In the annals of consumer products, Febreze, the famous product made by Proctor & Gamble that created the air freshening market currently valued at $20 billion per year, is something of a legend.
As the story goes, a lowly P&G chemist who was a heavy smoker was messing around in his laboratory, experimenting with a starch-based chemical called beta-cyclodextrin, or HPBCD. Cyclodextrins are cyclic oligosaccharides—a grouping of large sugar molecules that form a ring-shaped molecule that is hydrophilic (absorbs or dissolves in water) on the surface with a hydrophilic central cavity that is insoluble in water.
The unique donut-shaped molecule’s outer surface partially dissolves the molecules of whatever odor it comes in contact with, then encapsulates them in the center, essentially trapping the odor molecules so they can no longer be recognized by the olfactory receptors in the human nose.
When the chemist came home from work one day, his wife asked him if he’d quit smoking because his clothes didn’t smell of cigarettes anymore. The light bulb went on, the chemist convinced P&G to sink millions into product development using HPBCD and Febreze was born. After a dismal launch as an “odor eliminator” in 1996, it was rebranded and relaunched to great success as an “air freshener” in 1998. Within a few years, HPBCDs would find their way into countless household products.
The products’ popularity grew . “I started using Febreze back in 2001,” says Anna Cox, a registered homeopathic practitioner in Montecito, California. “I had a stinky dog and a teenage boy with stinky sports clothes strewn all over the place. It was supposed to be designed to encapsulate odors, and I thought it was a much safer way to use an air-freshening product in the house than other products with lots of chemicals.”
After about four months of use, Cox was diagnosed with breast cancer, and her son Spencer developed golf ball-sized lumps at his lymph nodes, in his cheeks and at the back of his neck. The pediatrician they went to said he didn’t know what was going on and asked if she was using any new products around the house.
“The Febreze was the only new product,” she says. “But I cleaned out everything in my house, threw it all in the garbage can and went all natural.” She says at that time she had no idea if Febreze was the culprit because she didn’t have the skills to evaluate the situation.
It took a year for the noncancerous lumps in her son’s neck to go away. And the incident put Cox on a six-year journey, first to heal her breast cancer via natural methods and then to take an educational dive into biophysics and natural healing at the American University of Complementary Medicine in Beverly Hills, California. Eventually she found herself deeply attracted to the field of homeopathy, which became her specialty, along with bioresonance testing.
In 2014, Ann Cole of Montana had a reaction to something and didn’t know what. “Basically, my hair started falling out in a matter of about two to three weeks,” she said. “I have really thick hair, and I was two-thirds bald. I kept my eyebrows, fortunately. But it was incredibly distressing.”
She went to several doctors, but they had no idea what was happening. Their best guess was that it had something to do with her immune system. They then suggested a course of steroids, which would depress her immune system. They also told her it was unlikely her hair would grow back.
Ann had been working with Anna Cox on and off since 2006, so she called her. “She asked me to think back to the time it started and that reminded me that my cleaning lady had been using a new cleaner in my bathroom—a Lysol product with fragrance. When I called my cleaner, she said she’d stopped using it because she and her crew were having skin issues. When I went and checked the product, sure enough, it had HPBCD in it.”
That was the turning point for Ann. She continued working with Cox, using homeopathic remedies, and all her hair eventually grew back. But in some ways, that was just the beginning of her journey. After her “tipping point” reaction to HPBCD, her body’s previous tolerance for air fresheners and scented cleaning products was drastically reduced.
Commuting back and forth from Montana to New York City for work, she was subjected to air fresheners and other products everywhere she went—in airport bathrooms, in taxicabs and Ubers, in her hotel room and finally at work itself. “Everything had all these fragrances. In the bathrooms at work, they used products with HPBCD. Other employees kept air fresheners at their desks. My skin was getting irritated, and I was getting really nauseous at work.
“So I worked with HR at my company and said, ‘Please, no fragrances.’ The company complied, but then Covid hit and then came the lockdowns. Now, coming physically back to work, it’s all perfumed again because everybody wants these scents. But I just can’t work in that environment.”
