Allergy Questions, Allergies and other reactions to oils

[Glitzie]

Living Flame sounds divine- except I have a hunch it will contain cinnamon which I am very allergic to.

 

Opinions as to whether cinnamon appears gratefully recieved.

I so want to order it...but can't make up my mind.

 

help me please.... (did that sound really pathetic?-yes I thought so)

[queenb]

Living Flame sounds divine- except I have a hunch it will contain cinnamon which I am very allergic to.

 

Opinions as to whether cinnamon appears gratefully recieved.

I so want to order it...but can't make up my mind.

 

help me please.... (did that sound really pathetic?-yes I thought so)

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Well I'm hoping it's cherries, but others are saying it could be cinnamon. So no one really knows.... I ordered anyway. You can always sell/swap it.

[clover]

Your best bet would be to email the Lab. None of us know what is in The Living Flame, and I'm sure they will be more than happy to help you out with any allergy issues!

[hepkitten]

A little Lab birdie did tell me that there was no cinnamon in it. As to what IS actually in it, I've no clue.

[MartyGreene]

Doormouse seems to be out of the running- got it last week, just put some on and within minutes- itchy itchy itchy!

 

I washed it off really quickly, but I'm still itchy a bit, I fear some may have permeated my bracelet- which doesn't come off. :/

 

It's not any of my usual suspects, as this one was OKed by beth for me. Hmm.

[L-z_Empress]

I'll tell you what sucks, is discovering a new allergy.

 

Especially when you have figured out you love the scent.

 

I sniffed snake oil, and loved it, so I slathered it on. I spent the next day with swollen and watery eyes, red splotchy skin, and pretty much being in misery - now this coincided with a shift in the weather so I tried it again (only less slathery) and had the same affect.

 

I was very disappointed, because I loved it.  I've always lived with pretty severe allergies though - Beth's creations are the best things I've been able to wear really.

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Ditto. That's how I am with Kali. It is one of my favourite BPAL scents, but it makes my break out in a horrible rash anywhere that the oil touches my skin (and I am a slatherer)

[MichelleM]

I've never really been allergic to anything, so I'm pretty clueless when it comes to this stuff.

 

I had a burning, slightly itching reaction to Wrath, but I have no problems with Dragon's Blood, Inferno, or Chimera. Could I be allergic to the black pepper in it? I've eaten black pepper and never had an issue with it. Is it worth me trying to figure out if I have a problem with something in this oil, or should I just assume that it is simply Wrath that I have a problem with (the combination or concentrations in this particular oil)? I want to try Wrath again, but I'm somewhat afraid of the possibility of making an allergy worse.

 

Has anyone ever had a reaction that was a "fluke", i.e. you don't know why it happened and it didn't happen again? You guys know a lot more than I do about these things - what would you advise?

[orangepaas]

New Orleans made my skin turn red wherever I swiped it--so I had these big red stripes on my neck and elbow crooks. It didn't itch though, and didn't turn my wrists red. Lesson learned....but random.

 

And Eos gave me the migraine of the century, plus I coulnd't stop sneezing!!!

[Kate]

Has anyone had a strange reaction to Magus?

 

I tried it out yesterday and whenever I sniffed it it made my mouth water - but no in the good way. I got a bitter taste in my mouth that I can't really describe. The overwhelming smell from the oil was nutty, a bitter nuttiness. As it faded I got the other notes, sandalwood, cedar, and frankincense I think and under the nutty smell they smelled quite good. I am temporarily blaming the reaction on high john essence or galangel because I have never come in contact with them before.

 

Can anyone give me a description of what high john or galangel is supposed to smell like? I'd likt to try and track down which one of these babies did this so I can try to avoid it in the future.

 

Thanks!

[emmsy]

I don't know about Magus, but I had a similar response to Tintagel. I had a pounding headache with the "bad taste" sensation. I took a Benadryl and the symptoms disappeared.

 

A couple years ago I had a bad reaction (hives on torso) after drinking a flavored coffee. Shortly after that, I had a work-up for contact allergies, but the doctor was horrible (wrote about this under topic "Dermatologists"). Subsequently, I saw a very good allergist who is both knowledgeable and sensible.

