# Fragrance sensitivity



## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> I say that offhand, but I actually only have one citronella candle stored in our camping gear and you comment made me realized we haven’t gone camping in…. 4 years?? We have only gone once since we brought home Sundance! I don’t think we even used it then, we were camping here in Utah in an area that didn’t really have mosquitoes. Good to know about dogs!
> 
> I know a lot of people are really invested in essential oils, and I hope I don’t offend them. To me they are more like aromatherapy. Maybe because I’m so sensitive to smells, I do notice a distinct psychological impact from the ones I’ve been gifted, but I don’t notice anything more than that. I know they can be useful for other things, I have two I like for cleaning, but it takes work to learn and there isn’t a lot of data. For fragrance I’d rather burn a candle and buy a new one when I get bored of it than diffuse essential oils, partly because they are so expensive, but they’re wildly popular in homes here.


I am very sensitive to smells and not sure if EOs would be any different. I really have not tried them so don’t know for sure. I always think that things smell best when they don’t smell. We use no fragrances at all in the house and I am very used to that. Now when I go somewhere where fragrances are used they almost knock me over. Right now the stores with the Christmas scents are making my eyes water!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

mudpuppymama said:


> I am very sensitive to smells and not sure if EOs would be any different. I really have not tried them so don’t know for sure. I always think that things smell best when they don’t smell. We use no fragrances at all in the house and I am very used to that. Now when I go somewhere where fragrances are used they almost knock me over. Right now the stores with the Christmas scents are making my eyes water!


For a while, years ago, there was a fad among horse people, to use a heavily perfumed product from Avon (do they still exist?) called “Skin So Soft” mixed with water as a fly spray on their horses. I was teaching at this big hunter barn at the time, and I basically had to stay OUT of the grooming areas, becsuse I was so violently allergic to the stuff. My eyes would start watering, my nose would run like a faucet and I would start no-stop sneezing! Needless to say, aI did NOT use it on MY horses! LOL!


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## 31818 (Oct 29, 2014)

krandall said:


> For a while, years ago, there was a fad among horse people, to use a heavily perfumed product from Avon (do they still exist?) called “Skin So Soft”


Well! after it rains in our part of Mexico, the "BOBOs" come out in force. BOBOs are very tiny gnats that get in your eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and other orifices in your body. Skin So Soft definitely works to keep them at bay. We (humans) use it all the time when in Mexico. It also works on "NoSeeUms" (sand fleas) found on tropical beaches. I swear by the stuff. Now I learn that it can keep some humans away (I wonder if Barbara, my neighbor, is allergic to the smell?). You can purchase it online from a popular vending company that Ricky loves to harass their drivers. Maybe the drivers are wearing the product? 🤔


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## Melissa Brill (Feb 22, 2017)

mudpuppymama said:


> I am very sensitive to smells and not sure if EOs would be any different. I really have not tried them so don’t know for sure. I always think that things smell best when they don’t smell. We use no fragrances at all in the house and I am very used to that. Now when I go somewhere where fragrances are used they almost knock me over. Right now the stores with the Christmas scents are making my eyes water!


I'm weird with smells (which is also why most of our house is scent free). I can't even really go into stores like bath and body works. Sometimes if it's more fruity smelling I can manage it, but anything flower-y or chemical-y is an instant migraine inducer! 

Hubby laughs at me (I'm sure) when we go to the store to buy things because I'm always taking lids off of things to smell them before we buy - easier when we're in the US and can get scent-free things like laundry detergent, but when we can't, I have to smell it before I buy it. And in the US, it's hard to find scent-free deodorant, for example, so there I am in the store aisle popping lids off and sniffing both is and my deodorants to decide if we can buy them or not  Hand sanitizer has been a fun one for the last year - so many of them were too smelly for me.

I have found that this is another benefit of masks -- I can at least walk through certain sections of some stores with their smells without getting an instant migraine - the masks give a short-term filter to the smells. I might not be able to linger, but I can survive.


