OT: alcohol based perfume removal?

There are some posts best left not responded to and some conversations best left not concluded.

You live with the rashy asthmatics in the house that smells of fish and boiled cinnamon (an allergen by the way), not me. As for the "miracle" of vinegar, most of that is made from byproducts of the petroleum industry. I can't even imagine what deadly toxins are in that stuff.

Fabreeze is a horrible allergin

There is good evidence that it kills dogs and creates neurological disturbances in cats.

"neurological disturbances in cats" - How can you tell?

It is a complex mixture of chemicals designed to disguise and mask BO. They are usually *very* careful to avoid any allergenic compounds.

Cats are borderline psychotic at the best of times... More so for US style "house cats" that are never allowed out.

It is paranoid new age word salad against chemicals.

I am no fan of "air fresheners" by the way - they seek to disguise what could be important warning signs of things that could be potentially dangerous like the smell of rotting food or leaking drains for example.

If you are really allergic to something in the air then the effect is not unlike CS gas or methyl mercaptan (smell of gas). Eyes or lungs on fire streaming with tears almost blinded and possibly vomiting as well. If you are really out of luck throat swelling can cause breathing difficulties and intervention with an epipen may be needed.

A small number of very dangerous allergic sensitisers produce no effect at all the very first time that you are exposed. The second time around is something of a wake up call.

Think hayfever on steroids and you get the general idea.

What she & T are describing is much more like a high functioning autism response to complex smells which is entirely different to an allergy. The irrational obsession with perceived "toxins" is also consistent.

It is a reaction agains perfume manufacturers who are encouraging the use of illegal and long-banned chemicals by clever advertising - and then profiting from the misery their customers inflict on others. No other substance you can willingly or accidentally ingest is exempt from all regulation and declaration; such is the power of the perfume industry.

If this is 'New age', it started for me in the 1950s.

Thank you for your diagnosis, especially as you have never met either of us, but I would prefer the diagnosis of the medical experts I have actually consulted on this.

Liz!

Think over to what you are responding to. Equating "high functioning autism" with chemical sensitivity is so stupid it is imbecilic. This is NOT AN ACCIDENT or just a really, really stupid person. IT IS ON PURPOSE. N-O O-N-E IS THAT STUPID.

The goal was to rile the both of us up, upset us, and get us to waste a bunch of our time upset writing back in protest.

Liz!!! W-E'V-E BEEN TROLLED!

-T

I expect you do but just think about it for a moment. Are you really as allergic to all these things as you say you are?

Allergic has a *very* specific meaning here.

There are many different chemical compounds in perfumes and the thing that they have in common is being a very complex mixture of smells. I expect there are a few allergens in some of them but by no means all.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

You are both tilting at windmills.

Yes, they are toxic to me, even if they aren't to anyone else. The reaction is out of proportion to the quantity of toxin - a true allergic reaction. It is also present when I am not aware of the presence of the allergenic substance through my normal senses, so it isn't psychologically based.

Susceptibility to poisoning is not a manifestation of autism.

So do you carry an epipen around all the time then?

Believing that every chemical is toxic to you is. Being swamped by complex smells could easily be a manifestation of high functioning autism. They are one of the other main categories of super tasters.

FTAOD I'm not trolling although I think the OP, T probably was.

Try a green shiso (perilla frutescens) leaf sometime (belongs to mint family) and is used by the Japanese with sushi. It tastes like a smell!

No, because the symptoms do not include swelling of the airways and so are are not life-threatening (unless I tried to drive or operate machinery). The neurological symptoms are very real but reversible when exposure to the toxin is stopped.

Some of these chemicals are odourless to me and I do not believe "every chemical is toxic". I work with many volatile chemical substances that cause me no trouble at all even though some of them upset other people. I also work with a variety of unpleasant smells and have no problem other than the normal reaction to something that smells revolting.

I don't know what you are confusing this with, but it is something I do not suffer from.

The terminology might be a bit extreme, but given the symptoms described, it sounds pretty severe. I have no idea why you label it an "autism response". I think you are in denial because the symptoms are not yours. I share some of the responses although on an entirely different level, so I have no trouble believing they are real.

Give it whatever label you wish, the symptoms aren't changed by labels.

It is just a manifestation of his highly functioning autism.

Perhaps you should read some of the links I have already posted then your ignorance would not be so great. Autism is strongly linked with an enhanced sense of bitter tastes and distorted overwhelming smells.

Problems with scrambled sense of smell/taste are likely to get worse now because of Covid-19 as well. A small proportion of people who lose their sense of smell end up in a crazy world where most things smell bad.

Panic induced responses can feel extremely real to the sufferer. Hyperventilating being by far the most commonly experienced one.

I was allergic to grass pollen when I was young. Not in a dangerous way but enough that I was used to doing summer exams barely able to read the questions. I know several beekeepers who have become properly allergic to bee stings over a lifetime of keeping bees. Those are true allergies.

I'm trying to help them understand their condition.

If you know what you are dealing with it helps a lot. This neurotoxin stuff is complete and utter new age bollocks with bells on!

Do you *really* believe that fabreeze kills dogs and makes cats go mad? (their claim with no evidence at *ALL* to back it up)

The chemicals they rail against are not in any way toxic even to them. They are responding to a sensory overload in a way that is *extremely* characteristic of high functioning autism (and a refusal to accept that even as a possibility is also indicative of the same condition).

No different really to blaming Wifi and 5G for Covid.

Perhaps you should read my replies: I do not have an enhanced sense of smell and some of the chemicals that are toxic to me don't have a smell. You have done a lot of research and discovered a lot of facts about the wrong problem.

Absolutely not, I hold my breath and calmly get away from the chemicals if I can identify the source.

Your comments are not helping because they apply to a different condition. I don't need to be told that I suffer from symptoms I have never had - and therefore I have a condition which I have not got.

If you had lost days of your life in nausea, confusion and dysfunctionality because of exposure to known allergens you wouldn't say that.

There is a growing body of evidence that a number of unexplained deaths of apparently healthy dogs have coincided with their owners' use of Fabrese. I myself have witnessed the effect on a cat - which recovered when the use of Fabreze was discontinued.

It is not a matter of 'belief', it is a matter for more serious research in the face of evidence that this might be more than coincidence.

Why invoke a bizarre explanantion which doesn't fit the facts when there is a perfectly logical one that does?

Sorry, I didn't reply in any depth.

I haven't found an absolutely reliable way, but hanging the clothes outside for several days when the weather is alternately sunny and showery helps in some cases. The evaporting water molecules seem to take some of the perfume molecules with them. (A bit like being able to smell the grass following a rain shower after a long dry period).

If the perfume has got onto the clothes from a wearer and doesn't disperse quickly, it is probably oil based. As a drastic last resort, I have washed clothes like that in paraffin (kerosene) and then removed it with washing-up detergent. The smell of the paraffin only lasts about a week if they are well aired, then the clothes can be put in with the normal wash and should emerge smell-free.

Diesel could be used but it smells worse and takes a lot longer for the smell to go. Cooking oil or Liquid Paraffin might be less smelly alternatives, but I haven't tried them and their higher viscosity (and cost) might cause problems..

I have hanging rails in my attic, which is ventilated separately from the house. Clothes can be left there for several months to see if the smell dimishes, but it sometimes revives when they are worn, because of body heat and moisture. The only cure for that is to get rid of them.