Happy St Patty’s Day!

I would like to extend a special welcome to all the fine folks I met last week at LYNX.  They had a health fair and invited me to join them.  What a nice group of people!!  And congratulations to Hilda, the raffle winner.  She won a 40 min footbath and 30 min aromatherapy massage session!

Additionally, I had a nice talk with Jennifer at the Celebration Library last week and discussed a series of aromatherapy classes for this summer.  I will keep you posted as to dates and times.

And last, just in time for St Patricks Day, I have some Irish wit and wisdom for you!
1. If you’re too open minded, your brains will fall out.
2. Age is a very high price to pay for maturity.
3. For every action, there is an equal and opposite government program.
4. If you look like your passport picture, you probably need the trip.
5. Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of checks.
6. A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7. Men are from earth. Women are from earth. Deal with it.
8. Junk is something kept for years and thrown away three weeks before needed.
9. Experience enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.
10. By the time you can make ends meet, they move the ends.
11. Blessed are they who laugh at themselves for they never cease to be amused.

Be Well!

Mystery Fragrance

We all like to smell good but seldom stop to ask, “What’s in this?”

Amazingly, many personal care products have never been tested for inhalation safety, absorption through skin and eyes, getting into the blood stream, or effects on organs?  It was only in 1986 that the National Academy of Sciences recommended before the 99th US Congress that fragrances be tested for neurotoxicity!

Perfumes, personal care products, make-up, hair care products, etc, are considered cosmetics, and come under the jurisdiction of the FDA. Ingredients on these products are required to be listed; however, exceptions are made when a fragrance is an ingredient because it is considered a trade secret – companies do not have to tell anyone, including the FDA, what is in it!

The fragrance portion of a product may be made up of a hundred or more different chemicals.  With the exception of a few chemicals banned by law, any material may be used legally in a fragrance!  There is no monitoring to ensure that products have the proper warning label if they have not been adequately safety tested and the FDA simply assumes if the label is not there that the ingredients have been adequately tested.  Testing for respiratory, neurological, or systemic effects is not routinely done.

(From an article by David Lawrence Dewey, writer and columnist who focuses on consumer alerts and environmental issues.)

Short geeky, yet humorous, talk by a scientist who manipulates chemicals to mimic compounds into smells.

Flu…not!

A few basic recommendations for preventing flu are covering coughs and sneezes completely, handwashing, avoiding face touching, avoiding handshkes with those not well, and covering your mouth well when you sneeze (just had to mention that again).

(* Study finds high levels of bacteria in personal office space.  AORN Journal. May, 2002.)