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

DogFather said:


> Well! after it rains in our part of Mexico, the "BOBOs" come out in force. BOBOs are very tiny gnats that get in your eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and other orifices in your body. Skin So Soft definitely works to keep them at bay. We (humans) use it all the time when in Mexico. It also works on "NoSeeUms" (sand fleas) found on tropical beaches. I swear by the stuff. Now I learn that it can keep some humans away (I wonder if Barbara, my neighbor, is allergic to the smell?). You can purchase it online from a popular vending company that Ricky loves to harass their drivers. Maybe the drivers are wearing the product? 🤔


LOL! I think it really did work, it’s just that it was completely impossible for ME!!!


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## 31818 (Oct 29, 2014)

Melissa Brill said:


> when we go to the store to buy things because I'm always taking lids off of things to smell them before we buy


Reminds me of my BIL. He was visiting us at our place in Mexico several years ago, B.R. (Before Ricky). Vanilla is a tropical plant and an important commodity, processed locally in our part of Mexico. We went into a store that was selling vanilla, - nothing but vanilla products. BIL took off the lid of one bottle of liquid and smelled it and then screwed the lid back on and put it back on the shelf. The clerk was watching him and said, "Lo siento Senior, you just bought that bottle of vanilla because you opened it!" BIL said, "I don't want to buy any vanilla, I just want to smell it!" The clerk was insistent and BIL had to reluctantly fork over the pesos. 🤣 Serves him right, he is such a tightwad.

Careful what you open and smell, you may have to buy it whether you like the scent or not! 

Back to vanilla...when I was living on a tropical island in the South Pacific for a couple of years and my daily wars with mosquitos, flies, ants, and rats, I was a middle school teacher at the school next door. Classes were from 8AM to 1PM on week days. At 1PM, we had a lunch break where UFI (taro) was the carb of choice. After lunch, all the students had to work in the school's vanilla vineyard and hand pollinate the vanilla beans, pick them when ripe, and then sell them to a processing vendor for best price. This provided income to keep the school open (I was a volunteer and was paid nothing). Besides providing income, it was also a valuable lesson in hands on agriculture, physical labor, and business marketing. WIN, WIN, WIN! 👍


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

krandall said:


> For a while, years ago, there was a fad among horse people, to use a heavily perfumed product from Avon (do they still exist?) called “Skin So Soft” mixed with water as a fly spray on their horses. I was teaching at this big hunter barn at the time, and I basically had to stay OUT of the grooming areas, becsuse I was so violently allergic to the stuff. My eyes would start watering, my nose would run like a faucet and I would start no-stop sneezing! Needless to say, aI did NOT use it on MY horses! LOL!


If it smells that strong to a human just think what it smells like to an animal with a much “better” nose than we have!


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

Melissa Brill said:


> I'm weird with smells (which is also why most of our house is scent free). I can't even really go into stores like bath and body works. Sometimes if it's more fruity smelling I can manage it, but anything flower-y or chemical-y is an instant migraine inducer!
> 
> Hubby laughs at me (I'm sure) when we go to the store to buy things because I'm always taking lids off of things to smell them before we buy - easier when we're in the US and can get scent-free things like laundry detergent, but when we can't, I have to smell it before I buy it. And in the US, it's hard to find scent-free deodorant, for example, so there I am in the store aisle popping lids off and sniffing both is and my deodorants to decide if we can buy them or not  Hand sanitizer has been a fun one for the last year - so many of them were too smelly for me.
> 
> I have found that this is another benefit of masks -- I can at least walk through certain sections of some stores with their smells without getting an instant migraine - the masks give a short-term filter to the smells. I might not be able to linger, but I can survive.


One article I read recently said there is a difference between products labeled as “unscented” vs. “fragrance free”. The article said to be careful of those marked “unscented” because they sometimes use scents to mask other scents!!


