Iron-based process promises greener, cheaper and safer drug and perfume production

TORONTO, ON – University of Toronto researchers have developed a series of techniques to create a variety of very active iron-based catalysts necessary to produce the alcohols and amines used in the drug and perfume industry. The new synthetic methods promise to be safer and more economical and environmentally friendly than traditional industrial processes.

The research takes advantage of Earth's extensive supply of iron – the fifth most abundant naturally occurring metal – substituting it in place of the rare elements of ruthenium, rhodium, palladium and platinum traditionally used in the design of hydrogenation catalysts. The result is an exceptionally efficient class of iron complexes whose abilities rival and even surpass those of conventional industrial catalysts.

"There is a research effort world-wide to make chemical processes more sustainable and green by replacing the rare, expensive and potentially toxic elements used in hydrogenation, catalytic converters in cars, fuel cells for the efficient conversion of chemical energy into electricity, and silicone coatings, with abundant ions such as iron," says U of T chemistry professor Robert Morris, principal investigator of a study reported in the November 29 issue of Science. "Iron is about 10,000 times cheaper to obtain than ruthenium. And less than 200 metric tons of platinum-type metals are mined in the world every year, not all of it can be recycled after use, it is not essential to life, and it can be toxic."

"We found a way to make the ferrous form of iron behave in a catalytic process much more efficiently than a precious metal. We did this by finding molecules containing nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon and hydrogen, that bond to, and enhance, the reactivity of iron," says Morris.

The scientists inexpensively produced varieties of alcohol with different biological properties – which can be used in flavour and drug synthesis – and different smells, a property important to the perfume industry. In one example from the study, the precursor alcohol to a cancer treatment can be made using the hydrogenation process catalyzed by iron. Using iron, the resulting complex is often a better catalyst than the industrial one based on ruthenium.

The sustainable technology incubator GreenCentre Canada is already pursuing the commercialization of the new iron catalysts.

Source

Funding for this research was provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and GreenCentre Canada.

MEDIA CONTACTS:

Robert Morris
Department of Chemistry
University of Toronto
416-978-6962
robert.morris@utoronto.ca

Sean Bettam
Communications
Faculty of Arts & Science
University of Toronto
416-946-7950
s.bettam@utoronto.ca

Rare Disease Causes Man To Pass Out From Perfume Smell: 'Just One Whiff Of Chanel No 5 And I Collapse'

Glynn Parry, 36, can’t stand the smell of his wife Carrie Jones’ Chanel No. 5, but not because he thinks it’s an unpleasant odor. The resident of North Wales is rendered unconscious whenever he smells his wife’s perfume due to a rare genetic condition that triggers familial hemiplegic migraines. Parry and Jones are both worried that his condition could take a turn for the worst in the future.

“The worry is this could be life-threatening or he might not quite recover from an attack,” Jones told the Daily Express. In hopes of stopping her husband’s condition from progressing, Carrie has done away with her perfume in favor of a lightly scented shampoo.

Parry, a father of three, remembers getting his first debilitating migraine at the age of 14. Now, he says attacks are so intense that he loses his ability to move his extremities and sometime is left unable to speak. His condition has forced him to give up his job in the financial industry, and he is even worried about low-level brain damage that could be a result of his migraines.

“Some people react to chocolate, cheese, alcohol and caffeine. I’ve cut all of these out just to be safe,” Parry told the Daily Express. “But one of my strangest and strongest triggers is smells. I’m very sensitive to them. My wife Carrie wore some Chanel No 5 and I just dropped.”

According to The Migraine Trust, a hemiplegic migraine, also known as a “migraine variant,” is a migraine attack that causes temporary weakness on one side of the body. Familial hemiplegic migraines (FHM) occur in two or more people within the same family. Children born to parents who suffer from FHM face a 50 percent chance of developing the disorder.

"A burning pain occurs in the right side of my brain followed by gradual paralysis and I have to be rolled into the recovery position," Parry told BBC Radio. "I have two to three attacks a week. It's a difficult thing to live with and it impacts on every aspect of my life."

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New methods to trace fragrance allergens

A recent doctoral thesis from the University of Gothenburg presents new methods to trace allergenic fragrance compounds in consumer products, such as perfumes.

Since cosmetics and hygiene products generally are exposed to air when used, it is important to use air-exposed fragrance compounds when testing a patient for allergic reactions, and not only the pure fragrance compounds.