 

What causes the onset of allergies can be puzzling. A good allergist or dermatologist will follow up a positive skin test with a RAST (a immunological test to measure allergens) as more conclusive evidence. A RAST can be done for just about food protein (including spices) or pollen known to cause allergies.

 

A book that I found helpful is Jonathon Brostoff & Linda Gamlin's "Food Allergies and Food Intolerance." The information is sound and scientific, but not full of jargon and easy to read. The book also has a chapter on chemical sensitivities, which includes information about environmental hazards that might cause sensitivity.

[Macha]

Can anyone give me a description of what high john or galangel is supposed to smell like? I'd likt to try and track down which one of these babies did this so I can try to avoid it in the future.

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Sadly, Kate, I can't. High John the Conquerer root is very much its own beast, and to me it's sort of the equivalent of asking "what does vanilla smell like?" Well, it smells like vanilla. Not much help, is it? I can tell you that it's a woody tuber, Ipomoea jalapa, member of the morning glory family and a relative of the sweet potato. One source on line gives this description: "Fresh John the Conqueror root has a unique, spicy fragrance, reminiscent of a combination of cherry-scented pipe tobacco, vetivert, cedarwood, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and mace."

 

Galangal is just as problematic. Galangal is a cooking herb, more more common in Asian cooking. The lesser variety is described as being "gingery and camphorous" and the greater variety as "sweet and sickly with pungeant undertones." Galangal is often used in Asian fish soups, and, you guessed it, in Asian perfumerie.

[Kate]

Can anyone give me a description of what high john or galangel is supposed to smell like? I'd likt to try and track down which one of these babies did this so I can try to avoid it in the future.

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I can tell you that it's a woody tuber, Ipomoea jalapa, member of the morning glory family and a relative of the sweet potato. One source on line gives this description: "Fresh John the Conqueror root has a unique, spicy fragrance, reminiscent of a combination of cherry-scented pipe tobacco, vetivert, cedarwood, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, and mace."

 

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I of course can't be sure, but that sounds a LOT like what the taste in my mouth and the nutty smell consisted of. I'm not allergic to morning glory or sweet potato, but then again I'm not sure this was even an allergic reaction, but it definitely reminds me of the woodiness I got.

 

I think I will stay clear of high john in the future, which doesn't seem hard as I haven't seen it in a lot I want to try. And if I do get it accidentally, it's not like it would kill me! A bitter taste is hardly a serious allergy to me like a rash or hives would be.

 

Thanks so much for the descriptions, Macha. I know scent elements like that can be hard to categorize, but that really helped.

[Macha]

It may well be the John is your guy. There is a High John the Conquerer scent offered in the voodoo blends. You could try trading for a sample imp of it with another forum member and thus confirm if that is in fact the offending scent note.

[Kate]

A book that I found helpful is Jonathon Brostoff & Linda Gamlin's "Food Allergies and Food Intolerance." The information is sound and scientific, but not full of jargon and easy to read. The book also has a chapter on chemical sensitivities, which includes information about environmental hazards that might cause sensitivity.

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Thanks for the info. I might look into that book as sadly I have no insurance, and thus no way to have a doctor work it up for me without costing me a fortune. I'm not too worried, as I have not encountered anything I'm allergic to besides a couple medications and this reaction didn't strike me as anything really severe. Just my body saying, "I don't like this!" mildly. I find it fascinating that we can all have such different takes on these scents, whether just in the specific elements that emerge, or the reaction we have.

[bloodpoppies]

I came to the conclusion today that Hurricane is the culprit behind the terrible sinus headaches I've suffered recently (2 on vacation no less ) and it makes me so sad because I love love the scent itself. I've never reacted to anything like this before, although I tend to have terrible allergies in general, luckily none have come from any fragrances, but I sympathize with everyone on the itchy bumpy sneezy side of things.

