cheapskate beauty and hygiene: allergies olfactory perfume smell
by SIF
19 comments
The slippery smell of clean–and its costs.
On a warm spring day, I once rode past a field freshly covered in steaming cow manure with my mother-in-law. “Oooof!” I grunted. “Quelle horreur.” To which my MIL mused, “I’ve always liked the smell of fresh manure, it reminds me of life on the farm . . .” Association, apparently, is key.
Your shampoo may smell like flowers in the spring, but does the smell make you cleaner?
One of my favorite rewards of living abroad: reminders that many of our most hard-wired behaviors and beliefs are arbitrary cultural constructs–like smells.
Our culture and situation infuses our perceptions on everything from our notion of time, our ways of showing respect when speaking, expectations for clothing and modesty, our vision of aesthetics in general. . . preference for fragrances and odors.
What influences our notion of what smells ‘good?’
Personal psychology and experience, cultural beliefs (both traditional and ‘pop’ influences), evolutionary biology . . . I wonder, can ‘good’ and ‘bad’ smells exist without refined nostrils and complex brains to interpret them?
I personally have a strong (logical) bias for being clean, which my brain has (illogically) come to associate with smelling good.
If you’re like me, you can probably think of many instances in which you do something that allows you to stay clean and simultaneously expose yourself to a fragrance. If you’re like me, you then come to associate the smell to the act of cleaning. Fragrance is then, a perfectly legal subliminal marketing campaign. Consider the following:
- You wash your hair with shampoo (which gets you clean)–shampoo fragrances accompany the shower and stay in your hair for days.
- You brush your teeth and a ‘fresh minty’ smell greets you.
- You do your laundry and an ‘airy, floral’ smell invades your clothing and your home.
- You do the dishes and the pleasing odor of say, ‘green apple’ (currently the case in our home) greets you.
Can you be clean and odorless?
You could also wash your hair with cider vinegar(ok, vinegar has a smell, but it goes away!) or completely unscented soap, brush your teeth with baking soda, do your laundry with soap nuts, your dishes with boiling hot water, soap flakes etc. Does the ‘minty’ smell clean your teeth? Does the ‘apple’ scent clean your dishes? You might rightfully associate a ‘bleach’ smell with disinfecting qualities, but even bleach these days has a tendency to come with an additional scent. . .
Scents and fragrances, while possibly enjoyable and associated with agreeable memories or ideas, also serve as a marketing strategy.
Particularly for manufactured products. Really, if you think about it, what differentiates the boggling array of shampoos, soaps, detergents, toothpastes and cleaning agents sold in stores. I don’t think we’re paying extra for the active ingredients, but the smells, the marketing, the packaging.
But do all of these scented products carry a hidden cost as well?
Check the ingredients in your cleaning and hygiene products. Does the dish soap contain actually contain apples or their essence? Does the toothpaste actually contain mint? Don’t get me wrong, even real essences and fragrances can cause skin irritations–as I recently discovered after applying a (real) lavender scented oil to my face–ooops! But the ‘fake’ scents might just be a little more worrisome . . . Sure, they’re ‘tested’ and ‘approved’ but I’m not so sure I feel I understand the cumulative effect of dousing oneself with such chemical cocktails, day after day for years on end. . .and in combination with other substances. I’m not so convinced that the ‘regulators’ of the perfume and scent industries know either.
The other day, DH smelled my hair after I’d recently washed it with baking soda and vinegar.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “It doesn’t smell bad. It just doesn’t smell . . .’good.’ It doesn’t smell like anything.” Maybe DH misses the smell of commercial shampoo and the different (but illogical) associations it conjures up. But we’re embarking on a bold new experiment. I’m wondering, what other smells we might associate with our emotions and memories without the constant infusion of odors from consumer products.
Mrs. Money . . . sadly, I’ve been sensitive to chemicals for a long time (after taking a photography class with a development lab and working as a lifeguard in an indoor pool for a semester in college). Since that time, it’s been a long road for me and FINALLY I can not break out in a rash when I get around bleach, cleaning products, shampoos, perfumes, swimming pools, gasoline. . .So I find chemicals less overwhelming to my skin, but yes, now that you mention it MORE overwhelming to my nose. Great point.
As for swtiching the feedburner, thanks for the recommendation. I had no thought of that and I shall learn how to do it shortly . . .I love blogging–there is always something new (at least when you’re starting out like me.)
My 13-year-old is completely hooked on the smell of cleaning products. Not personal cleaning products – she doesn’t seem to care what soap or shampoo she uses. But if I’m putting soap powder in the dishwasher, she’ll inhale deeply, and say, “Aaaaah. CASCADE.” The laundry detergent aisle of the grocery store is her favorite. The scents left in the wake of the twice-monthly cleaning service are pure bliss. Who knows – maybe she’ll grow up to be an obsessive housekeeper.
