The fragrance industry is subjecting people, often without their knowledge, to chemical fragrances that affect emotions and behaviors.
By guest blogger Marti Wolfe.
Scent marketing delivery machine.
Utne Reader‘s current issue (September-October) reports on a distressing trend about which people with MCS and their advocates should be aware. In “The Sweet Smell of Sales,” Utne reports of articles appearing in Business Week, Good’s and Neuromarketing about “ambient scenting,” the new but growing practice of attempting to “elicit unconscious behavior or emotion” by “pumping a carefully chosen smell into a [commercial] space.”
MCSers have enough challenge with the smells of personal care products without having to deal with deliberately “piped in” synthetic organic compounds in public spaces.
Good’s journalist Siobahn O’Connor acknowledges the potential threat on the magazine blog: “The fragrance industry is secretive and trades largely in toxic chemicals that are known allergens and likely hormone disruptors,” she writes on the magazine’s blog (June 21, 2010). And “subjecting people (often without their knowledge) to fragrances that affect their emotions and behaviors strikes me as a slippery slope.”
I agree. If this is an invasive practice for the general public, it is even more so for the chemically sensitive, allergic, or respiratory-challenged cohorts of the population. Regulators and legislators should hear our dismay.
Cheers,
Marti
Marti Wolfe, PhD, is an environmental toxicologist whose research interests include the effects of methymercury on animals exposed via the aquatic food chain, and also the interaction of methylmercury and selenium when animals are exposed to these contaminants together. She’s worked on developing a non-lethal biomarker using molecular biology techniques to help identify birds that have been exposed to petroleum in their habitat. This biomarker also evaluates birds that have been treated following oil spills.
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