In Favor of Fragrance Free

For someone who spent years in the “No Poo” community, I still find it disheartening that there are so few options for commercial soaps and shampoos that do not contain toxic ingredients or over powering fragrances. I’d been using Suave Coconut for a little while now, because I’m on a fixed income and I needed something fast and frugal. You can sense how disappointed I was when I saw the bottle with it’s new and improved 24 hour fragrance claim.

Who needs to smell like their shampoo all day long? There are so many things that assault our senses all day long that we become nose blind to the lingering VOCs but our body nonetheless has to keep fighting off the offenses. The redneck got an instant headache the other day when he walked into a room the other day. Even if we are unaware of what we are breathing in, our body knows and remembers.

I can’t say that the Environmental Working Group EWG is perfect but they are oe of my goto sources for looking up the chemical impact of household products. I wondered as my headache today lingers on, what would the Suave conditioner score be on EWG is they removed the fragrance? Would it go down at all? Of course it’s not scientific, but I did enter a “build a report” on the Suave coconut conditioner and omitted the “fragrance” from the list of ingredients. And that alone, drops the score from a 5 down to a 4. There are “organic” and unscented shampoos that score a 4 on EWG that cost much more.

I have sent a request to Suave to consider making just ONE of their shampoos or conditioners without fragrance. I realize I am just one voice and it’s unlikely to make a difference. But if we each speak up and explain what it is that we want, then perhaps someday the corporations will listen.