Quick! Buy a brand new indoor air polluter for just $68!
Someone despatched me this the day before today along with a gushing observe, "OMG! Did you spot Jonathan Adler has reed diffusers now?" No, I did not understand and I suspect that I was happier not knowing than I am now.
Good Lord, in what form of a world to human beings gush over a $68 bottle of stink? And no, $68 isn't always a typo. Further, why might all people pay someone $68 for a bottle of stink who is formerly advocated this for a woman's bed room?
How is that even remotely attractive? I get it, he's being campy. But please, does an eight-year-old girl need to live with a middle-aged man's idea of what's clever? Does anyone really want their kids to sleep in a room that purposely ugly? If I haven't mentioned this in a while, the emperor has no clothes.
If I need a reed diffuser, why need to I no longer purchase this one from Target for $nine? At $9, it is nonetheless a waste of money however it's a touch greater palatable than it's miles while it prices seven-and-a-half times as much.
This equal, considerate soul who sent me the alert about the Adler reed diffusers takes absurd satisfaction and sending me all varieties of helpful reminders. Most of them must do with the hidden risks posed to me by using the mysterious "pollutants" that surround me and why I need to "live inexperienced" and "detoxify" myself often. So lady who will remain anonymous, this one's for you.
The conventional wisdom holds that one of the "toxins" that threaten me with every breath are VOCs. Well, conventional wisdom likes to latch onto a scientific concept and then run with it to as many silly ends as are available. VOC is an acronym and it stands for volatile organic compound. Volatile means that something evaporates at room temperature. Organic means that something's carbon-based (not the meaningless label people use to charge more for groceries), and a compound is a blend of two or more chemical elements.
VOC is a generic term and it can describe anything from the scent of a rose to paint fumes. However, the US EPA has identified a subset of VOCs as health threats . A small subset of VOCs are reason for concern, and one of those VOCs is called dipropylene glycol methyl ether or DPGME. If you ran a business and you allowed you employees to be exposed to high levels of DPGME, you would be shut down and fined so fast you wouldn't know what hit you.
Now, reed diffusers are an odd bird. How they work is that a scented oil concoction is allowed to evaporate slowly through a wicking action. A scented oil (which is a VOC) by itself is too thick to wick efficiently so it's mixed with a chemical like ethyl alcohol (another VOC) to thin it out. Once it's thinned though, it wicks too efficiently and it needs a third chemical, another VOC, to slow it down. That VOC is more often than not our old pal dipropylene glycol methyl ether, or DPGME.
So when you buy a reed diffuser, whether it's an absurdly priced one from Jonathan Adler or a cheaper one from Target, you are filling your bathroom with DPGME and it very rapidly exceeds levels deemed to be safe for occupational exposure by the EPA and OSHA. Here's OSHA's fact sheet on DPGME . Isn't it hilarious that a lot of the same people who claim to get sick from paint fumes can fill their homes with reed diffusers and scented candles and thrive?
Chemistry's your pal oldsters. Really.