Perfumes harmful for health and fragrance toxicity
36 perfumes carry ‘scent of death’
says Greenpeace
Manila Times. Tuesday, Feb. 15 2005
By Ronnie Calumpita, Reporter
The next time your boyfriend or girlfriend gives you perfume as a Valentine’s gift, think twice—he or she might be giving you a scent of “death.”
The environmental group Greenpeace said Monday that at least 36 well-known perfume brands contain chemicals that are hazardous to health and the environment.
At a press briefing at the Chicken Bacolod Restaurant in Quezon City, Francis de la Cruz, Greenpeace Southeast Asia toxics campaigner, said that phthalate esters and synthetic musks—two toxic man-made chemicals—are contained in several perfumes.
“These chemicals are known to be persistent and they intensify once they enter the body by inhaling or through the skin,” he said.
“It’s not acute poisoning but it’s chronic, it stays in our system and accumulates in the fatty tissues of living organisms,” he added.
De la Cruz said phthalate has been found to have bad effects on the DNA, male sperm and restricts lung function in men. Synthetic musks can attack living tissues, he said.
The perfumes containing these toxic agents, he said, are One, Eternity for Men and Eternity for Women, Boss in Motion; Envy Me, Blue Polo, True Starr, She , Chance and No. 5, Floral Dream, Cinema and Sunset.
Greenpeace randomly selected 36 brands of perfume for quantitative analysis for phthalates and synthetic musks at the Netherlands laboratory, TNO Environment and Geosciences, which conducted the study from 2003 to 2004.
De la Cruz said Greenpeace has started meeting the manufacturers of these perfumes to discuss how these hazardous chemicals can be phased out of their products.
“Other ingredients that are not harmful can serve as substitutes,” he said.
Greenpeace will coordinate with the Bureau of Food and Drugs to regulate the entry of “toxic” perfumes.
“The bureau should make the adjustments on perfumes with hazardous chemicals once the regulation is passed in Europe,” de la Cruz said.
Note: the complete list includes:
Floral Dream,
In Leather,
Aqua Naturale,
White Musk, Eau de Parfum,
High Speed,
BLV Notte,
CK One for Men, Eternity for Men and Eternity for Women,
Le Baiser Du Dragon,
Chance No. 5,
Poison and Pure Poison,
Him,
Fiorucci Loves You, Envy Me,
Boss,
My Manifesto,
Classique and Le Male,
Nightlife,
Iris Blue,
Waterlove,
Sunset,
XS Pour Homme,
Jamaica Man and Jamaica Woman.
(List published on page A4 of the Feb. 28, 2005 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer)
P.s.:
This report is from 2005, we do not exclude that the companies since then have reformulated the mentioned fragrances
SEE ALSO
Why Phthalates in Perfumes Are Dangerous?
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