Would A Rose By Any Other Name Smell As Sweet? – Likely Not, When It’s A Chemical ‘Fragrance’
Those of a certain age may remember Rowan Atkinson on TV and his visit to a department store perfume section. Overcome by ‘fumes’, he dropped to his knees then slithered and slimed across the floor pushing his shopping basket out front. In the thirty years since the sketch first aired such a scene may have seemed rather more real – more so with a current TV advert proclaiming ‘fragrance’ that can emanate from your washing for up to 12 weeks. Not sure who the marketers were, perhaps it was: UndyingChemicalsRus.com. So, what’s a cookin’ in the Chemists’ Lab this week, you may ask?
Well, I’ve been doing my homework as I’m presenting at an Island conference next month on ‘air freshness’ or more specifically on ‘air fresheners’ – those industrial maskers of something deemed too pongy to the average nasal tract. So why worry, what might have changed since these in vitro smells started to get up our hooters? Well, strength for one, they don’t so much linger and lurk long after the wearer has departed, some of them make the eyes water as if you’ve been punched hard in the face. Perhaps I need to get out more, although in some cases maybe not, preferring to avoid the increasingly shop sprayed nasal nuisances.
New synthetic chemicals, often with three letter acronyms appear daily from left field – yet if only it was purely a field… These TLA’s include: BPA, phthalates, or parabens which are all known EHD’s (endocrine hormone disrupters). However, the average open air field may not always help us as even the typical fruit orchard can be chemically sprayed a dozen times each season. The result of which, is sadly, that Farmers experience high incidences of blood cancer and multiple myelomas due to their repeated lung busting exposure. We’ve been here a while ago with seemingly ‘harmless fumes’ breathed in by ‘mad hatters’ hat makers who suffered mercury poisoning resulting in their steady neurological decline.
Reviewing the Cancer Active web site highlights how bladder cancer is also caused by the solvents used in dry cleaning – clearly a garden rose would smell sweeter while we know it is pre-programmed for steady and natural, daily, decay.