Beauty: A Prisoner’s Dilemma
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/19/perfume-health-risks-scents-asthma-allergies_n_1894746.html
This recent article in the Huffington Post talks about the health risk brought on by cosmetics, focusing on perfume. Makeup and perfume are very commonplace and yet it is startling just how harmful these products are to one’s health. Perfume is especially a health risk for it is not only a risk to the wearer’s health but also to the people who have contact with her. Two percent of the population is intolerant to chemicals; therefore, when they smell the perfume, they can have panic attacks or even develop depression.
Perfumes and fragrances in general are very complex and can be comprised of hundreds of individual chemicals. Research done by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics and Environmental Working Group found that there are 14 potentially harmful chemical that are not even listed in the product label. Chemicals in the perfume cause one in every ten people to get an allergic reaction and can lead to contact dermatitis. Though contact dermatitis just presents as inflamed skin, it can lead to eczema.
This article gives great reasons for us to stop using perfumes, asides from all the time we can save in the mornings. Yet not many girls have given up on perfume, actually consumption of perfume is on the rise. Even being stuffed up in classrooms or study hall all day, I can smell someone wearing perfume at least twice a day. So why does the female population continue to wear makeup and perfumes despite all the negative effects it can have? This question can be answered by the prisoner’s dilemma. Foregoing perfume and makeup in general have many advantages as stated before. But us females always want to be pretty; therefore,we will have a great temptation to wear perfume to make ourselves more appealing and enhance our beauty. So when no one wears perfume, it creates a temptation for any one female to use perfume to make herself more appealing to the male species. And once there are enough people wearing perfume, the standard for beauty increases to include having to smell nice. Now you pretty much have no choice but to wear perfume since your perceived beauty has decreased. Unfortunately most of the female species find beauty to be important enough that it outweighs the 10% chance of mild allergies and even rarer cases of contact dermatitis and depression. Now it just becomes a vicious cycle of more woman wearing perfume, which pressures others to wear perfume too.
-mz232
I have been dealing with eczema my whole life and for the first time I hear about the negative effects of makeup. This is so important for me, I hope I can find special products with the least possible effects.