For those without chemical or environmental sensitivities – the accepted terms for people who react in some way to chemicals in their environments, which would include those from perfumes and scented body products – it might all seem a little silly. But for the estimated 2.4 per cent of the population who are sensitive to them, an encounter can be uncomfortable at best and downright debilitating at worst. Reactions include airway and nasal irritation causing coughing or stuffiness, headaches, nausea, dizziness, and confusion.
You may not love the scent of your coworker’s hand cream or the perfume wafting across the aisle on the train. It could be simply because you don’t like the smells. But if the smells really bother you, you might have a smell sensitivity—also called fragrance sensitivity.
An outright ban on scented products would be next to impossible to enforce. However, human allergies are on the rise and we’ve done it to ourselves. It stems from the foods we eat AND our approach to feeding newborns to the cosmetics and creams.
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