One of the things she comments on is how differently people’s unique biochemistry is affected by air-freshening products.
“My son has the same issues as me. But my husband and daughter are not affected. Everybody’s body reacts differently. When I tell people about my experience, they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, me too! My skin has issues.’ Or, ‘A friend of mine’s daughter’s hair is falling out.’ When I tell them about HPBCD and hear back, it turns out they had Febreze all over the house. It’s just everywhere. I’ve had to learn to be super careful of my environment.”
Air fresheners didn’t touch her life again until 2011, when her son went to graduate school in New York City. He’d only been in his new apartment for a couple of weeks when he called to report some mysterious symptoms that had suddenly cropped up.
“He said he had no energy, felt sick and that about 90 percent of his hair had fallen out in a matter of days.” A practicing homeopath by this time, she questioned him carefully about his new environment, food choices and activities.
Turns out he’d been embarrassed around his new roommates because his feet and shoes were smelling sour, and a few days earlier he’d bought an air freshener and thoroughly sprayed his shoes, socks, feet and bedroom to freshen things up.
“I told him to get the product out of the house, throw the shoes away, open the windows and go wash his clothes and sheets,” Cox said.
She gave her son the homeopathic remedy Medorrhinum, which is used when the endocrine system is disrupted—which Cox thought was highly likely considering the hair loss her son experienced.
The best homeopathic remedy he had on hand to address the toxicity was Petroleum, says Cox. She would have preferred that he take the remedy Benzene, but he couldn’t readily get hold of it. “Neither remedy was a perfect match for the endocrine disruption, but it was the best we could do.”
Spencer followed his mother’s instructions and quickly started feeling better. Eventually, much to his relief, most of his hair grew back as well. But he was not the last person Cox would treat for severe allergic reactions.
As the commercial popularity of Febreze and the countless other products containing beta-cyclodextrin increased, more clients began contacting her with similar symptoms—sudden fatigue, energy loss and hair rapidly falling out by the handfuls, plus the exacerbation of many of their existing chronic problems.
“HPBCD became so prevalent that it was one of the first things I would look for with clients,” says Cox. “It is everywhere—in garbage bag liners, in dryer sheets and laundry detergents, in gels and candles and plug-ins. I can’t tell you how many people would insist, ‘No. I don’t use things like that.’ And then they’d go through their kitchen or laundry and there the chemical would be.”
Eleven years ago, Angel Bracket, 66, from Lafayette, California, was helping her sister organize her son’s birthday party at a bowling alley. “We walked in, and I heard this spraying sound. I looked up, and this liquid sprayed out of the diffuser and hit me in the face,” she says.
“I didn’t think anything about it. But then a couple hours later I felt some lumps around my eyes. A little later, my brother came up to me and said, ‘Have you looked in the mirror lately?’ I went in to look, and my eyes were swelling shut and my lips were getting puffy.”
Her husband insisted on going home, and by the time they arrived two hours later, her eyes were swollen shut, and her lips and the inside of her mouth were swelling.
She called Anna Cox, a registered homeopathic practitioner, who immediately recognized the symptoms. Cox recommended Angel start on the homeopathic remedy Petroleum, and the toxic effects slowly reversed, giving her relief. After this episode, however, Angel says her sensitivity to fragrances skyrocketed.
“After that, the floodgates opened, and a lot of things were triggered—other things I might’ve been allergic to that my body could handle that now all of the sudden it couldn’t, just started popping up.” She says it took about three years before her body fully recovered and came back into balance.
“I can’t tell you how many people in my family, good friends and even people that work for us, have problems with air fresheners and other scented products. Ashleigh, my daughter, gets really bad headaches. The minute she’s around HPBCD she knows it because she gets a very specific headache that starts going up her neck and up to the top of her head. In other people, it will cause joint pain, vision trouble and so many different things. There’s not just one effect. Everybody’s body assimilates and reacts to it differently.”
Today, if she gets exposed, she recognizes the symptoms and knows to take the isopathic remedy Cox has had formulated from the Febreze product itself. “It works like a charm every time.”
