Fragrances

When I was a kid I remember my mother putting on Chanel Number Five to smell nice when she dressed up. Later I would wear perfumes, colognes, or what was actually called toilet water for special occasions. And once in a while my mother would use Air Wik to cover up an unpleasant odor in the house.

But in the late 1970s and early '80s fragrances started showing up -or smelling up - everywhere. From disposable diapers to cleaning products, laundry detergents to all personal care products, scented candles and air fresheners, fragrances have been everywhere ever since.

And that's a big problem.

We had to change churches many times because of my husband's severe allergic reactions to people sitting near him. While my allergies to perfumes are less severe, those smells may trigger my asthma. Even natural fragrances from botanicals can cause reactions in some people with pollen allergies.

And "odor eliminators" don't actually eliminate odors. Instead they make people's noses unable to detect the smells. That can be extremely dangerous for people with severe allergies.

Just about the time when fragrances began showing up in all kinds of products lots of babies were born who turned out to have autism. That condition had previously been rare but more and more kids are being diagnosed with it. Could one of the factors causing autism be exposure to the fragrances?

And what about pollution? Certainly other chemicals are in our atmosphere in greater amounts, but couldn't the ones in fragrances be part of that problem, too?

People who don't use colognes or perfumes often think they're fragrance free, but their noses are so used to the odors in their laundry and personal care products they aren't aware that they smell like those things all the time.

I think if most people switched to unscented products the world would be a safer place.

Acne

When I was a teenager I had terrible acne, and the zits had a negative effect on my social life and self esteem. And I'm certainly not the only one who ever had to deal with pimples.

I just did a google search for the word, acne, and got 129,000,000 hits.

Lots of the sites gave information about the influence of hormones, stress, and suggested treatments. One page I visited said about 3/4 of all teens have the problem and adults often have it, too.

My acne continued well into my 20s when I discovered something only mentioned on a few of the websites. While hormones and stress did play a part, my acne was primarily caused by food allergies.

Surprisingly, that's not unusual.

Food allergies don't always show up on skin tests and it can take several days for people to react to things they eat or drink, so many people are allergic to foods but don't know it.

If anyone who has acne also has a family history of allergies, and especially if they are allergic to anything themselves, it might be a good idea for them to investigate the possibility that their pimples are an allergic reaction to something they eat or drink.

While a complete elimination diet is extremely difficult, results can sometimes be found by avoiding all the foods someone frequently eats for a week, then adding one of those foods back every five days. Keeping a diary of what is eaten and when reactions occur can show a pattern. (I'm not a medical practitioner and only speak from personal experience.)

Yes, doing all that is a bit of a nuisance, but it's worth the effort to get rid of the acne. It worked for me.