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

mudpuppymama said:


> One article I read recently said there is a difference between products labeled as “unscented” vs. “fragrance free”. The article said to be careful of those marked “unscented” because they sometimes use scents to mask other scents!!


Depending on the product some of the fragrance free products are awful though. I bought fragrance free dryer sheet to use with face masks and that explains why they smelled weird! I ended up switching to fabric softener, I don’t remember if it was fragrance free or unscented but it didn’t smell like anything. Going without didn’t work for me because any lint or hair on the masks made my nose run and then I’d sneeze uncontrollably or start coughing in public (which is like the most humiliating thing ever now).

Someone recently mentioned that the wall paint I use has a particular smell to it I hadn’t noticed before. It doesn’t have any VOC’s and it doesn’t smell fragranced, but it does smell better than other paint brands and I recognize it when I open the can. I wonder if that’s subconsciously why I like it better.

I want my house to smell like “nothing” on a daily basis. If I do want to burn a candle or something I want to make that choice, I don’t want my house to already smell like cleaners or food or dog.


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

krandall said:


> For a while, years ago, there was a fad among horse people, to use a heavily perfumed product from Avon (do they still exist?) called “Skin So Soft” mixed with water as a fly spray on their horses. I was teaching at this big hunter barn at the time, and I basically had to stay OUT of the grooming areas, becsuse I was so violently allergic to the stuff. My eyes would start watering, my nose would run like a faucet and I would start no-stop sneezing! Needless to say, aI did NOT use it on MY horses! LOL!


I remember that! Growing up we went camping with another family a few times every year and they always used it as an insect repellent. I HATED the smell of it! But I also hated the smell of the repellent my parents bought so I refused to use it. My sister has reactions to mosquito bites so she had to drench in it at night. Since we shared a sleeping mat I remember sleeping with my head inside my sleeping bag!


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## krandall (Jun 11, 2009)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> I remember that! Growing up we went camping with another family a few times every year and they always used it as an insect repellent. I HATED the smell of it! But I also hated the smell of the repellent my parents bought so I refused to use it. My sister has reactions to mosquito bites so she had to drench in it at night. Since we shared a sleeping mat I remember sleeping with my head inside my sleeping bag!


And when we were kids, misquito bite were just itchy. Now, here where we live, West Nile and Eastern Equine Encephalitis are are real danger every summer for us, so mosquito protection is an ABSOLUTE necessity for humans even here in the northeast US… go further south and you add Zika virus.


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> Depending on the product some of the fragrance free products are awful though. I bought fragrance free dryer sheet to use with face masks and that explains why they smelled weird! I ended up switching to fabric softener, I don’t remember if it was fragrance free or unscented but it didn’t smell like anything. Going without didn’t work for me because any lint or hair on the masks made my nose run and then I’d sneeze uncontrollably or start coughing in public (which is like the most humiliating thing ever now).
> 
> Someone recently mentioned that the wall paint I use has a particular smell to it I hadn’t noticed before. It doesn’t have any VOC’s and it doesn’t smell fragranced, but it does smell better than other paint brands and I recognize it when I open the can. I wonder if that’s subconsciously why I like it better.
> 
> I want my house to smell like “nothing” on a daily basis. If I do want to burn a candle or something I want to make that choice, I don’t want my house to already smell like cleaners or food or dog.


I think the whole fragrance free or unscented thing is so confusing! Does it mean it doesn’t smell at all or that no artificial fragrances were added? I am shocked at how many products on the market today now have fabreeze added. I was looking for new kitchen trash bags and I could only find one that did not have an obnoxious perfumy smell! I figure if my trash starts to smelling bad I should just empty it! As far as dryer sheets I thought even the ones without fragrances have chemicals in them and maybe that is what you were not liking. I started using vinegar instead of fabric softener and wool dryer balls. Vinegar helps keep the machine clean too. At our new house I am using a hill billy clothes dryer (clothes line) and really loving it. Although I am shocked at how stiff towels get hanging on the line. But they do smell nice and fresh!


