Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Mercury On-The-Go FW800+USB2 up to 1.0TB. Bus Powered, no external power supply needed. Macworld ‘Editor’s Choice’, CNET ‘Very Good’ Starting from $99.97, 500GB $159.99. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

Mac Musings

Scents and Sensibility

20 September 1999 - Dan Knight - Tip Jar

I love the smell of coffee. I've never been able to drink it, but I love the smell.

There are other great scents: chocolate and freshly baked bread among them.

But what about the smell of fresh computers?

Charles Moore has written about the smell of new Macs in The G4 stinks, and so does my PowerBook. It's the tragic tale of one who suffers what seems to be an increasingly common malady in our technological society: chemical sensitivity.

Moore writes, "being acutely sensitive to a wide variety of common, everyday, chemical substances even at extremely minuscule environmental levels, complicates one's life profoundly."

How right he is. I, too, suffer from chemical sensitivity.

It's All In Your Head

For the most part, these chemicals are inhaled when we breathe. And the path from nose to brain is a direct one, as noted on Betty Bridges' overview of fragrance chemicals:

The sense of smell has a more direct connection to the brain than any other sense. There is no barrier between the brain and the chemicals that you breathe in. While it is well known the effects of "snorting" cocaine, little thought is given to the effects of the other chemicals that pass through our nasal passages.

Studies have shown that inhaling fragrance chemicals can cause circulatory changes in the brain. Changes in electrical activity in the brain also occur with exposure. Fragrances are a frequent trigger of migraine headaches. Changes in circulatory and electrical activity in the brain can trigger migraines in susceptible individuals.

I can't walk past most perfume counters, spend any time in Victoria's Secret, or even make it through a church service where colognes and perfumes are prevalent. For whatever reason, my system reacts negatively to a lot of scents that others enjoy. And it's getting worse by the year. Bridges notes:

Many of these chemicals are sensitizers. This means that they can make a person allergic to them. Once a person has become sensitized to a material even tiny amounts may cause adverse affects. For a person that has become sensitized to a common fragrance material avoidance is very difficult.

It's something I've learned to live with, but there are a lot of stories.

For instance, the first year we owned a home, we bought a real Christmas tree. My folks had had artificial trees since I was a child; I wanted the real thing. But by the time we set it up, I had a headache. I soon learned my father is also sensitive to pine, which explained the many years with artificial trees.

A few years back, the company Christmas party was held at the Meijer Gardens in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The building was full of beautifully decorated Christmas trees, as well as some marvelous plants. But I had to excuse myself within 10 minutes of arriving.

Sometimes at work someone throws on too much perfume or cologne. If I walk through their scent trail - or worse, they stop in my cubicle - I have to go out for fresh air to clear my head.

Recently a hand lotion my wife has enjoyed using for years crossed the line from nice to nasty.

It's not an easy way to live, but at least I'm not sensitive to the smell of new Macs.

Conclusion

What really surprised me is that about 15% of the population is chemical sensitive (including scents), yet most people have never heard of it.

We all remember the uproar over fragrance strips in magazines causing asthma attacks. (Thank goodness those strips have almost vanished today!)

This is the same thing, but the symptoms may not be as fast or as strong as an asthma attack. Or they may result in a migraine.

I hope this article opens your eyes to what millions have to deal with on a daily basis. If you use scents, please consider stopping. And if you can't, could you at least cut back?

Thanks. LEM

Further Reading

Dan Knight has been using Macs since 1986, sold Macs for several years, supported them for many more years, and has been publishing Low End Mac since April 1997. If you find Dan's articles helpful, please consider making a donation to his tip jar.

Recent Mac Musings

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.