Scented products cause indoor air pollution on par with car exhaust

The challenge with any article like this is that the correlated impact on health outcomes is always implied in the article but is rarely studied as part of the research cited. Just because a is bad and b has a property similar to a that doesn't imply b has the same harmful impacts as a. I really wish articles would limit big headlines like this unless the research cited was directly comparing mortality and health outcomes directly. If the study this article was based on came to the conclusion that 'average household aerosol use has a similar associated mortality risk as average city car pollution' then the title could have been warranted but instead we got a bit of click-bait. A slightly better title could have been 'Scented products cause unexpected levels of indoor air pollution'. I'd even argue 'Scented products cause concerning levels of indoor air pollution' is a reasonable title since it is worth our concern and further study.

Not much to add here other than as someone with terrible allergies and asthma, the constant need for plugin air fresheners, scented candles, scented laundry detergent, and scented lotions, perfumes, febreeze, and scented deodorant drives me crazy. I don't think normal folks realize how they're breathing in straight chemicals all day.

I hate all that stuff too, but I have to nit-pick the last sentence. Everything you breathe is chemicals. Everything that is good for you and bad for you is chemicals.

This in particular bothers me because I end up having this discussion with family members all the time who are convinced that "chemicals" are bad for you, and they only eat food without "chemicals".

Of course this is technically correct (almost a cliche really), but I think we all realize that "chemicals" in this context means "novel untested synthetic chemicals." That's a mouthful, so we use shorthand.