Fortunately for corporations and unfortunately for the consumer public, air fresheners fall under the category of “general fragrances,” the ingredients of which are not monitored or regulated by governmental agencies. And yet over 20 percent of people in the United States consistently report negative reactions to air fresheners—products that reveal fewer than 10 percent of all the volatile (airborne) ingredients they contain on their labels and material safety sheets.1
Studies show that air fresheners in general release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the air, such as xylene, aldehydes and esters.2 VOCs are gaseous, carbon-based compounds, and some can be very harmful. Xylene affects the central nervous system, triggering nausea, headaches and dizziness. Depending on the concentration, it can cause a loss of consciousness and death.3
Aldehydes, including formaldehyde, have been found to be toxic to cells. They can also create genetic mutations that lead to cancer.4 Phthalates, a common ingredient in air fresheners, are a type of ester, chemical compounds formed when an acid and an alcohol are mixed. These are well known to cause asthma.5
Phthalates are known to cause reproductive problems in women and men, including infertility, testicular dysgenesis syndrome and cancer.6 They can also cause abnormal fetal development.7 By 2011, researchers had discovered 133 different VOCs in tested air freshener products.8
Certain chemicals in air fresheners react with ozone, producing dangerous pollutants like formaldehyde that, when airborne, can cause eye and skin irritation and respiratory issues. In the central nervous system, formaldehyde causes headaches, dizziness, general weakness and insomnia.9
Benzene is a common component in air fresheners, and studies have long shown it to be both genotoxic (affecting genetic information in cells) and mutagenic (causing genetic mutations).
Studies show it is associated with leukemia in humans and with other cancers in animals.10 Testing of commercial air fresheners reveals chemicals not listed on the label, such as benzenemethanol, lilial, galaxolide, butylated hydroxytoluene and linalool, all known to cause various health problems including asthma and other breathing difficulties, skin irritation, headache and childhood illness.11
We love candles with their soft romantic light. And the scented ones seem all the more enticing.
And yet most commercially produced scented candles are made with paraffin wax, a petroleum or coal oil product that, when burned, can give off toxic volatile organic compounds (VOCs) like benzene, whether lit or just sitting around on the side of the bathtub.1
These kinds of candles also release dioxins (organic chemicals made up of a pair of benzene rings) as well as aldehydes and micro-particulates known to cause lung irritation.2
Soot emissions from scented candles are higher than those from unscented candles, and candles with wire-core wicks can give off significant amounts of lead when burned.3 And increasingly, candles contain HPBCD as well.
Beeswax and soy/vegetable candles still give off particulates, but not the toxic fumes that commercial scented paraffin candles do. However, be on your guard. Unless they are labeled 100 percent beeswax or soy, you may still be purchasing candles that are up to 49 percent paraffin.4
Incense is not a healthy choice, either. Studies show that the frequency of incense burning is related to an increased risk of worsening current asthma, wheezing and the need for medication among children.5
Daily exposure to burning incense can damage lung function in young people.6 Further, one study suggests that using incense in the home increases the risk of lung cancer in people who smoke.7
Car incense, a product that is becoming increasingly popular, is also best to avoid.
HPBCD has been slow in garnering negative clinical reports because cyclodextrins including HPBCD are the new stars of the pharmaceutical industry. They have an incomparable ability to encapsulate other pharmaceutical agents that are otherwise not easily bioavailable and deliver them efficiently throughout the body—including past the blood-brain barrier. Cyclodextrins can even be used to sneak things like modified electrodes and electrochemical sensors into the body.12
But despite the extraordinary popularity of HPBCD with pharmaceutical companies, it has serious issues. Studies in animals have demonstrated lung toxicity and induced pneumonia after HPBCD infusions, as well as the possibility of organ injury and kidney and liver dysfunction.13
Animal and test-tube studies have also indicated that HPBCD negatively impacts system-wide blood circulation and is pro-inflammatory.14
Further investigations in animals have indicated that HPBCD can increase bone resorption, leading to bone loss.15 In addition, it can cause hearing loss and diseases of the ear.16 Since these animal studies may not apply to humans, the research needs to be clinically tested to confirm the effects occur in people, too.
