In order to successfully market something, it seems it must smell good, even if the smell is produced chemically.

Almost without exception, modern perfumes and fragrances are produced from petro-chemicals, and these same chemicals are considered to be hazardous waste, capable of producing toxic side effects. If you picked some parsley, chives, or even flowers, would you expect them to look or smell the same a week later? Probably not. Yet you can buy a ‘natural’ product on your supermarket shelves, and it will smell exactly the same years later.

How do you think that can be?

Fragrances can be absorbed through the skin. The greater the emollient quality of a product (such as in skin creams), the greater the absorbency (j App Toxicol, 1997;17:153-8). When the fragrance chemicals can penetrate the skin, they can affect other organs. Some have been shown to cause discoloration of internal organs, others are toxic to the liver and kidneys, others accumulate in fatty tissue and are passed on to children through breast milk. Fragrances can be quick to saturate the blood, but slow to clear from the body.

In 1989, a US House sub-committee asked US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to analyse 2,983 chemicals used in personal care products. The results were as follows; 884 of the ingredients were found to be toxic. Of these, 778 can cause acute toxicity: 146 can cause tumours, 218 can cause reproductive complications, 314 can cause skin and eye irritation. Utusan Konsumer, Dec 1998 There is so much information about the harmful effects of many of the chemicals used in our everyday cosmetics and bathroom toiletries, yet very little indeed is being done to remove these chemicals from our products and of course from the environment which we are so rapidly polluting. One could fill a book with the number of chemicals that you could be aware of and would want to avoid, so the information provided here is just the tip of the iceberg!