Everyone is impacted by Fragrance - Part 2

In my previous post “Everyone is impacted by Fragrance” Lara commented that maybe the super-sensitive nose some pregnant women develop, has the purpose to protect them and their baby.

I agree totally with Lara, I think she hit the nail right on the head, I think that is exactly why Mother Nature has given us this acute sense of smell at such an important time, when our babies are relying on us totally to protect them from any dangers that might stop them from developing properly in the womb . We know by extinct that strong smelling chemicals are properly not the best things for us to be using at that stage.

It’s a shame that it doesn’t continue for most of us after bubs is born. I was watching my son play football last week and was horrified by the number of times a Grand Mother was rubbing Hand Sanitizer on her little grand-daughter, this little girl looked to be about 2 or 3 years of age.

I was sitting right next to a lady who in the space of only one half of a football match, that’s approx. 30 minutes for those of you who don’t spend every Saturday watching their sons running around having fun, said, “come to Grand-Ma and wash your hands” three times. 3 times in half an hour and I was thinking about the amount of chemicals that little girl was having rubbed into her.

Whatever happened to good old fashioned “clean dirt”? now I know that sounds a bit silly, but once upon a time children were allowed to play in the back yard in the dirt and the mud having fun and getting exposed to germs that would allow their immune system to develop, which really is a good thing. Oh course, washing hands with soap and water after play and before eating is necessary, but a little bit of dirt isn’t going to hurt them.

When I got home I had to investigate the ingredients contained in the Hand Sanitizer she was using just in case I was wrong and there really wasn’t any chemicals contained in it, although I really didn’t think there would be much of a chance of this. So here we go:

Dettol Instant Hand Sanitizer:

Ingredients: Alcohol Denatured, Water, PEG/PPG-17/6 Copolymer, Propylene Glycol, Acrylates/C10-30 Alkyl Acrylate Crosspolymer, Tetrahydroxypropyl Ethylendiamine, Fragrance, Limonene.

OK, I really don’t know that I’d want to be rubbing this stuff on our children’s hands a couple of times a day, let alone 3 times in half an hour. What about the old fashioned way of just taking a plastic bag with a wet face cloth? Surely this is a lot safer to use on our children’s delicate skin.

I also looked up FRAGRANCE on the Cosmetics Data Base, as that’s what we have been discussing and they give it a score of 8 out of 10 for being a high hazard to our health, check it out yourself, it’s a great spot to type in any ingredient you’re not sure of and finding out exactly how bad or good it really is for you.

Come on Mums and Grand-Mums, let’s try and cut down on the use of chemicals we use on our children, for their health’s sake.