Take my BREATH AWAY
Many of us welcome the extra dimension that perfume lends a flower, says JACKIE FRENCH, but it can be irritating or worse for people with allergies
The living room was filled with my ‘Erlicheer’ jonquils – vase after vase of them. It looked a delight, and smelled like paradise. Which was why I was startled when my friend hesitated in the doorway, took one sniff and headed outdoors instead of towards lunch at the dining table.
Turns out that scents give him crippling headaches, plus a vague sense of unease that lasts for days. And he isn’t alone. Fragrance allergies and sensitivities seem to be increasing, which could be due to the growing number of perfumed products, from soaps to detergents and washing up liquids, or to a rise in modern allergies of many kinds.
The results can range from mildly unpleasant to deadly, involving headaches, rashes, sneezing, dizziness, wheezing, watering eyes and an inability to concentrate.
Some people seem to have a reaction to only one scent or chemical in the bouquet that makes up a scent, others to a range of perfumes, and others to all scents. One friend gets a rash if she brushes against jasmine or sits too long near it, but other flowers are fine. Another finds wattles impossible to be near. Yet another finds it is ironically the scents she loves best that make her wheeze: jasmine, jonquils but not daffodils (even though both are Narcissus), lilacs, privet and lilies.
My luncheon guest that day has a reaction to any scent. I simply hadn’t known about it, as I rarely wear perfume and don’t use scented household products – not because any of our family is sensitive to them, but because none of them smells quite right. No one who has been in a pine forest and drawn in deep lungfuls of air will think pine-scented cleaner
really smells like woodland, and while I love rose and other fragrant oils, those in most household products are chemical substitutes, nothing like the real thing.
So what can you do if you suffer from a scent allergy, apart from see a specialist? Mostly, speak up. Most of us don’t know it exists. Educate us, and remind us that even sunscreen can be perfumed. Let us know that the sweet scents of our gardens, vases and perfumes can be dangerous. It is also important not to grow scents that ‘travel’ along your fence, such as jasmine and super fragrant roses, or at least to understand at once if your neighbours ask you to remove them.
As for that lunch, when I first discovered that the scents I love can be literally unbearable to others, we ended up eating outside – well away and upwind of the jonquils – as even after I had taken the vases into another room, the perfume lingered.
“It’s been a glorious excuse to add other flowers to my garden ... scentless roses and hydrangeas”
Ever since then, I have avoided having scented flowers indoors when I expect visitors, unless I know the guests – and also know that they both love and can tolerate scents. I’ve stopped putting dishes of homemade potpourri by doorways so visitors get a pleasant whiff, unless I know their preferences, and I keep my great vases full of scented roses for my study. (If anyone barges into my study uninvited, then they deserve whatever my vase of roses can throw at them – or rather exude.)
It has also been a glorious excuse to add other flowers to my garden. Where once I hunted out only stunningly fragrant roses, lavenders, camellias and jonquils, now I make sure we have some innocuous flowers too – scentless roses and hydrangea bushes.
And I still hate any product that pretends to have the fragrance of a pine forest.