'I have developed methods for chemical analysis that for the first time make it possible to identify fragrance compounds that have been exposed to air and thus become potent allergens in small amounts and that people may come in contact with in consumer products,' says Johanna Rudbäck at the Department of Chemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Gothenburg.

Fragrance compounds are among the most allergenic substances in our environment and are almost always used in cosmetics and hygiene products.

Rudbäck studied two essential oils containing some of the most common fragrance compounds, sweet orange oil and petitgrain oil. The researchers have previously shown that exposing some common fragrance compounds to air leads to the formation of potent allergens, hydroperoxides in particular.

'My analyses show that hydroperoxides from the fragrance compounds were present already before the bottles were opened, and the levels increased when the oils were exposed to air. The study shows that the oils didn't have any natural protection against the formation of allergenic compounds,' says Rudbäck.

To learn more about what happens when exposing fragrance compounds to air, Rudbäck studied two additional commonly used fragrance compounds, alpha-terpinene and citronellol. Alpha-Terpinene is found in for example tea tree oil and citronellol, from geranium, is one of the six most common fragrance compounds in cosmetics and hygiene products.
'The allergenic effect of both compounds increased tenfold after air exposure compared to the pure fragrance compounds,' says Rudbäck.

The hydroperoxides from the fragrance compounds are generally difficult to identify and quantify. They are unstable and lack UV absorbance, and are very similar and come in several different forms. In addition, they are found in low concentrations in complex mixtures. The new methods involve separation of the hydroperoxides using either liquid or gas chromatography and detection using mass spectrometry.

'According to EU regulations, cosmetics must be specially labelled when containing fragrance allergens in concentrations exceeding 0.001% in stay-on products such as lotions and 0.01% in rinse-off products such as shampoos,' says Rudbäck.

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The Road to Finding Your Scent

Olivier Creed’s first creation when he became master perfumer at the age of 32, was Zeste Mandarine Pamplemousse.

He gave the scent as a gift to U.S. troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. when they came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

With top notes of bergamot, mandarin, and grapefruit, it was a gesture to herald happiness and sunshine.

Creed had just succeeded his father in the iconic perfume company, which was founded in 1760 and has served more than 10 royal houses.

The Catharsis of Scent

Undoubtedly the effect of scent is powerful and not always easy to describe. It may be a the link to a time or place that has etched itself in the unconscious until the moment when you catch a whiff of a certain smell that takes you back in time. There is catharsis in finding and wearing a scent.

So, the process of choosing your signature perfume is not without its perils. A good perfume connoisseur should be able to help you navigate your way to the one scent that blends with your skin as well as personality and becomes part of you.

“The job of a fragrance is that it speaks for you, it tells people a little bit about yourself without you saying a single word, and it could be intriguing, it could be power, or attraction,” explains Creed store director Luis Cavallo. I add that it communicates subliminally, but much more powerfully, than words.

Cavallo explains that our noses are only able to cope with three scents, after which the going gets tough and confusing. If there was one place where you wish you had a few noses, it’s the Creed store where, among other perfumes, you can sample the scents created for history’s VIP’s as they requested them.

A Walk Through Memory and History
“When you come into Creed it’s like a journey, coming here is taking a walk through history, stopping, recognising where you want to be, finding who you are, and that’s how we match your scent, and hopefully we can find a signature scent for you,” Cavallo said. “Coming here is finding yourself through scent.”

Having tried Jardin D’Amalfi (or Amalfi Garden), evoking a lush grove of flowers on Italy’s glittering Amalfi coast, and liking it, Cavallo takes me on a floral journey with Fleur de The’ Rose Bulgare, commissioned by Theodore Roosevelt for his second wife. Undoubtedly rosy, the bottled scent is far more scintillating than when I try it on. The reaction with my skin reminds me of an old fashioned record player stuck on a high note—the rose is there, but it’s screaming at me.

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'The Nose' knows perfumes — and shares his knowledge

It's not every day that one can attend a master class taught by a perfumer so prominent he's known simply as "The Nose.''

"Every day I have to wear a perfume," said Beatrice Schindler of Orlando, a collector of perfumes. "I know a lot of brands, but for a perfumer to explain the process — it's like an artist about to do a painting."

She and about 30 people attended an invitation-only seminar by Parisian Francis Kurkdjian held at the Neiman Marcus at Orlando's Mall at Millenia.

In fact, Kurkdjian's process is like that of many artists. A spark of inspiration soon leads to a product that not only smells good, but more importantly, tells a story, he told the champagne-sipping group. After his lecture, the attendees sniffed individual scents from one of his creations.

