I was out with friends the other day and the conversation turned to allergies because my little girl had recently been diagnosed as having eczema, or contact dermatitis, caused by a perfume allergy. We all agreed that it seemed that a lot more people suffered from allergies than they ever used to when we were younger. In fact I alone could immediately think of 5 people who were suffering from an allergy, or thought they were. But like my friend pointed out the symptoms of sensitivity, intolerance and allergy are often very similar so how do people know which one they have? I decided to look into perfume allergy further to get a better understanding of what causes it and what the symptoms are.
My first discovery about a perfume allergy actually surprised me. I had read that it was the introduction of a new fragrance that tended to be the cause of a perfume allergy (parfume allergi is the Danish term). In fact this relates to sensitivity and intolerance and not to allergy. The reason that a person suffers from an allergy is because their immune system has become extra sensitive and identified an everyday and harmless ingredient as a threat to our body – this is better known as an ‘allergen’. The immune system then goes into attack mode and releases histamines into our blood stream. These histamines then attach to cells and create the allergy symptoms. However the immune system needs to have come into contact with the specific allergen at least once in the past. Many people find that they have used products containing the allergen for months or years with no problem at all.
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