Struggling… everywhere stinks! Toxic scent - is it just me?

[Strawbaler]

Is it just me or has the toxic fug of perfumed scents in everyday life reached unbearable levels?

I am fortunate to live in the countryside and work from home, but when I go into urban/busy places it can be headache inducing…

Toilets with chemical fresheners (especially the ones that squirt perfume periodically) make me feel ill

The smell from the washing powder aisle in the supermarket is so strong I rush through it as fast as I can

I feel that in the last ten years or so, the technology to make powerful, long-lasting scents has spread to everything.

I know there are links between chemical scents & phthalates etc and cancers, so I personally go out of my way to find unscented products, but it’s hard to avoid them in everyday life

I can smell my neighbours washing line from 75 meters away, that can’t be right?!

Is it just me?

YANBU! I too can't abide strong perfumes and fragrances.

I find it very stressful sitting next to someone in close proximity (for example, in a theatre or on a plane) who is drenched in strong perfume.

Perfumes often make me feel a bit sick and give me a headache. Certain types of perfumes (and I've no idea which ingredients cause this) can additionally completely block my nose and give me an incredibly "stuffed up" feeling in my sinuses, forcing me to breathe through my mouth.

Needless to say, I never use perfume myself and neither does DH. I never use air fresheners or reed diffusers or scented candles or any of that sort of thing. I find the heady stink of a sprayed air freshener to be far more unpleasant than a "just been poo'd in" toilet smell!

@DiscoBob marks & Spencer do an unscented non bio laundry liquid which is good for eczema/sensitive skin, does 50nwashes and only £5.50 too.
I have to be careful as appear to be allergic to most perfumes, faith in nature brand is good for toiletries as only perfumed with natural essential oils.🌻

Sounds like you have sensory issues, much better than than people with bo.

I can't stand perfume. It smells horrible and gives me migraine. I really think spraying it in an enclosed space is on a level with microwaving fish in the office. Utterly inconsiderate of everyone else who has to smell it.

Wow, thanks for your input everyone, this has been fascinating!!

Clearly for many people it's not an issue at all, but SO many like me are actually suffering from these excessive chemicals

I have read that the chemicals (phthalates and others) in modern fragrance/perfumes are endocrine (hormone) disruptors, and there's evidence to suggest they are negatively effecting our fertility, our everyday hormone function, when girls start their periods (getting earlier and earlier) and when women start peri-menopause. Apparently if you go through IVF many women are recommended to avoid scented products, can anyone verify that?

I should emphasise that I am very pro-clean! Plenty of hot water + simple soaps + fresh air = all good! I hate musty, mouldy smells, dirt generally, and BO! But while those smells are all very unpleasant, they don't generally make me feel ill/get a migraine. That's the difference with the chemicals, I'm sure of it.

A couple of people have mentioned duty-free at the airport - oh my god, I so agree with you! It worries me for the people that have to spend day after day in there for their work. It cannot be healthy. And toilet chemicals in airport loos - jeese, the poor cleaners having to breathe that in all day!

I feel like there has been a huge social change in the acceptance of allergies and food intolerances, but these long-lasting powerful scent chemicals that are making so many people ill, are still pretty unregulated?

I've just done a quick google search to see what evidence/studies i can find about pthalates and fragrance causing or worsening cancers and other illnesses, and there's so, so many :(

https://www.bcpp.org/resource/phthalates/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9163252/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7351345/
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9194627/

I have a particular hatred for aftershave. When I cycle home from work on a Friday night, the reek of it on our streets with all the men off on their night-out is foul. And if there's a game at the local football club.. the stench is unbearable 🤢

Oh OP, this is excellent information.

I'm aware of endocrine system disruptors too, in the form of things like BPA in plastic or something like medication (such as antifungal creams that would make my movement disorder symptoms worse).

It's great you are so clued up. They reckon children can be affected by things like hand cream etc if used too often, ad the chemicals in these can affect their less mature endocrine system too.

I am not as sensitive as the OP but do have problems with lots of different smells. Sprays such as deodorant and air freshener can cause an asthma attack. Lots of chemical smells and even natural smells, such as lilies, can cause a migraine. Smells on public transport or taxis can cause travel sickness. If I buy something from Vinted or Ebay it can take several washes to get rid of the unpleasant, strong smell of perfumed washing products.

This might interest you, OP:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/sep/14/kids-sunscreen-lotions-phthalates-study

I absolutely love the smell of fairy/bold/persil but I avoid using it as much as possible, going to eco (and therefore low/no scent) wherever possible. I have a set of scented sticks in our downstairs bathroom and occasionally dab a bit of essential oil on a card in our living room to make a gentle fragrance. I really miss more scent (I don’t really wear perfume anymore either) but when ttc I cut everything out due to health reasons and fertility advice. It’s really worrying how much stuff we all do/eat/use that is 100% affecting our health.

I do however, hate plug ins, glade things, fake chemical scented rooms etc.

