How to Prepare for Attending an Event or Reading Fragrance-Free

Step #1 -- CHECK YOUR LABELS -- if a product you use on your body or in your laundry contains the word "fragrance", it contains synthetics, and is not suitable to wear to an event or reading.

Step #2 -- Be Aware of Your Environment -- If you are living or staying with someone who uses fragranced products (even if you don't use fragranced prodcuts), be aware that their house may be so saturated with fragrance that your clothes may pick up the chemicals.  Once, when on a teaching trip, I stayed with a person who had given up Downy several months earlier, but the house was so saturated with the chemicals involved that when I got home, my clothing smelled of Downy -- even though I kept them inside my closed suitcase during the visit! (Please see suggestions below about how to remove fragrance from clothing.)

Removing Fragrance from You and Your Body:

• If you have been using fragranced body-care products, be sure to shower or bathe with fragrance-free products before you attend the event/reading (preferably, use no fragranced products for at least 24 hours before attending, and wash any fragranced products out of your hair and off of your body using a non-fragranced product -- rinsing is not enough -- fragrance is designed to linger).

Removing Fragrance from Your clothing:

• If you have been using fragranced laundry products (detergent, softener, or dryer sheets), this is a bigger problem, as these products are designed to linger in your clothing, and often contain waxes which line your washer and dryer with the scent. If you obtain pre-worn clothing (for example, at secondhand stores), be aware that it may be permeated with fragrance.
• If you choose to eliminate these chemicals from your laundry care altogether (which we highly recommend):
  • Try wiping out your washer and dryer with vinegar and water or a mild TSP solution to remove the wax residue which can cause the fragrance to linger there.
  • Wash clothing that has been saturated with fragrance in vinegar and water only -- hang in the sun to dry (the sun helps cleanse). You may have to do this several times to remove all the fragrance.  Some fabrics release fragrances more easily than others, and some may never be rid of the fragrance altogether.
• If you want to attend an event and all of your clothing currently has lingering fragrance on it, consider purchasing a set of clothes that you will not wash in your regular washloads, and that you will wear to attend events/readings.
  • Hand wash these items in vinegar and water or non-fragranced laundry products only, and line dry them -- do not dry them in a dryer in which you (or anyone else) have/has used fragranced dryer sheets or fabric softener.
  • Keep these items completely separate from your other clothing, perhaps in a plastic zip-lock bag.  If you put these clothes with other pieces of clothing that have been cleansed/washed/dried in fragranced products (or on a piece of furniture furniture that has been sprayed with "Febreze", etc.), they will absorb the chemicals/fragrance.