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## Melissa Brill (Feb 22, 2017)

mudpuppymama said:


> I think the whole fragrance free or unscented thing is so confusing! Does it mean it doesn’t smell at all or that no artificial fragrances were added? I am shocked at how many products on the market today now have fabreeze added. I was looking for new kitchen trash bags and I could only find one that did not have an obnoxious perfumy smell! I figure if my trash starts to smelling bad I should just empty it! As far as dryer sheets I thought even the ones without fragrances have chemicals in them and maybe that is what you were not liking. I started using vinegar instead of fabric softener and wool dryer balls. Vinegar helps keep the machine clean too. At our new house I am using a hill billy clothes dryer (clothes line) and really loving it. Although I am shocked at how stiff towels get hanging on the line. But they do smell nice and fresh!


We didn't have a dryer in Kampala and most of our towels stayed soft on the line (using fabric softener in the wash) - the only ones that got stiff were much older ones that I use for Perry.

I've never thought of vinegar - do you use that in the washer in the fabric softener compartment?

I'm totally with you on garbage bags - I can't stand the smelly ones (i.e. perfumed/ with febreze) and it sometimes takes extra effort to find ones that a scent was NOT added to!


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

Melissa Brill said:


> We didn't have a dryer in Kampala and most of our towels stayed soft on the line (using fabric softener in the wash) - the only ones that got stiff were much older ones that I use for Perry.
> 
> I've never thought of vinegar - do you use that in the washer in the fabric softener compartment?
> 
> I'm totally with you on garbage bags - I can't stand the smelly ones (i.e. perfumed/ with febreze) and it sometimes takes extra effort to find ones that a scent was NOT added to!


I think you are right. The stiff towels are the older dog towels that have been washed and dried a bazillion times. I put the vinegar in the softener compartment. The wool dryer balls are helpful too.


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## EvaE1izabeth (Nov 14, 2017)

My sister uses wool dryer balls and loves them. She doesn’t like the feel of fabric softener and they keep down static. I started using fabric softener to compensate for cheap towels but over the years I use it less and less on clothes. Seems silly now because I wonder if over time it would have been cheaper to buy better towels instead of buying fabric softener. But I keep going back to it because I notice a difference in hair (Havanese and teenage daughter long hair) being removed from knits and activewear. I use it mostly on the collection of knit lounge pants I have (that sadly seems to keep getting bigger), but on other loads every other wash or less. I’m curious if vinegar would work as well since it isn’t “slippery,” but it does help with residue. I know it’s also used as a rinse aid. I will definitely try it next time I wash masks but we mostly use disposable now.


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## Kay251 (Jun 17, 2021)

I have used vinegar and wool dryer balls for years. Recently purchased fragrance-free dryer sheets because I'm tired of the static in the fall and winter. More of my clothing is synthetic, so much more static.


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## mudpuppymama (Mar 24, 2012)

EvaE1izabeth said:


> My sister uses wool dryer balls and loves them. She doesn’t like the feel of fabric softener and they keep down static. I started using fabric softener to compensate for cheap towels but over the years I use it less and less on clothes. Seems silly now because I wonder if over time it would have been cheaper to buy better towels instead of buying fabric softener. But I keep going back to it because I notice a difference in hair (Havanese and teenage daughter long hair) being removed from knits and activewear. I use it mostly on the collection of knit lounge pants I have (that sadly seems to keep getting bigger), but on other loads every other wash or less. I’m curious if vinegar would work as well since it isn’t “slippery,” but it does help with residue. I know it’s also used as a rinse aid. I will definitely try it next time I wash masks but we mostly use disposable now.


I have been using vinegar instead of fabric softener for years so I cannot really say if it is as good as fabric softener. I am curious how you will like it. A few years ago I got some sort of crazy rash after switching to a different fabric softener. I guess I became paranoid and quit using it altogether since then! You make a great point about better quality towels. I bet that makes a difference.


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