I have problems now, in my late 40’s, with aerosol scents and even candles. Only began after I entered menopause – probably a connection. While I agree the added aromas drive up the cost, we were given a sense of smell to ‘enjoy’ things as well as just notice what something smells like. And to me, that is not a bad thing. My husband wants to pay for the enjoyment of the scent of my shampoo. I did the no-poo thing. He found it unsexy. And believe me, that is a good reason to spend a few extra cents!
Oh, and I was thinking of what you said about scents, and associations. To this day, when I smell new-mown grass, I can close my eyes and be 6 years old again, playing with my brother and sister at our old house way out in the country. Not that I’m a stranger to new-cut grass today, but the smell still takes me back to childhood.
Another thing I thought of: My husband, in general, doesn’t like perfume-type scents. I don’t wear perfume, but if I did, it wouldn’t occur to him to compliment me on it. HOWEVER … he loves food, and smells of good food cooking. When my 2nd child was an infant, I took a lot of fenugreek, because it’s supposed to boost breastmilk supply. (I don’t know if that’s true – but it certainly didn’t hurt.) Anyway, if you take a lot of fenugreek, your skin starts to smell like fenugreek. My husband used to lean in close, inhale, and exult, “You smell like an Indian restaurant!” Which was true. And a true compliment, for him.
Clisby–How funny that your daughter is hooked on cleaning product smells. You know, it seems when I was her age, I had friends that liked strange smells–like gasoline, markers (no, they weren’t ’sniffing’ them to get high, they actually just liked the smell.) Anyway, smell and association is a powerful thing. I was reading that the brain processes odors much the way it processes visual information like face recognition–a lot goes on that you can’t explain or express with language–so it happens fast and doesn’t have to be ‘logical.’ I personally am a sucker for the smell of coffee and pipe smoke–also due to childhood memories!
And that’s very interesting about your husband liking the smell of food and spices–even on a person. I usually don’t think I smell good after I spend a few hours cooking and absorb the odors of the food–I even feel self conscious about it. Then again, the other day, I made crepes and my husband smelled my head and said, “mmmmmm.”
Ahh, to smell a smell is to have a definite opinion. Indifference seems impossible. Like your MIL, I find the smell of bull manure to be a positive one. We put it on our lawns every winter along with rye grass to ensure that they’d stay green.
Scent is such a powerful thing. Directly tied to memory; and likely an evolutionary development that led humans to seek good things and avoid bad things. Nor would our sense of taste be as well-developed without the ability to smell. I read recently that pre-industrial folks could discriminate between 10,000 odors; but that we moderns are typically only able to differeniate between 2000 or so. That strikes me as a sad reduction.
In my own life, I have developed very eccentric but strongly held attitudes toward shampoo scents. I loathe the smell of coconut. I don’t know why, but it is simply too cloying. On the other hand, I can still recall the cinnamon smell of my first girlfriends hair with a wistful smile. And despite the discipline of frugality, I am willing to buy Ayurveda’s rosemary mint shampoo because I find the scent so invigorating and refreshing. It is a small luxury so I choose to indulge it.
Though I love my mother greatly, I cannot stand the gardenia perfume that she prefers almost to the exlusion of anything else. It is a real penance to share a car ride with her when she’s wearing that stuff. Still, I am grateful that it is only inconvenient and not harmful or an allergan. I totally understand that for some people powerful scents are not just unpleasant but harmful. I hope that today everyone smells a good, satisfying smell.
La Femme–uh, oh, the unsexy! Some would probably find folding to a spouse’s opinion of what is sexy to be. . .I don’t know, somehow unacceptable–submissive? But I do the same thing. And, frankly, I expect that my husband will listen if I find something he’s doing unsexy!
What people find sexy is so illogical–yet it matters, profoundly. There are ways of cutting back that DH and I could not live with. That said, so far in my experiment, I think my DH is fine with the no shampoo smell. . . but if lack of fragrance does become an issue, I’m thinking I’d far prefer to use fragrances that are natural–and maybe just one thing at a time. I can live with that. Hey, I like good smells too.
As for sense of smell getting more pronounced after menopause, I’ve heard of that before–also around pregnancy. It must be hormonal???
When my DH worked in a plywood mill, I loved the way he smelled after work, fresh, clean, sexy Douglas fir. When they started steaming the logs, yuch!
I love to vacation in Central and Sourthern Oregon during the summer. The smells of the forest, lava flows, and dirt make me happy!
DH works in a bank now, he does not smell sexy after work. Just tired.
Susan
Dan hates the smell of cider vinegar “shampoo”, but he comes in the bathroom while I’m in the shower. By the time I’m out, the smell is gone.