Kurkdjian, 44, who started his perfuming career when he was 20 years old, is one of the biggest names in the industry. Having created dozens of best-selling fragrances, including a commission to re-create the favorite perfume of Marie Antoinette, his work has earned him numerous awards and an exclusive partnership with Neiman Marcus.

"I have a nose like everyone here," Kurkdjian said. "There's only one difference: My head is capable of envisioning smells and scents that don't exist."

The master perfumer says that the entire process of creating a new scent takes roughly 18 months from conception to sale and distribution. Kurkdjian rejects the idea that fragrance making is a haphazard process of mixing random scents.

"I create a perfume because I have an idea," he said. "There is real thinking that goes into it and without a story, there is no perfume."

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Vanilla-Scented Beaver Butt Secretions Are Used In Food And Perfume

Castoreum is an anal secretion beavers use to mark their territories. It also happens to smell like vanilla.
More specifically, the raw form is often described as "birch tar or Russian leather." But when diluted in alcohol (not the kind you drink), the substance picks up "more pleasant, musky and fruity nuances," according to Fragantica.

It's been used in both food and perfumes for years, according to National Geographic's Mollie Bloudoff-Indelicato, who dug up a paper from 2007 in the International Journal of Toxicology.

Castoreum comes from the beaver's castor sac, located between the pelvis and base of the tail. Because of its close proximity to the anal glands, the substance often contains anal secretions and urine. The compound is non-toxic.

The gland's butt-proximity doesn't stop Joanne Crawford, a wildlife ecologist at Southern Illinois University, from encouraging people to stick their noses under the animal's tail and take a whiff.

"People think I’m nuts," she told Nat Geo. "I tell them, 'Oh, but it's beavers; it smells really good.'"

The secretions contain about 24 different molecules, some of which act as beaver pheromones.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration calls the beaver's goo a "generally safe" additive for food. For the past 80 years, food scientists have added it to products, often labeled only as "natural flavoring." Fernelli's Handbook Of Flavor Ingredients puts individual annual consumption of castoreum extract at only .000081 mg/kg/day, in products like frozen dairy, gelatins, puddings, and nonalcoholic beverages.

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Flavor and Fragrance Event at Rutgers Highlights Innovative Research for Key New Jersey Industry

At Rutgers’ recent Second Annual Flavor, Fragrance, and Perception Symposium, a team of the university’s faculty members presented their research and discoveries in aroma, taste, and sensory sciences to nearly 400 people from industry and academia and shared their perspectives on the state of the associated industry.

More than 120 companies from across the country sent representatives to the symposium, including a wide array of leading flavorists, perfumers, and product and business developers. The event's Gold Sponsors were Chromocell Corporation and Q Research Solutions. Matthias Guentert, president of Symrise's Flavor and Nutrition Division NA, was the keynote speaker.

The flavors and fragrances industry is a significant element of the state’s economy, with more than 125 companies in the sector. About 34,000 people in New Jersey, which is 1% of the workforce, are employed by those companies, according to a recent study by Rutgers analysts. These jobs pay an average of $88,000, far above the statewide average. The companies in this sector contribute over $4.2 billion in economic activity to the state.

“These data clearly illustrate that the flavor and fragrance manufacturing industry is an essential component of our state’s economy,” said Michael Van Wagner, executive director of the New Jersey Business Action Center.  “And this point is further demonstrated by a cluster analysis for the region, conducted by the Rutgers team, which shows a three-fold higher concentration of companies in this space than nationally.”

Rutgers’ sensory sciences researchers, along with global leaders in the flavor and fragrance industry, have been building a public-private partnership over the past year that includes faculty from each of the university’s campuses: New Brunswick, Newark, Camden and the Rutgers Health Sciences Campus at Newark. At the recent symposium, the Rutgers team announced their commitment to form a new University Center for Sensory Sciences and Innovation in January. Church & Dwight, Givaudan, and Symrise, all with operations in New Jersey, will be among the first companies to become charter members.

Margaret Brennan-Tonetta, associate vice president for Public-Private Partnerships at Rutgers University, stated  that “the proposed Center for Sensory Sciences and Innovation is an outstanding example of Rutgers’ commitment to creating partnerships that benefit industry, the university and New Jersey. The first charter members recognized early on the value of this center and its unique focus. Many other companies have expressed interest in joining the center as well. It will be a true win-win for all the partners involved.”

