What's that Awful Smell?

Perfume was invented in Egypt long ago before the discovery of plumbing, soap, bathtubs, and showers. People in those times wanted a way to smother the acrid, stinking, nauseating smell of their unwashed, bacteria-covered bodies. The more they reeked of toe-jam, fungus, sweat, oily skin, feces, urine, bacteria, and other filth, the more they poured on smelly perfume which only intensified their disgusting stench. Gradually, the use of various fragrances to cover up body odor spread to many other nations. While Europeans, for example, struggled to cover up one disgusting stink with another, the Japanese had a breakthrough concept: cleanliness is next to godliness, so they invented and perfected the daily bath. They turned cleanliness into an art while ending each day in the pleasant, relaxing luxury of a long, hot bath. Regardless of social status, everybody could indulge in this wonderful pleasure.

Despite the ingenious Japanese discovery of a way people could avoid smelling like buckets of dead fish, men and women in the western world persisted in relying on perfume to smother their ungodly odor. Stink over stink over stink. Over the generations, even after the introduction of baths and showers to the unwashed masses, by sheer habit, they multiplied their assault on noses and lungs by adding “fragrances” to thousands of products such as dish soap, bath soap, shampoo, hair spray, detergent, and so forth. Sadly, until now, nobody bothered to find if all these terrible smells were damaging our health. To quote Mamavation.com, “Way back in 1986, the National Academy of Sciences recommended Congress test fragrances for neurotoxicity. Unfortunately, we are still waiting on that study, however, other studies have been done. The EPA tested fragrances for chemicals in 1991 and found a list of the following toxic perfume chemical ingredients: acetone, benzaldehyde, benzyl acetate, benzyl alcohol, camphor, ethanol, ethyl acetate, limonene, linalool and methylene chloride – usually in some combination. According to InvisibleDisabilities.org, these chemicals can cause central nervous disorders, kidney damage, respiratory failure, ataxia and many less serious but still troubling symptoms such as GI tract irritation, dizziness, fatigue and more.”

Long before the discovery that perfumes jeopardize human health, I disliked the smell of most flowers, except for light hints of jasmine and lilac. I have long detested all artificial perfumes and find it difficult to avoid these smelly products because they are everywhere. I shampoo my hair and end up smelling like a grocery store produce department, a flower garden, or a pine forest. The toddler who lives with her parents in the house next door is swallowing a mouthful of dishwasher soap because it smells like lemonade. Good-bye, little girl.

Only in America and other western nations do I find myself trapped in an elevator with a group of ladies who smell like a sewer while they talk about how pleasant-smelling their perfumes are. That simply does not happen in Japan where some women might use perfume, but if so, they use it so sparingly you’re not sure if the aroma really exists or if you imagine it. People who really know their perfumes say that’s the effect you should strive for. Sadly, most perfume users I encounter have either burned out their sniffers from overuse inhaling glue and paint fumes or, like their European predecessors, their body order simply mixes with the awful perfumes they slather on.

Working in the United States, a young Japanese woman I know complained to her boss about the heavy use of perfume by her American colleagues. Not only did she find the odors disgusting, she happened to be allergic to perfumes and, as a result, suffered from hay fever-like symptoms. Rather than to tell employees to not wear perfume or aftershave at work, as most companies in Japan do, her American boss and co-workers regarded her as a troublemaker and transferred her to a different building where she was far away from the people she worked with.

Now that we know perfumes pose a definite danger to human health, we can hope that our Congressional representatives will protect us by enacting legislation to ban the sale and use of these dangerous volatile chemicals. That is if they’re not too busy taking bribes from the NRA, pharmaceutical industry, the Military-Industrial Complex, Wall Street bankers, and fragrance manufacturers.