But this is something I’ve been thinking about as well, about how the scents is really the opposite of clean. We clean ourselves to get ewey stuff off of our body, bad bacteria and chemicals, and instead we just put more on. It takes a retraining to go scent free, but that’s why I’m excited about soapmaking. I’m starting with cucumber melon, my favorite scent, but I’m using a real cucumber and a real melon!
Susan–the smells you describe–wood, forest and dirt definitely conjured up memories in my mind–I used to live in Washington State and so visited Oregon too–beautiful place! As for your husband’s work ‘odors,’ it makes sense that you found wood to be a sexy smell. I may start dousing my DH in Douglas Fir chips 
.
Emily–my husband has only smelled the damp vinegar smell once since he just came home for the first time since his accident this weekend. Hah! But he agreed that once dry, there was no smell.
You’re right–scent free takes training. And I was just thinking this morning that I might like to learn to make infused apple cider wash–maybe by putting some cinnamon sticks in it or dried lavender, I dunno. I love the idea of home made cucumber melon soap by the way. I hope you blog about it when you make it.
I’ve been really hesitant to start down the path of soap making however, I’m nervous about the lye! I think I’d be more likely to do it if I had an outdoor workshop–well ventilated, not in the kitchen etc. . .You’ll have to let me know how it goes since I know you live in an apartment too.
Maus–great comment. I read in researching this post that our sense of smell may actually be better than we realize, it’s just that the part of the brain that does the smelling doesn’t directly ‘translate’ to the part that does the ’speaking.’ I also hypothesize that my quest for ‘fragrance free’ cleaning supplies and shampoo may lead me to become more discriminating in terms of other smells. I read a long time ago (but could not find it again in my recent research) that our exposure to synthetic smells may be partly to blame for our reduced olfactory capacities–perhaps because they ‘drown out’ other smells that are more subtle. I’m hoping that my sniffer becomes more refined during this experiment. . .we’ll see.
And I love smells too–I love wine, for example, and without smell, it’s just sour grapes.
Your mentioning coffee and pipe smoke reminded me: my father used Old Spice shaving cream. Even now, I think a man should smell like Old Spice, or like nothing. I’m fine with the scent of plain soap, or with something natural like the wood chips Susan described. But I find most men’s aftershave/cologne to be kind of nauseating.
I think there should be a law against wearing too much perfume, and against spraying perfume and putting on smelly lotion in public. The Victoria’s secret lotion is so offensive that if one of my students on the other side of the room puts some on, I’m gagging on the stench. I tell them to please be aware that some people may be allergic or sensitive to strong smells.
Pickler, that’s funny. Oh yeah, the perfume you can actually taste in your mouth. It makes me all itchy and sneezy. I’ve actually never run across that as a teacher, but when I was a teenager was around some folks that laid it on pretty thick.
Conversely, it’s never happened to me, but I’ve also known some high school teachers who have felt so overwhelmed by adolescent body odor that they’ve given a mini-lesson on wearing deodorant–or plugged in air fresheners. The thing is, smell is the one thing you just can’t seem to control! You can ask people to speak quietly, you can limit visual advertising or inappropriate clothing to an extent, but there is no recourse against smells. . .
By the way, fun fact for you since you’re a teacher: about four years ago I attended a workshop on disturbed youth and learned about the top 10 things that makes people unemployable or gets them fired. Number one: personal hygiene. Weird huh?
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I have always disliked the odor of what I call “industrial perfumes.” It’s not that I don’t want to wear a scent; it’s that I want to wear MY choice of scents, not what some chemist in a factory thinks airheaded women think smells “clean.”
“Clean” smells odorless. It doesn’t stink–either of B.O. or of chemicals. Thank goodness unperfumed laundry detergent is now widely available. Now if we could just get something to clean the floors without making the whole house stink like a fake pine tree…
Especially obnoxious, IMHO, are strong perfumes in shampoo and make-up. And do those of us who are told we need to wear sunblock really want to go around smelling like beach bunnies?
LOL! I’m with Maus on the smell of (ersatz) coconut. Ditto (fake) cacao. I can’t stand to go into a Tommy Bahama store! Imagine having to work in that place…
Along those lines, I really dislike the taste of mint in general and especially in toothpaste. It’s hard to find toothpaste that isn’t all minted up, and once you reach the age where you need a toothpaste that masks pain, you have no choice in flavors at all. If fake mint can called a “flavor.”
I know (and I’m sure you do too) that when you stop using chemicals to clean, and then you’re somewhere where they do it’s overwhelming. My mom is very sensitive to smells and I think it’s because of that.
Great post, as usual!
Did you get your feedburner switched to here?