Considered a promising treatment for the rare Niemann-Pick type C disease, a genetic disorder in which cholesterol and other lipids accumulate in the body, a clinical trial of HPBCD, marketed as VTS-270, was suspended in the UK and France in 2019 due to its “unfavorable benefit/risk balance.”17 HPBCD was also an ingredient in the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) Covid vaccine.18
Although existing homeopathic remedies such as Petroleum and Benzene can effectively treat the negative effects of HPBCD, says Cox, to better assist clients, she worked with a homeopathic lab to create a specific remedy from a scented Febreze product.
The final remedy produced was actually a substance that technically falls under the category called Isopathy. It is Febreze itself, diluted and succussed, and not a substance that is merely similar.
“I seriously hope that our homeopathic community will come on board and conduct a full proving soon,” adds Cox. “Because that’s what it’s going to take to really help practitioners identify this chemical’s holistic symptom picture and provide consumers access to the best solution.
If you just want to clear the air with no additional scent, try these DIY recipes
Air freshener sprays
Vinegar spray
Baking soda spray
Scented If you want to add a floral, herbal or forest scent, reach for the essential oils. Add 2 to 8 drops of essential oil or oil blend of your choice (depending upon desired scent strength) to the baking soda and mix well. Add the scented baking soda blend to the spray bottle, then add water and shake to mix.
TIP: To help the oils and water combine better and to ensure your spray freshener dries quickly, add 2 tablespoons of alcohol—vodka or rubbing alcohol—to the mix. If you use alcohol, you can even skip using the baking soda.
Sachets
Your grandmother probably made sachets to stick in her closets and dresser drawers to make all of her clothes smell wonderful.
Mix rice with herbs or dried flowers. The amount of herbs and flowers to use depends on the intensity of the scent you want. Or simply add drops of your favorite essential oil(s) to the rice. Spoon the rice mixture onto the fabric square. Gather the edges of the fabric and tie with ribbon. Drop in a drawer or place in your closet.
Glass containers
For a pretty, scented presentation anywhere in the house, fill a small glass jar or vase with baking soda mixed with dried herbs or flowers. Or again, simply combine the baking soda with your favorite mix of essential oils.
Cover the top of the jar with a piece of muslin, tie with a bow and there you go!
Potpourri
Buy a blend of beautiful dried flowers or fragrant herbs and place in an attractive bowl to leave out in the room. If not scented enough, add appropriate essential oil.
Pomanders
As old an odor-killer for closets, kitchens and pantries as you can find.
Stud the orange with the cloves. You can cover the whole orange with cloves for more intense scent or create fun clove patterns on the surface. Roll in cinnamon for additional scent and to help prevent mold. Let the orange dry for several days.
Run a wire through the orange and bend at the bottom to secure. Add a ribbon to the wire at the top and hang.
Bouquets
The prettiest air freshener of all—try placing a small bouquet of highly scented flowers like roses in the room. Or place fresh herbs in small bud vases.
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Adv Exp Med Biol, 2019; 1193: 35–52 |
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Environ Health Perspect, 2011; 119(1): A16 |
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US National Research Council Committee on Toxicology, “Formaldehyde –An Assessment of Its Health Effects.” (National Academies Press, 1980) |
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J Environ Public Health, 2019; 2019: 9316707 |
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Regul Toxicol Pharmacol, 2013; 67(3): 351–9; Front Immunol, 2021; 12: 716357 |
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J Assoc Res Otolaryngol, 2015; 16(5): 599–611 |
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University of Notre Dame, “Mallinckrodt Update Concerning VTS-270 in the UK and France,” press release. Aug 2, 2019. parseghianfund.nd.edu |
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US Food and Drug Administration, “Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) of the Janssen Covid-19 Vaccine to Prevent Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19).” www.fda.gov |
Avoid scented candles and incense sticks
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Rob Brown, MD, “Indoor Air Toxins: The Dangers of Candles,” Jun 2, 2021. |
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