When Perfume Attacks!

Dear Amalah,
Hi! I recently found your advice column and I absolutely love it! I’m not a mom (yet) but I do have a question that I think you may be able to help me with. I hope.
I dearly love perfume but it does not love me. Every time I think I’ve found the perfect fragrance, it invariably either gives me a headache or makes me feel sick to my stomach because it’s too powerful. I use one squirt and I smell it constantly and it drives me nuts! My ideal situation, which may be unrealistic, is to just smell my perfume once in a while when I shift my clothes.
When trying to shop for perfume, I always aim for floral or fruity smells and stay away from musky or oriental scents but I’ve yet to find one light enough to not bother me. I’ve tried lotions but I seem to have the same problem. Maybe if it were a different scent?
My question is: Is there an extremely light fragrance in any formulation (splash, eau de toilette, etc.) that you can recommend for someone who is highly sensitive to smells?
Thanks!
-Jae
Well, I hate to say this, but it sounds like your sensitivity is probably an allergy. A mild one, granted, since it’s “just” a headache and some stomach-churning, as people with severe fragrance allergies can experience serious stuff like rashes, asthma or even anaphylactic shock. So…yeah.
An allergy would explain why your problem extends to scented lotions as well, and unfortunately means finding something “light” might not solve the problem. It’s not the strength of the smell, it’s…just the smell. The reaction is coming from the fragrance itself, or possibly something mixed in with it.
So my original advice was going to be something along the lines of: allergy testing, maybe? A body spray/splash instead of perfume? Or try experimenting with pure essential oils at a health food store or The Body Shop (where you can create customized frangrances from their oils, although I hesitate to send you into a sniffy-smelly store like that.) But if it IS just a matter of the smell being too strong, buying plain old fragrance oils might allow you to control the strength better than a spray formula.
Then I decided: Time to pass the buck! I sent your question to my awesome go-to health-type AlphaFoxyMamas. As usual, their responses blew my feeble knowledge out of the water:
Mary, who is a pharmacist, had this to say:
Fragrance allergy is fairly common. Anywhere from 1 to 10% of the population can manifest some sort of adverse effect from cosmetics that contain fragrances. Symptoms can range from rash/eczema to asthma and severe allergic response. Sometimes people also have bad reactions to scented products like cleaners, laundry detergents or other cosmetics.
It sounds like Jae has a sensitivity to perfumes that may be allergic in nature. Unfortunately, the allergens in perfumes can be the excipients (stuff mixed in with the fragrance) and the fragrance itself. In fact, some patch tests for allergies contain fragrance oils such as cinnamon, eucalyptus, etc.
I’m not sure if there is a good alternative to fragrance in this case since the fragrance itself can be an allergen (and it sounds like she’s had the reaction to more than one product). She could try essential oils, but if her sensitivity is to the fragrant compounds, she will probably have a reaction to those as well.
If it is merely the odor itself that is too strong, she may want to try a “higher end” fragrance. I find Jo Malone perfumes are very light, but they are $$$…She should go to Saks and spritz to see if she can tolerate it before shelling out the dough!!
And Jessica, a Nurse Practioner, had some more suggestions:
I have had good luck with patients using Philosophy products (*LOVE*) when they are sensitive to smells. They tend to be very light, from what I have experienced, and many of their perfumes are in the floral spectrum.
My question would be: Is she having trouble with perfumed soaps/etc.? Another thing that Philosophy and other companies suggest is finding a scent you like, then using the soap, lotion, and maybe a body spray that “layer” together to put on a scent that isn’t too heavy but can last throughout the day (albeit lighter and lighter as the day wears on, unless they reuse the lotion/spray/whatever).
With regard to different formulations, certainly the “eau de toilette” formulations are lighter since they are basically alcohol-based perfumes cut with water… I have a feeling (but no scientific-based evidence) that sprays are heavier since they must be combined with some type of propellant (usually a petroleum-based product) in order to “spray.”
I would think she could get some unscented lotion, squeeze some into her hand, spray the perfume she likes into it, mix it all together, and then lube up… That would lighten the total effect of the scent and still give her what she wants without it being too powerful. Another idea would be to add a few sprays/drops to her hair product before she works it into her hair. I don’t advocate she try it with her toothpaste, though. How about adding a little to her laundry detergent or spraying her dryer sheets before she puts them in the dryer with her clothes?
Having said all that, I wonder if she has trouble with headaches/nausea with other strong smells (not just perfume)? What she describes isn’t unlike atypical migraines which can be triggered by strong smells, tastes, light, sounds, & etc. While allergy testing wouldn’t be out of the question (she could talk to her primary care provider about getting tested by an allergist — most insurance companies pay for testing, particularly when a patient is having a problem, but she could call her insurance company to be sure), I wouldn’t hesitate to look a little further into the strong smell/headache symptomatology and see if it has less to do with her nose and more to do with her brain.