Air Fresheners and Indoor Air Quality | Know Your Facts

Air fresheners and indoor air quality have a clear relationship with raising domestic bad smells. We all use air fresheners far more often when cleaning is too lazy or the smell is too rash to remove.

Although air fresheners are creating wonderful aromas and unrealistic odors, the dark side of air fresheners is creating a serious impact on indoor air quality.

Today let’s discuss this serious side of air fresheners through Lassowond Know Your Facts. Read and enjoy the content.

What Are the Air Fresheners?

Air fresheners are known as a product which is developed to cover the unpleasant smell in indoor areas for a selected period.

Though air fresheners are not 100% long-term solutions for odors they can easily cover a significant amount of area as the quickest solution. There are several types of air fresheners.

1. Sprays

Most of the commercially available spray air fresheners in the market release a fine mist of fragrance when we activate it by pressing a button or sometimes pulling a specific trigger.

2. Plug-ins

On other hand, plug-in types of air fresheners can not place it as we are needed. It has an in-built heating element that connects to the scented oil in the bottle and releases it as fragrance into the air after it converts into vapor.

3. Passive Diffusers

Reed diffusers and potpourri type of air fresheners are coming under this category. Unlike plug-ins, these do not release fragrance into the air by heating. They release it by themselves without any significant influence from outside.

But some of the air fresheners in the market use chemicals and other exterior products to enhance the performance of the fragrance or neutralizing ability.

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Chemicals of Concern in Air Fresheners

Although there are a number of natural air fragrances in the markets with high price tags, most the air fresheners are using synthetic chemical ingredients for a number of reasons. Depending on the usage and ingredients

1. Attach with the fragrance
2. Disperse the fragrance
3. Preserve the product
4. Include in higher concentrations which impart the scent

But overall most of the chemicals in air fresheners enhance the performance.

Here are some commonly used chemicals in air fresheners * in the shops.

1. d-limonene
2. 4-tert-butylcyclohexyl acetate
3. Acetaldehyde
4. Benzyl acetate
5. 2,7-dimethyl-2,7-octanediol
6. Acetone
7. Ethanol
8. Carene isomer
9. Citronellyl acetate
10. Hexanal
11. 2,4-dimethyl-3-cyclohexene-1-carboxaldehyde (Triplal 1)
12. Allyl heptanoate
13. Methyl-4-(1-methyl ethyl)-cyclohexane
14. Ethyl butanoate
15. 3-Hexen-1-ol
16. o, m, or p-cymene
17. Alpha-pinene

*Disclaimer – Disclosure of all ingredients of the air fresheners is not a legal requirement. Therefore, there is no exact guarantee, your air freshener has all of the above chemicals.

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Air Fresheners and Indoor Air Quality

Although air fresheners are capable of creating a pleasant environment in a short period of time, the chemical in them has a negative impact on the air quality.

1. Impacts of the Volatile Organic Compounds

One of the most commonly used chemicals in air fresheners is volatile organic compounds (VOCs) to keep the volatility.

But as chemicals are VOCs are quite harmful to the human body and surrounding environment. When you are exposed to their symptoms such as headaches, dizziness, and allergic reactions can be noticed in a short period of time.

When this exposure goes for a longer period of time it can be directly connected with medical conditions like cancer and liver damage.

2. Ozone Formation

Also, some chemical compounds in the air fresheners are contributed to developing the formation of ground-level ozone.

Some chemical and volatile organic compounds in air fresheners create harmful zone when they expose to the energy of sunlight and become a reason for a number of asthma and other respiratory system-based medical condition.

3. Other Chemicals

Here are a few other medical conditions when you can get when you often face air fresheners chemicals.

Chemical	Risk
1,4-Diclorobenzene	Impairment of lung function
Benzene	Developmental and reproductive toxin
Xylene	Effects of central nervous system depression
Styrene	Cancer and neurotoxicity
Parabens	Linked to breast cancer/ hormone disruption

Do Air Fresheners Effective?

Practically, air freshers’ performance may vary depending on their ingredients. But no air fresheners are not 100 % effective. They act like a mask to unpleasant odors, without removing that.

Here are some alternatives you can try.

1. Manage the source –

Removing the source reason for the odor is a practical method of getting rid of the odor totally. Most of the time indoor odors are formed by issues in hygiene or improperly managed domestic atmosphere.

Other than cleaning up with there is odor, try to be minimalistic and well-cleaned.

2. Ventilation Improvements –

Other than bad odor sources, a stuck atmosphere leads to smelly domestic areas often. Make sure to let the airflow go through your windows every day.

If the airflow is not good enough for that, try the help of energy-recovery ventilators.

3. Air Cleaning Using Purifiers

Other than ventilation management make sure to clean the chemical caused by any air fresheners or any other sources. Air purifiers are the practical way to improve that using active carbon filters.

Most of the odors and chemical vapors can be absorbed into activated carbon in this filtration process more efficiently.

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