Synthetic Fragrance: Curse or Bless?

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The market keeps advertising for a various number of fragrances through a wide range of products; air fresheners, body mists, hair perfumes, and body oils. Through their marketing campaigns, product owners ensure that we are subjected to different fragrances and smells on a daily basis; they seduce and manipulate the consumers by stimulating their senses. What is more fascinating is that they can produce all these smells and fragrances to supply the market in a hot minute; yet, how can they do this?

The market is not ready to fulfil a huge number of products with natural smells and scents; they choose the easy way out: artificial, man-made fragrances. Just because they smell good, that does not mean they are human-friendly. So, what are synthetic fragrances and what are their main components?

These human-made fragrances are made out of toxins, such as phthalates and parabens. The newest experiences and research done by the National Natural Science Foundation of China on the fragrances market, discovered that these toxins demonstrate to be endocrine disruptors. They are chemicals that may mimic or mess up with the hormones in the human body, known as the endocrine system. Recent studies referred to in the research show that they are linked to mood swings, cancers, infertility, and several health problems.

These toxic ingredients are used in the manufacturing of several products because they are cheap and produce smells similar to those made with natural scents. Phthalates and parabens are used because they produce scents that adhere more to the skin, make softer products, and more importantly, they leave a long-lasting smell. However, they do not belong to the beauty and cosmetics industry as they contain toxins to preserve chemicals.

Parabens are found in daily products, such as sunscreens, hair products, and makeup. People who use these products regularly are exposed to a higher dose of chemicals and paraben that disturbs their hormones and endocrines. It is, thus, noticeable that many people around the world are being diagnosed with endocrine issues or hormonal imbalance while neglecting the reason.

According to a study published in the Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology, 2018, women who use products containing parabens daily have 20 times more paraben in their body than women who rarely wear makeup. The ratio is scientifically proven through a urine test that shows high exposer to these toxins. Still, the issue of high exposure to paraben is still increasing, as it is used in almost all plastic food preservers, plastic bottles, and children’s toys.

The use of cheap toxins is increasing more and more every day because of their low cost and durability to preserve several daily products from food, toys, to self-care products. In order to protect yourself from extreme exposure to parabens and phthalates, ensure that you are using paraben-free products, and do not apply makeup every day to avoid any risk of endocrine and organs disease and issues.

References

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

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