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BUSTED! Innovative Electrostatic Spray Ionization Method Detects Fake Perfumes

Scientists at EPFL have designed a quick method for detecting counterfeit perfumes, and have tested it on major brands like Givenchy, Hermes and D&G.

Counterfeit perfumes are costing the cosmetic industry and consumers significant amounts of money. But identifying imitation perfumes can be a difficult and time-consuming task despite a number of available analytical techniques. Publishing in Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, EPFL researchers have developed an innovative method called Electrostatic Spray Ionization that can analyze and identify counterfeit perfumes faster than conventional methods.

Six fragrances from well-known manufacturers including Givenchy, Hermes and D&G were tested by the team of Hubert Girault at EPFL using their novel detection method (ESTASI). The commercial fragrances were analyzed and compared to a ‘model’ perfume made up of ten different compounds. The results showed that the new method was able to quickly distinguish between authentic perfumes and their ‘model’ counterfeit. Because there is no need for time-consuming preparations of the samples before testing, the new method provides a rapid, high-throughput means of fingerprinting and identifying perfumes.

The first, and often most challenging step to analyzing a chemical is to ionize it; that is, to break it up into smaller pieces that carry an electrical charge. This is usually done by turning these fragment ions into a fine spray, which is why this process is called “electrospray ionization”. The ions are then analyzed by a detector that records the electrical charge of each passing ion. The result is a ‘fingerprint’ pattern that is unique to the tested sample and can be compared to fingerprints of other samples. This makes it possible to determine the elements that make up almost any chemical, including proteins or other complex compound.

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Eau De Toast: Combating Low-Carb Diets Through Bread-Scented Perfume

In an effort to combat bread-free and low-carb diets, the Federation of Bakers has recently created the Eau de Toast scent and made the premiere at this year’s London Fashion Week.

The Federation of Bakers is a group that represents the largest baking companies who manufacture and sell many baked breads and other bread-related products. It supplies around 80 percent of the breads in the United Kingdom, totaling over $4 billion dollars annually and approximately 20,000 employees.

The Federation's goal is to combat the idea that bread is bad. With just 80 calories per slice, bread provides (at least) 10 percent of the adult daily intake of protein, fiber, calcium, iron, copper, zinc, and manganese, according to its website. The Federation also cited the Government’s Nutrition Survey, arguing that people who eat the most bread consume the fewest calories, giving an incentive to people who are apprehensive against bread consumption.

The perfume is said to have a caramel-like smell, which lends to the appeal of this scent. The smell or olfactory system is associated with the memory- and emotion-related parts of the brain, also known as the limbic system. A study also found that the smell of fresh bread makes people nice.

One-hundred free samples are open to residents of the United Kingdom, Isle of Man, and Channel Islands.

Edinburgh Fringe stagehand almost died after breathing in audience member's perfume

A STAGEHAND almost died when he breathed in perfume at an Edinburgh Fringe show.

Bryn Jones went into anaphylactic shock after he inhaled the scent from a member of the audience.

As his throat tightened and he began to struggle for breath, the 22-year-old managed to text a friend to bring him medication.

He even carried on with his technical duties throughout the play.

But by the time his medication arrived, Bryn was lying on the floor and his face had turned blue.

The stagehand, who recovered quickly after taking his pills, said: “A friend of mine came into the room, grabbed me and gave me what I needed just as the show ended. I was in a pretty bad way.

“The chemicals in some of these perfumes are not usually too much of an issue for me.

“I thought it would be good to get outside. But the only entrance out is behind the audience, so I couldn’t really leave.

“I’d have had to cross the stage and move through the audience, but I didn’t want to interrupt the show.

“I haven’t had a reaction quite like that before but I had to finish the show.”

The crisis out of a drama happened at the New Town Theatre on George Street during a production of Harold Pinter play The Dumb Waiter.

After the show was over, Bryn managed to head over to the city’s Bedlam Theatre to work on another performance – his third of the day.

He added: “I was glad to make it to my next show.”

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Study alleges link between perfume and autism

A recent paper from researchers at the South Carolina Center for Biotechnology proposes that perfume and cosmetics may play a role in the development of autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), which reportedly affect one out of 88 children. Omar Bagasra, et al., “Role of Perfumes in Pathogenesis of Autism,” Medical Hypotheses, June 2013. Claiming that “there is little irrefutable evidence that pesticides, water born chemicals, or food preservatives play critical roles in inducing the genetic mutations associated with known intellectual deficiencies that have been linked to [ASD],” the authors assert that autism is not an inherited disease as commonly believed, but is caused by the “highly mutagenic, neurotoxic, and neuromodulatory chemicals” found in perfumes and cosmetics. They also claim that the reason why perfumes and chemicals purportedly contain such chemicals is because of a “giant loophole in the Federal Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1973,” which evidently exempts fragrance producers from having to disclose perfume ingredients on product labels.

