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The list of symptoms people with scent sensitivities attribute to chemical fragrances is a lengthy one that includes everything from coughing, sneezing, gagging, shortness of breath, rhinitis and asthma attacks, to debilitating headaches, anxiety and dizziness.
As a result, many workplaces and institutions - schools, hospitals and other government buildings - have some sort of scent-free or scent-reduction policy in place, which asks people entering the building not to wear perfumed products.
But the science supporting such policies is fuzzy and inconclusive. While scents can trigger both physiological and psychological symptoms in some individuals, there is no reliable diagnostic test for fragrance allergies.
Allergies to substances where a protein is easily identifiable can be tested with a skin test, so determining an allergy to peanuts, cat dander or pollen requires only a simple scratch test. Scents, however, are more complicated, as one fragrance can be made up of many different ingredients.
"When someone is smelling something, what they're smelling is usually not the protein, it's the volatile hydrocarbon, or whatever is giving off that scent," says Dr. Susan Waserman, professor of medicine in the division of clinical immunology and allergy at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. As such, scent sensitivities are usually a reaction to an irritant when it reaches a...