should take a harder look at allergies and autism and asthma. They have increased in frequency over the last few years. You never know.
(I'm sorry Avis; this probably isn't what you expected.)
Dianne Lehmann is a jewelry designer who has been in business since January of 2000. Her interest in designing and manufacturing jewelry goes back beyond that to 1994. It took her many years of trying various creative outlets to finally figure out that making jewelry is where she could really shine. Dianne began with simply stringing beads onto cable and has progressed from there. She is now an accomplished lapidary (cuts and polishes stones) and silversmith. Dianne and her husband, Bernd, live in northern Arizona and both love to hike. Dianne can not help but pick up rocks (they are her first love) and some of these find their way into her jewelry. Dianne makes one-of-a-kind pieces that she hopes give people as much joy to view as she gets from the making of them.If you like, you may view her work at http://www.syzygyjewelry.com
Dianne, you did not disappoint me at all! I am sorry for being late to respond. Life! :) No complaints.
I'm not sure you recall but I am sensitive to fragrances, too but not nearly as acutely as you are. I must stay out of the men/women fragrance department or risk a migraine. I stopped getting magazines because of those scented fragrance strips in them that contaminated my mailbox. But, I like fragrances bleach, detergent and soap. So you let me have it! LOL
No, you explained very clearly that others should do what they want for themselves. You made a great point about the harm we may be doing to ourselves because of our 'scented' society!
I loved the opening. You are peculiar and special. :) Both are distinctly you and I'm still lovin' it!
Thank you for ranting in your writing. It's always becoming and tasteful!
Late? What's late? I'm only just now getting to look at the computer since I uploaded the article early Monday morning. Our fridge died! Mad scramble and all that. The new one was delivered just about 2 hours ago. Yeah!
I had forgotten that you are also fragrance intolerant (the two delivery guys were wearing lots of cologne) and that it gives you migraines too. The only magazines we get are Discover and Popular Science ... no nasty fragrance samples in those.
Dove makes an unscented bath bar, but their regular scent is very mild and tolerable to my sensitive nose, eyes, and skin. In fact, it is one of the few scents in the world that I actually like.
Purex makes a nice unscented un-dyed laundry detergent. If you add a little Borax, your whites will get white. If you want to get rid of germs in your laundry, you can add a tiny touch of Odo-Ban to a second wash cycle. It adds a light eucalyptus scent that is another rare scent that I actually like and can tolerate. Odo-Ban contains good bacteria that eats bad bacteria. Sorry I can't explain that better. I don't know microbials. You can get Odo-Ban only from Sam's Club, but its worth the bother to have it around. It has many other cleaning uses.
One last comment: I wish I could sue Macy's department store for every time they put one of those horrific smelling magazines in my mailbox. It's bad enough that those stores spray their clothing with sickening scents. They could at least stop at sending them to our homes.
By the way, fragrance sensitivity is legally considered a disability which means that it is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. What that means for you is that you can demand reasonable accommodations in certain situations.
Keep up the crusade. There are many of us who are with you on this.
Thank you so much for the information. I had no idea it was legally considered a disability. I also wrote an article about bar soaps. We use the fragrance free Dove and really like it. And I hadn't thought about the borax. My mom used to use that years ago, but it never entered my mind.
Thank you so much for reading and leaving your comments. I really appreciate them.
i sympathize with your condition. my partner needs to use dye free laundry detergent and ivory soap. allergies are not fun to have. i'm glad you have been able to find substitutes that work as well, if not better, and are better for the environment. thanks for sharing this,
I feel that my disability has actually made my life and my husband's a little more healthy. Unfortunately for him though, because we use no fragrances at home, he has become more sensitive to detecting them with his sense of smell. I remember when my father-in-law quit smoking, all he did was complain about other people's cigarette smoke and how bad it smelled. It's sort of like that for Bernd.
Thanks for reading my rant and taking the time to comment on it.
Dianne - an interesting read. I never realized you could take these two subjects and write a complete and interesting article combining the two. Thanks, JP
Hi Dianne, I am not particularly sensitive to fragrances (only bad ones!) but my wife has problems with shampoos, soaps and detergents etc which affects the skin quite badly, so I shall be sure she has a read of this article too! We are officially joining your bandwagon! Julian
Thanks. Sometimes I feel like a broken record, but I feel this issue needs more attention that it normally gets. Thanks for hopping on.
I think I'd almost rather get migraine headaches than have problems with my skin. My husband has eczema and so he has to be careful what he uses. I can sympathize with your wife.
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