We are all aware of the dangers of traffic fumes, tobacco smoke, pesticides and garden chemicals and take precautions accordingly, hoping to defend ourselves against toxic chemicals and invisible, carcinogenic substances.

It is regrettable that we also must include artificial chemical scents and perfumes in our list of potential negatives that endanger our health. Commercial toiletries including skin perfumes and body oils are usually complex in their make-up, unless they come with a guarantee to be pure, natural products. We must examine the list of ingredients in all chemical products and assess them according to our knowledge of their safety. We must do so on the understanding that many chemicals are not proven as yet regarding safety for general use.

Many of us who have allergic reactions or are hypersensitive to chemicals and suffer irritation or negative reactions demonstrate the factor of individual response in health matters. For those who fall into this category, there is no alternative but to mistrust every item until cautiously tested by personal trial.

Fragrances can affect the body through inhalation, ingestion or absorption through the skin. The most common signs of irritation from, or an allergic reaction to a fragrance in a product develops as a skin rash immediately or soon after using a perfume, cream or lotion. This is a clear warning sign that something is not right and the product must be avoided.

Scents can affect not only the person wearing the fragrance, but anyone who comes into contact with them.  Depending on the degree of sensitivity, some will experience symptoms of varying intensity from nausea and headache, to skin itchiness and respiratory symptoms such as asthma.

This can be a very real and serious issue in a workplace both for co-workers and for the employer who has a duty of care and who must ensure the working environment is safe and free of health risks.

The only sure way to avoid these reactions to scent and chemical deodorizers is to have a policy of a workplace rule to be entirely ‘scent-free’ as achieved with tobacco free zones.

The Canadian Lung Association and the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) has suggested scent-free policies as such an option for workplaces and public places. If this is adopted it will accentuate the need to use artificial perfumes as a private matter rather than in general public use.  Although this does not include natural essential aromatics, caution and discrimination is advised in employing all aromatics and perfumes.

It will not be long before the need to address this issue attracts general focus.

The addition of attractive perfumes in commerce, once seen to be offering exciting new products seen as innovation, is now known as a potentially threatening influence. This is not only through volume but the fact that many ingredients in their complex chemical compositions are proven to be carcinogenic or toxic to our health.

Deliberate inhalation of perfumes and oils can be pleasurable and beneficial and some influence us in such a way as to elevate our mood or to calm our emotions. As the finest natural perfumes can help to make us feel good and to elevate our consciousness or calm our mood, so there are odours which are heavy, damaging to our cells, and depress our consciousness.

The general use of perfumes in commerce, once an exciting new innovation, has now become a threatening influence, not only through volume but through the complex chemicals used, many of which are positively toxic to our health.

A scent has the power to help us recall our earliest memories, encourage a comforting closeness with a lost love one or to take us ‘right back’ to a past happening in our lives. Many people have had recall of previous lives through the influence of perfume whether by spontaneous response or by the purposeful employment of a scent. It is our natural reaction to a sensory stimulus with associated familiar or welcome association.

A special floral is Michelia figo as it is generally labelled and that we know in our gardens as the Port Wine Magnolia. It originates in China as so many of our wonderful flora and is enjoyed for its scented flower oil used on the hair and valued for the fragrance it offers in the garden environment. The flower shares the genus of the famous Champaka.

Although we allow for individual taste and that some people even recoil from a strong perfume that others admire, it is usual to find that, according to its strength, or whether it is as a gentle essence, the following flowers offer a treasure house for those who wish to become more familiar with perfumes in nature that offer universal appeal.

The use of essential oils is on the increase. Not only for indulging in the sensory satisfaction of scents but the value of aromatics in healing has been successfully promoted by professional aromatherapists and psychologists.For their healing powers and purposes, it is the pure and unadulterated essential oils that consumers and professionals are now demanding.

We cannot ignore the negative things that also register on this sensitive instrument of olfaction that we possess that alerts us to potential dangers of increasing toxic chemical fumes that are polluting our environment. These are larger issues that must be dealt with on national and international levels to help preserve the health of our planet. But we do have the power to use beneficial aromatics on our person and in our homes.

Aside from personal toilet, perfumes are used now as they always have been, to smother unpleasant smells and odours. Whereas in the past, they were used to attempt to cover up the smells of poor sanitation, this is no longer of vital importance. The focus has shifted to the need to cover up chemical stenches and industrial effluents. But we have it in our power to neutralise or reduce their negative effects through our employment of beautifully fragrant essential oils in our homes as well as on