The researchers reportedly studied 17 name-brand products containing 38 different unidentified chemicals, including many that are known carcinogens and mutagens that can cause damage during human fetal brain development.

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Perfume from bacteria...say what?!

The Daily Star has an interesting article by S. Ashraf Ahmed

MUCH of our characteristic body smells are attributed to the metabolic activity of the prevalent type of microorganisms a person harbours. This is due to the overwhelming presence of microorganisms in our body that one day may define human or animal as “made of microorganisms”!

As a faculty at Dhaka University, I taught an organic chemistry class. To make this apparently boring subject interesting, I would offer (explain) my sleepy 8 AM-class with the chemical components of coffee (caffeine) brewed with cinnamon (phenylpropionate), or offer a thirsty, sweaty and stinky noon-class with vanilla or vanillin (orthomethoxy-parahydroxy-benzaldehyde) ice cream flavour or the substitute for deer-musk perfume (dinitrobenzaldehyde). The trick was very effective! So, it is only natural that news of variations in the fragrance of vevitar grass oil (Khas attar), will not escape my attention.
In 2008, Italian scientists announced the disc

In 2008, Italian scientists announced the discovery of two bacterial groups that are responsible for transforming sesquiterpine, the main component of the vevitar grass oil into secondary compounds giving rise to differences in fragrance. Microorganisms have long been used to produce almost all kinds of bio-molecules. From their discovery, the Italian scientists saw a great potential to advance fragrance and flavour chemistry by exploiting bacteria with biotechnology.

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Scent Camera Called Madeleine Stores Memories As Tiny Perfume Capsules

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For her masters degree at London's Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, artist Amy Radcliffe invented a camera that records scents instead of images. The camera, called a Madeleine -- named for a pastry in a Marcel Proust novel that triggers 3,000 pages of childhood memories -- allows users to bottle the scents that define their lives. "Our sense of smell is believed to have a direct link to our emotional memory,"

Radcliffe said on her artist's page for the Madeleine. Science has established that scent can be a potent trigger of memory. Our olfactory bulb, the part of the brain that processes scent, is integrated directly into the brain's limbic system, associated with memory and emotion.

Bespoke scent “photos” may not have much practical purpose, but the Madeleine does have some romantic appeal, and the prototype has a charming, retro look that evokes both chemistry and whimsy.

New ‘Diet Slimming Perfume’ Claims You Can Lose Weight

Want to lose weight without exercise? Why not try perfume?

According to The Daily Mail, a new fragrance claims that you can lose weight by sniffing it.
The $39 product, called “Diet Slimming Perfume,” contains appetite-suppressing ingredients such as seaweed along with weight-loss boosting herbs, natural antioxidants and a fresh citrus scent. It also claims to improve your mood and circulation.

“Just inhale 5 times a day and your appetite will decrease,” claims VZ Hair and Glamour.

Believe it or not, Diet Slimming Perfume isn’t the first weight loss fragrance. Last year, French company Velds introduced Pres Moi, a fragrance with a “slimming complex” of caffeine, carnitine and spirulina extract, which supposedly boosts weight loss.

At the risk of being cheesy … something smells off about this. Perhaps wearing this perfume could result in some kind of mental placebo, but I doubt it’s a real, long-term solution to a weight problem. Appetite suppressants have been around for decades and can often result in addiction or tolerance. More serious drugs can also mean more serious side effects.

Diet Slimming Perfume

An Interview With Elisabeth de Feydeau, Professor of Perfume

We know. How romantic, right? Well, being a professor of perfume is a little more complex than that — and rightly so given Elisabeth de Feydeau's extensive experience and credentials. In town to speak at the Australian Financial Review's luxury business and fashion summit, Bespoke, Elisabeth's developed sense of smell led her to be head of cultural affairs at Chanel and Bourjois, before founding her own perfume consulting business, Arty Fragrance.

This is a woman who travels the world in the name of training prestigious names in perfumery, all the while analysing past experience and anticipating scent trends. We sat down with "Dame de la Jurade" to talk nostril strengthening, developing our olfactory memory and yes, we asked her to name her favourite fragrance. Read more, after the jump.

Your first scent memory?
"The orange blossom water that my grandmother used in her chocolate cake!"