Edited April 12, 2005 by bloodpoppies

[L-z_Empress]

I think I am allergic to Chaste Moon. Why do I break out from all of my favourite scents? I was noticing that my throat always feels kinda funny (i.e. scratchy and a little sore out of nowehere) when I wear Chaste Moon, but I didn't care, but now I am noticing that almost everywhere that I applied Chaste Moon is itchy with bumps. I may just suck it up and wear it anyway though

 

ETA: I was wrong, it's Bastet that is making me feel so nasty. I have been alternating between the two scents and I think Bastet must be it, which means that it's probably Lotus that I am allergic to (since both of the scents that make me break out have Lotus in them - Kali is the other scent I can't wear). Luckily, only 13 scents have lotus listed in the description

Edited April 19, 2005 by L-z_Empress

[tempete]

Sometimes I get splitting headaches from BPALs, but usually it's a blend that I don't like much anyway. Unfortunately, I realized recently that Amsterdam falls into this category (and on a 4.5 h plane ride, no less). I really, really liked Amsterdam as it was the perfect spring scent.

[Penance]

I don't know that anyone can answer this, but I'm dying to know why this is...

 

I'm allergic to BPAL's "sweet" aquatic scents...I don't know if anyone else has noticed that some of the aquatic scents BPAL makes are kind of sweetish...sort of like sugar water or watermelon and aquatics while the others are strong on ozone or have citrus, but whenever I wear the sweet ones I break out in hives like you would not believe.

 

I'm curious as to what it is in them that's causing the reaction. It's strictly limited to the "sweet" aquatics as I call them. Thunderbird doesn't do it, Storm Moon doesn't do it, Water of Notre Dame doesn't do it, but something like Sea of Glass does. Bad.

 

I'd love to find out what's in there that I'm allergic to so I can avoid it, but I can't figure it out for the life of me.

 

ETA: Also, I'm seriously allergic to something in Malkuth. The instant it hits my skin it raises huge red welts and they hurt like you would not believe. I'm not allergic to cinnamon (which Malkuth smells like it has), so I don't know what's causing it...anyone have any ideas?

Edited April 20, 2005 by Penance

[shadowsong]

i saw some reviews of perversion that mentioned coconut... as both my boyfriend and my roommate have violent allergic reactions to coconut, can anyone verify whether or not this really contains coconut? i emailed the lab about it and was told to use the search engine. must have caught them at a bad time.

[Penance]

Well, I don't smell coconut in it and it's not listed in the notes, but honestly I can't say...if you think there's a chance that it does and you can't get definite confirmation from the Lab, I'd say maybe it's best to avoid it.

 

Of course, I know Beth's got a lot on her plate right now, but I PM'd her about Snow White and whether there was almond in it in spite of the lack of almondy evil in the description around the time when the last batch was shipping (a long time ago, I know) and she was really helpful, so you could try that.

 

God, I hope I'm not going to swamp her by saying that...

[Penance]

Oh, also...I don't know if you saw this thread, but it discusses the Perversion/coconut question and it appears Beth says there is coconut in it (look toward the middle of the thread):

 

Does Perversion have coconut in it?

 

I knew I'd read about it somewhere...

 

EDIT: Spelling.

Edited April 21, 2005 by Penance

[shadowsong]

thanks! silly me just looked through the reviews and the allergy thread. whoops.

[Penance]

You're welcome!

 

I never would have thought to look for it myself except I remembered reading it somewhere around here before.

[sarada]

Wow, now I know why Perversion is slightly sweet on me. Weird thing is though, I hate coconut (as a scent, not as a taste -- I love it with chocolate!) and feel violently nauseous if I smell it in incense, sunblock, anything like that. But I don't mind it in Spooky and I LOVE it in Perversion.

 

Weird!

 

I wore Perversion today. Totally not what I'd normally wear on a hot day but I just really wanted a little Perversion in my life. ;P

[Penance]

That's pretty weird.

 

But weird in a good way, which is better than weird in a bad way.

 

Now if only someone could answer the mystery of what's in Malkuth that's making me all hivey...I emailed the Lab and Kennedy's as mystified as I am about that and the sweet aquatics.

 

I guess it's just one of those things I won't ever have an answer too, but damn am I ever curious. I just love knowing what I'm allergic to for no other reason than to know.