Don’t notice it myself, I’m happy that there’s nice smells rather than bo and other horrible things

Just to answer your question lower down op, we followed the advice in ‘It Starts With The Egg’ and that was to cut out as much fragrance as we possibly could, change all washing cleaning products to eco ones and bunch some of which we were doing anyway, but even more. I even changed the ones at work since I clean a lot as part of my job. That, alongside all the vitamins and a more whole foods diet got me pregnant within 3 months (they say it takes 3 months for the effects to come into place with the eggs) and I’d never had one pregnancy test in 2 years of trying. I was able to cancel my IVF appointment- best feeling ever.

Fascinating, thank you

Absolutely thrilled for you on the pregnancy 😊congratulations

You are completely right. The amount of scented stuff people use on themselves, their clothes, their belongings - it’s unbearable. In your own home, fine, but don’t spray that rubbish when you’re on train carriages, buses, work, or in my house.

Nearly everyone can agree that liking perfume is subjective (ie not everyone will pick out the same one if you go to a perfume store), but somehow if my neighbours burn a rank scented candle or incense (full of toxic chemicals) and it comes into ours all day long, that’s completely fine? It boggles the mind.

I can only think that some people genuinely have almost no sense of smell, or are so terrified of their own body odour that they want to douse everything in scented products.

I genuinely find scent pollution as offensive as noise pollution - with the cherry on top that you don’t have any recourse to file a complaint about it like you could with persistent noise pollution!

I have this, it has got worse since I had kids but I remember always being sensitive and choking on air fresheners when I was a child. When I was pregnant cosmetics were my worst vomit triggers. I had to change shampoo, conditioner etc and even then would often vomit in shower. I couldn’t walk down the laundry aisle at all. We went through duty free in airport and I vomited.
Since then (and def not pregnant) it has remained pretty bad. I can smell EVERYTHING immediately and my husband can’t notice a thing but I will always turn out to be right. He changed deodorant and the new one made me sick, I can smell it everywhere. Same with a special new detergent soap he got. We had to bin it and even now I’m still hit by the smell every time we open the cupboard. If I walk past someone smoking now I’m struggling not to retch. My neighbours did building work and I could smell the varnish - I know what it was because I had to go and ask them as it was effecting me so badly.
its clearly something hormonal and it’s awful to live with. I don’t understand the people who think someone is lying just because they can’t smell it. We are all different!!! And I also hate normal bad smells too, but there seems to be some chemical note in certain cosmetics and products which literally makes me sick.

Not over the top for anyone suffering from a chemical sensitivity like myself.

And scented toilet paper and sanitary pads

Oh I'm with you OP. I can't abide the strong smell of detergents these days, I don't understand why it has become so prevalent. I have to put my clothes through an extra rinse cycle in an effort to reduce the pong. I used to use M&S washing powder as it had a gentle perfume, but alas they stopped making it.

This is making me wonder... how in victorian times there were lead pipes carrying our water, and lead paint on our walls, and on kids toys. And formaldehyde, mercury, even arsenic in cosmetics... and how we think 'well, thank goodness we're not blindly killing ourselves like that any more..!!!!!

But these modern chemicals are causing cancer and infertility and god knows what else?!

I absolutely agree that people should be clean, but do we all have to smell 'of something', and that smell has to last for days or weeks or months?

If you put laundry in storage, it shouldn't still stink of fragrance when you get it out a year later? What chemicals are they having to add to make it do that?!

Not to mention radium, which was considered a bit of a novelty when it was first discovered and was used in luminous paint and even cosmetics!

Fully agree! I have extremely bad migraines and scents set them off. I really struggle in day to day life.

Are you pregnant?!

Sure, when people are pregnant their sensitivity to smell goes up considerably.

But if you have a moment to read through all the replies, I'm learning that I am one of many many people really struggling with this!

I feel like we are the 'canaries in the coalmine'. These chemicals are potentially negatively effecting everyone, causing life-limiting illnesses and cancers, whether the smell bothers you or not

Also a question for people if possible: is there anything that you like to use, or can use, that mostly or always doesn't trigger the super sensitive reaction?
Very little on the laundry front for me, though the blue travel wash (in mini bottles) is ok, but not a practical solution for normal washes.
Ginger shampoo - very cheap variety
A few bar soaps, often described as face soaps (which probably means no or very little soap in them), or some posh versions like olive oil soap with creamy scent like what they describe as almond or apricot.

I like perfume OP, but can confirm it's not just you. Car air fresheners walking past people's vehicles. I've also noticed that schoolkids smell like airport duty free now, not impulse. I can smell a vape long after its owner has walked on if I'm on a dogwalk. During lockdown, right at the start when people just stopped going out, I could smell the farms a few miles up from us and realised that would have been a normal occurrence maybe a century ago - we're used to a lot more stink now. I think it's telling that you can literally buy perfume for laundry now, "scent boosters". There's either a conflation of strong smelling with clean, or we've all become a bit anosmic. I am someone who can walk into lush and not get a headache, and I have been known to spray perfume, forget and put another one on a few hours later, and I still notice it.