Fragrance or Essential Oils?
When choosing personal care products, do your hormones a favor and ditch the fragrance!
You may be wondering, what actually is a fragrance? Most fragrances are created synthetically in a lab to mimic the smells of your favorite things. Sometimes fragrances are obtained similarly to how seed oils are obtained- through solvent extraction, often using benzene. Which is interesting because benzene is one of the most infamous carcinogens people tend to avoid in chemical sunscreens. Tons of different synthetic ingredients go into creating a single fragrance, and manufacturers are not required to disclose every single ingredient that goes into making a particular fragrance. So you won’t see an exhaustive list on a product’s INCI (official ingredients) list.
Fragrances can be super annoying because they can irritate sensitive skin, trigger migraines, and most importantly disrupt your hormones!
Fragrances are full of things called xenoestrogens which throw off your body’s natural hormone structure. Throughout a woman's menstrual cycle, estrogen levels rise and fall twice. Regular and consistent rise and fall of hormone levels is essential for a woman’s overall wellbeing. If your hormone levels are off it can affect your mood, the day you ovulate, ability to metabolize and burn fat, among other things. When you expose yourself to excess xenoestrogens, you disrupt your natural estrogen levels and they start a detrimental domino effect on your overall health. And it's not just women’s health at stake, men are also affected by increased amounts of estrogen exposure.
To see if your favorite products have fragrances, look for these names in the INCI List:
Just because you want to avoid fragrances, doesn’t mean that you have to avoid fun smells and aromas! Essential Oils are not only a great alternative to fragrances because they smell great, but they actually serve holistic purposes!
Certain types of essential oils can help regulate the body holistically. Aromatherapy from inhaled or topical essential oils aids in relaxation and circulation.
High quality essential oils are obtained by the Cold-Pressed extraction method, or with steam. This means that the natural plants, flowers, roots, bark, and seeds are harvested in a safe manner that does not disrupt the benefits of the oil. In addition to just being enjoyable to smell, essential oils can benefit your health in a holistic way. This is possible because the nutritive benefits of each oil is preserved during extraction.
I love using essential oils in my RAPHA products! I have had so much fun putting together different essential oil combinations to create unique lip balm flavors. And I love that I can create delicious flavors and aromas that don’t trigger my migraines.
Here are a few ways you can swap out fragrances for essential oils in your everyday routine: