Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

I fully support research like this, because it's always good to get proper data about phenomena. However, I can't help feeling that the results are unsurprising: how could you smell the scented candles if they weren't producing nanoparticles? Surely the existence or abundance of these nanoparticles was never in question?

This was my initial thought too. Like if I grow a bunch of nice smelling flowers, and crack open a window during the spring. Am I worse or better off than purchasing a scented candle.

Should we as a species stop nice smelling things entirely.

Imagine how much “air pollution” one inhales when taking a big whiff of a nice curry.

> how could you smell the scented candles if they weren't producing nanoparticles?

By smelling a gas?

The sub-species that I belong to does stop smelling those nice things entirely as my nose clogs up, eyes water, and convulsions known to many as "sneezing" take over my body.

Gases are also made of particles. Molecules that you can smell are easily a nanometer across.

Nanoparticle as a term has a specific technical definition that does not include a random gas made of organic small molecules, which include most molecules we perceive by smell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanoparticle#Definitions ?

The nanoparticles that are the subject of the article are not single molecules.

Sure, and most small organic molecules are an order of magnitude smaller than that definition.

Don't underestimate the amount of education needed for this opinion to be understood and enter conscious awareness.

The marketing ploy of an attractive woman breathing in those delicious scents counts for much more to the majority of the population.

Regulators need to crack down on this deception, it's the only proven way.

Don't you mean an hour after consuming said curry? :)

Same here, including incense and most in home fireplaces.

Actually, it's the cooking that pollutes your indoor air the most. Once the food is on the table, most of the damage is already done.

Read the abstract of the paper. They were demonstrating that combustionless scented products generate very similar levels and types (in chemical composition, size, etc) to scented candles, which they considered noteworthy because many assume the combustion-less products are safer for you (they do not claim to be studying, nor do they make any claims, about health impacts.)

No, but I wouldn't complain if we stopped scenting every damn cleaning and hygiene product. Please, no scented hand soap, or laundry detergent, or especially dish detergent. I'm not gonna complain if people want scented conditioner, but you probably don't need scented shampoo if you're going to condition anyways.

Intuitively I'd guess the scented candle is worse than the flowers. I doubt soot and vaporized wax are good for you.

Both exist tbh. My more medicinal shampoos smell of nothing or bad (assuming because of the active contents and not to smell more medicinal). Sensitive shampoo/detergents seem to be very lightly scented. Kinda just enough to where you can check if your kid washed their hands by smelling them but it doesn't release a citrus bomb around the sink.

The scent thing can be useful for a forgetful person wondering "did I wash my hands recently?"

I think it's more so that people don't believe it's bad unless they start drinking parfume.

And I'm like that as well. I have a a Febreeze oil thing stuck in a smart outlet so it works only a bit before I wake up and in the evening and my room smells like strawberries at the moment. I also shower with the scented stuff whenever I don't have to use the medicinal stuff, etc.

I know the scent probably isn't healthy but I also don't believe it's bad enough to where I should stop enjoying it. Especially considering people who vape aren't dying all over the place. You've got people huffing scents out of X00 Watt sticks for years before it fucks them up in some way in comparison to which my exposure is probably invisible on the graph.

I just had this discussion with my wife yesterday as she bought a scented product for the dishwasher so it does not smell bad. That stuff has ruined several travel mugs etc as i can not get rid of the smell. When i drink coffee, i want to smell coffee, not some lemon whatever. And it always ends up with me being the bad guy for not being reasonable.

We already had the same conversation about the automatic perfume spray machines; we had them over the dinner table, on hallways etc. Not so great when you are a tall person, and all of a sudden you get sprayed in your face because you happen to be standing in-front of the machine.

When we were little my dad used to check our hands before eating by smelling them, that's why I mentioned it. In retrospective it seems like a great feature since he didn't have to watch us do it and could with time start doing only occasional checks to see if we'll start slipping until we got the habit.

If the dishwasher smells bad without using a scented product, that sounds like a problem with the dishwasher's maintenance.

Yup just needed some cleaning

Lots of products smell bad if they're truly unscented. "Unscented" is an effect that is often achieved with... scent. So, still putting stuff in the air for you to smell, but to counter other odors so it smells neutral to you.

Yeah, they have filters that get nasty without regular cleaning. Physically clean that out, bleach the hell out of it, and run a self-clean cycle or two if the washer has one.

If someone's not cleaning that, I also have some bad news for them about their washing machine.

You can smell genuine, non-particulate gaseous molecules just fine. The issue is that there’s a large class of compounds that will form actual particles, and this phenomenon can be responsible for a surprisingly large fraction of smog.

What? Not an a whole order of magnitude.

I thought most orderants were around 0.5 to 1nm in diameter.

You don't smell particles, you smell volatile compounds, mostly organic, aka VOCs. These are in their gas phase.

This is true of anything that smells. Food, flowers, the forest, breath, body odor, rain on dry ground, your car...

Many ingredients used in modern perfumery (scenting your detergent is still perfumery) are novel compounds, like galaxolide, but traditionally and still often enough they are naturally-occurring chemicals, although still synthesized in a factory from petrochemicals a lot of the time.

Article seems to be about a chemical reaction of terpenes with ozone, and the result is particles. Terpenes are a specific but large class of aromachemical, both natural and artificial. There are many others.

Even products marketed as unscented tend to be scented, to mask off odors from their functional ingredients.

Just adding some context.

Sure but, the core of the issue here is demonising "microparticles" entering your nose without any specifics.

I need microparticles in my nose so that it can detect things. Some of the things it detects are pleasant. If one of those pleasant things should stop producing microparticles for health reasons, make that argument instead?