Tell us about your developed sense of smell — have you always been hyper-aware of scents around you, or is this something you’ve developed over time?
"Yes, I was always guided by scents in my life — odours in nature, cooking smells and then perfumes. But it is like music, you must develop your sense of smell every day."

If we wanted to develop our sense of smell or strengthen our nostrils, where would we start?
"For a serious education, the best way to learn would be in a laboratory for a real olfactory education. Done more simply at home, use raw scents like essence of rose, violet, cedar to familiarise yourself with different notes. The key is to develop your olfactory memory by associating one smell with a memory in your life."

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Perfume is in the air: Lovely lilacs linger on the senses

When it comes to selecting shrubbery that smells good, it’s hard to beat the scent of a lilac bush. They don’t all have a strong fragrance, but those that do can perfume an entire house.

Unfortunately, the blooming season is only a couple of weeks long. It varies between midspring to early summer, depending on the species. Or you can buy an early, mid- and late-blooming variety and cut flowers for more than a month. The good news: Lilacs like colder weather and do well in New Jersey.

Some of the most interesting work with hybridizing lilacs today is being done by Russians in Siberia, said Anne Haines, a manager at Rare Find Nursery in Jackson.

“Lilacs are really native to colder areas, and New Jersey is on the lower edge of that area,” said Haines, whose email address includes the word Syringa, the Latin name for lilac. “Syringa vulgaris (si-RING-ga vul-GAY-ris), or common lilac, is what breeders work with when creating hybrids, and some are now working on lilacs for warmer areas.”

Lilacs don’t much like it below the Mason-Dixon line, where they are more susceptible to disease and insects. The most common problem here is powdery mildew, which doesn’t look great but won’t hurt the shrub.

Barbara Bromley, a horticulturist with the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Mercer County, said one of the most important things to consider when planting a lilac is how many hours of sun it gets and the surrounding landscape. Some gardeners will plant them as stand-alone specimens or as a hedge.

“They will not bloom in partial shade,” she said, recommending full sun for the best success, but no less than six hours. “Remember, those 10-foot-tall trees planted near the lilacs will be 30 feet tall 20 years later.”

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My Discoveries About the Perfume Allergy

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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Use Of Allergy Inducing Fragrance Ingredients So Common, Says One Study

Once again, science and research gets in the way of going crazy on fragrance, what a buzzkill!

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg (Sweden) say that fragrance ingredients commonly used in shampoos and skin creams may trigger eczema. As they have learned more people suffer allergic reaction to common fragrance sound in a number of cosmetic and personal care products.

Although the estimated percentage of the population suffering from allergy appears low, the fact that this fragrance ingredients appears in the vast majority of beauty products does make it significant. They also advise against buying large packs of soups and shower cream, and replace the top after using a bottle.

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Just Like Mushrooms, Keep Your Perfume and Cologne in the Dark

If you keep a few bottles of perfume or cologne around the house, but don't use them that often, consider storing them in a box in your closet to keep them from going bad.

Kristin Appenbrink at Real Simple warns us that heat and light can alter the scent of your fragrances, so it's best to keep them in cool, dark environments. Out in the open, perfumes and colognes will still last several months, so this isn't a huge deal if you use them often and go through a bottle fairly quickly. If you only break out fragrances for special occasions though, this tip will maintain the proper scent for well over a year, meaning you won't have to rush out to replace it on the one night you really needed it.


Just keep them in the original box and avoid putting them in the bathroom, the change of temperatures there will make them go bad.
For a refreshing treat, store the ones made for summer time, preferably, in the refrigerator, the cool effect with citruses, mints and herbs feel really nice. A better trick is to do it with bottles close to finish so you don't have to take them out and having weather affect them.

What Is "Fragrance"?

A fragrance can be made up of dozens or even hundreds of different chemicals. One fragrance can be made up of completely different chemicals from another.

Among these chemicals are numerous known allergens such as geraniol, eugenol, citronellol. Additionally, several hazardous chemicals can be found in fragrance: phthalates, which have been linked to reproductive harm; synthetic musks, which may alter hormone levels; and cancer-causing chemicals like styrene and methyl eugenol. But you won't find these ingredients listed on product labels--you'll just see the word "fragrance."

1. 96 percent of shampoos contain fragrance
2. 98 percent of conditioners contain fragrance
3. 95 percent of shaving products contain fragrance
4. 91 percent of antiperspirants contain fragrance.

One more thing, going fragrance free is very expensive!