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Is perfume harmful to health?

Perfume, most women can't live without it. There are thousands of fragrances with various compositions. But are all these scents good? Or is perfume harmful to health? Discover everything about different types of perfume, what perfume is and how to find a nice-smelling perfume. Extra tips for making your own perfume.

Women and perfume

Think every woman has and uses a perfume at home. Everyone has their own preferences, one likes airy and floral, the other prefers a heavier with deeper scents. Your own preference is very personal and depends not only on what you like, but also on the time and purpose of application. Another factor that needs to be taken into account is that it turns out differently with one person than with another. So even if it is the same product, it can smell very different. We are of course talking about perfume.

What is perfume?

Perfume is nothing but a mixture of various fragrances, usually dissolved in alcohol. Sometimes a dye is also added. The scents are quite diverse:from flowers to woods, but also herbs and nowadays even food scents.

Perfume

Perfume can be roughly divided into four subgroups:
1) Perfume (this includes most fragrance components, up to 40%)
2) Eau de parfum (only 10-20% fragrance components)
3) Eau de toilette (5-10% fragrance ingredients)
4) Eau de cologne (2-3% fragrance ingredients)

Logically, it can be said that the more fragrance ingredients a perfume has, the more expensive the perfume is in the end.

How does a perfume work?

Perfume consists of fragrance ingredients and alcohol as a solvent. When you apply perfume to the skin, the alcohol will evaporate first. After all, alcohol is a volatile substance that evaporates. In combination with spraying on a fairly warm skin, the alcohol will even disappear fairly quickly. What remains are the pure fragrances. These evaporate in a certain order (which in turn has to do with the chemical composition of a perfume, but also with the amount of fragrances), until the perfume has 'worked out'. Of course, this applies here:if you want to be enveloped in a nice scent for an entire evening, then you should opt for a 'real' perfume rather than an eau de cologne.

The evaporation also ensures that the sprayed perfume will smell different every time:from intense to medium, to only very volatile. The degree of evaporation also varies from person to person and that is why one perfume may suit someone and not another (see introduction).

Choosing the right fragrance perfume

Buying the right perfume can sometimes cause problems, especially if a man wants to surprise a woman with it. In fact, this is even inadvisable unless you know the woman in question very well. Perfume is a very personal thing. Suppose I love wood scents and I absolutely do not like heavy floral scents and one day someone would like to surprise me with a perfume with a floral scent. Too bad for those, but the perfume would sit around unused. So guys, be warned!

To be able to make the right choice, you must first know for what time or why you are going to buy perfume. For example, the perfume you want to use for going to work will be very different from perfume that is worn to a romantic dinner for two. Okay, of course there are always exceptions to the rule. Once you know what the perfume will be used for, you have to make the following choice:which scent should it be? The French association of perfumers has made a classification for this:

• Hesperidée, or citrusy
• Florale, or flowery

• Fougère, a fantasy fragrance                                             
• Chypre, another fantasy fragrance
• Boisée, or woody
• Ambrée, amber, also called oriental or oriental
• Cuir, or leather

All perfumes can therefore be divided into these 7 categories. Okay, once a choice has been made from this, all that remains is a choice from the many brands and names. And then the misery really begins……..

Perfume harmful to health?

Plenty of choice! That's not it and there is something for everyone. Every wallet has also been thought of:from very exclusive and unaffordably expensive to very ordinary and affordable for everyone. Here too, your own preference and personality play a major role. Are you going for a big brand or does it not matter that much and do you go for cheap and possibly counterfeit? Read on and shudder…..

Real perfumes, for which you have to dig deep into your pocket, are subject to all kinds of strict checks before they are put on the market. The cheaper (and counterfeit) versions are often not checked or only checked to a limited extent, with all the consequences that entails. For example, various tests and trials have shown that these 'perfumes' use urine as a coloring agent! Bah! There is rightly an air of its own! They also consist of antifreeze and bacteria! Right, yes. Applying these scents will soon cause serious health problems, because the aforementioned substances penetrate the body through the skin. In this case it can be rightly said:perfume is harmful to health!

Alternative Fortunately, there are also alternatives if you are not able to purchase expensive perfumes. These are equally capable of ensuring that you can walk down the street wrapped in a wonderful scent. Think of good shower gels that continue to smell nice for a long time, deodorant rollers (without aluminum) or make your own perfume to your taste.

Make your own perfume

Here is a basic recipe for making perfume yourself:

  • 2 cups of water
  • 1 cup blossom of a freshly cut flower (of your choice, for example:lilac, lavender, rose, honeysuckle or let your imagination run wild or get started and experiment with combinations of various flowers).
  • Put a cheesecloth in a bowl, fill one cup with the flower blossom and pour the water over the flowers until they are completely submerged.
  • Cover the whole thing and let it sit overnight.
  • The next day, press the liquid completely out of the cheesecloth into the bowl (you can now throw away the bruised blossom).
  • Now you have a bowl of scented water. Bring this to a boil and let it simmer until only some of it is left (sniffing it in between gives an indication of the strength of the final perfume).
  • Once the desired scent has been reached, turn off the fire, let it cool and then store in a small dark-colored bottle in a not too warm place.
  • This homemade perfume has a shelf life of about a month.

You can also experiment with alcohol (80%) and let it soak in blossom. Do not let it boil because then the alcohol will evaporate! Or get started with essential oils. You can also find 'recipes' for making wonderfully smelling perfumes on the net.

What do you think:is perfume harmful to health or not? And which scent do you usually choose? Do you prefer a certain brand?