The Myth of "Fresh Scent"

There is a smell people associate with "clean."

Sharp. Sometimes sweet. Sometimes crisp. 

You may notice it in hotels, department stores, indoor public spaces, folded into the air as familiar. It greets people in hospitals. It trails strangers on elevators. It rises from mop buckets and hangs in classroom air. By the time a child is old enough to name it, the association is already complete. 

That smell is "clean." But is it?

Synthetic fragrance is not made of one thing. It is a formulation, a mixture of compounds engineered to produce a specific and consistent scent profile that performs across time, temperature, and surface. These compounds are built to last. They are designed to project and remain detectable long after the original application. And what is designed to linger, lingers.

The full chemical composition of a fragrance blend is rarely disclosed in detail. The term “fragrance” or “parfum” on a label functions as an umbrella, a single word standing in for what may be dozens of distinct compounds. The Environmental Protection Agency has identified that many fragranced consumer products release volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These compounds do not disappear when the spray settles or the mop dries. They become part of the air in the room.

And indoor rooms are not the same as the outdoors.

Outdoors, released compounds disperse. Wind moves them. Space dilutes them. These chemical compounds aren’t disappearing, but they are becoming less saturated in one space.

Indoor environments are contained, and containment exacerbates their presence. Air exchange is limited. Ventilation varies. A well-sealed modern home or office building holds these compounds far more than an older-built structure. However, all structures will be riddled with these toxins because they simply get “stuck” in the space. With repeated use of fragranced products, compounds do not just pass through. They accumulate. 

In essence, what has been sprayed, wiped, washed, and diffused into a space becomes part of that space.

All the while, our bodies move through all of it continuously.

Breathing draws airborne compounds into the respiratory system. Skin remains in direct contact with fabrics and surfaces that carry residue from laundering, from cleaning, from the last person who sat where you are sitting now. Hands transfer what they touch. Clothing holds what it was washed in. Bedding maintains contact for hours at a stretch, across every night, across years. 

It is a constant, layered, ongoing interaction between the body and these unassuming toxins.

So what does the body make of all this?

Skin becomes dry or reactive. The scalp tries to compensate. Over dry, itchy, dandruff, or over-greasy, brittle hair. Breathing feels different in certain rooms, in certain buildings, stuffy noses, slight congestion. Some people register these responses acutely and immediately. Others register them so gradually that they never notice at all. 

 The response varies. The interaction does not.

The thing I find most unusual in this case is that an actual clean room…  one without added fragrance can feel wrong or off to us, and doesn’t typically register as clean because the nervous system has been calibrated to expect a certain air composition and a certain olfactory signal.

I implore you to pay attention to the scents that linger in a space.

For the moment you smell that distinguishable scent, you can be assured the space you occupy is layered with VOCs, which lead to an assortment of health issues, including cancer.

Why would we clean a space with cancer-causing products?

That makes zero sense. 

I dare say the smell of clean is not clean at all and is actually poison masked as "sweet smelling freshness.”

Sources:

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency — Indoor Air Quality: Volatile Organic Compounds