Dr. Justin Marchegiani and Evan Brand explore how synthetic fragrances and other everyday endocrine disruptors may impact hormone balance, contributing to common complaints like brain fog, headaches, and fatigue. They break down the research on xenoestrogens, phthalates, and VOCs, and share simple, low-cost fragrance-free living strategies for the home, laundry, and car, plus ways to support the body’s natural detox pathways. To work with Dr. Justin visit http://www.justinhealth.com/free-consultation
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [00:00:00] Hey, guys. It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani. Welcome to the Beyond Wellness Radio podcast. Feel free to head over to justinhealth.com — we have all of our podcast transcriptions there, as well as video series on different health topics ranging from thyroid to hormones, ketogenic diets, and gluten. While you’re there, you can also schedule a consult with myself, Dr. J, and/or our colleagues and staff to help dive into any pressing health issues you really want to get to the root cause on. And if you enjoy the podcast, feel free to share the information with friends or family, and enjoy the show.
Hey, guys. Dr. Justin Marchegiani here with Evan Brand. Today we’re going to be talking about synthetic fragrances and how they can negatively impact your hormones. This is an important topic, especially if you have the Little Tree car fresheners in your car, or you use lots of synthetic perfumes and colognes, Glade plug-ins, Febreze, scented candles, fabric softener — the list goes on. So these are all potential — potential, not a guarantee — hormonal stressors, potentially xenoestrogenic, [00:01:00] and can negatively impact your hormones and the feedback loop to your pituitary that tells your body to make more of your healthy sex hormones. So, very important topic today. Evan, how are we doing, man?
Evan Brand: Doing good. Let’s just drop it right on top of their heads here, because there are still people who fight us on the fragrance issue. So let’s go through a little bit of the literature quickly —
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: — and then we’ll dive into the easy solution. And it’s disgusting how common fragrances are. You’ve got fragranced garbage bags, fragranced kitty litter. What? You think your cat wants to smell “fresh breeze” while they’re peeing? No. They want to pee on the earth. They don’t want that. So here you go. This is a summary paper in a xenobiotic journal, and it says — I think there were 37 different studies they put together — and here we go. The negative impact is right here: headaches, asthma attacks, breathing difficulties, cardiovascular and neurological problems, and distress in the workplace due to the issue right here, the [00:02:00] endocrine-immune-neural axis. And this is regarding the VOCs, particularly from synthetic fragrances. Okay, so there’s one. You’ve got another paper here called “Here’s the Rub: Skin Care Products and Children’s Phthalate Exposures,” and this is a big problem in kids — it’s absolutely disrupting kids overall. Here we go: 37 related articles included in this study. The results of this systematic study showed that phthalates, aldehydes, parabens, and aluminum-based salts can have effects with these aromatic products. So this is the airborne off-gassing: allergies, reproductive disorders especially in males, skin allergies, nervous system damage, and migraines. We could go on and on. There are countless papers here. It’s insane how common this is. You pass somebody on a trail and it’s like, okay, three, two, one, here comes the smell. Every time. [00:03:00] If I pass a fragrance-free person, I’m literally going to stop and ask them to be friends, because no matter where I am in the world — whether it was in Austin, California, or here in Florida — anytime I pass someone on a trail, three, two, one, boom, here comes the fragrance. And it could be 12 different fragrances: maybe they had a cleaning person over using Fabuloso, they put perfume on that morning, a foundation makeup that has fragrance, eyeshadow or hairspray or a hair product with fragrance, maybe an air freshener in their car. I joke with my wife — “If I had to start over, if for some reason you were gone from the planet, it’d be impossible to find a fragrance-free woman” — because even in feminine care products they put scents into the pads. So it doesn’t even stop at the skincare level; it goes to the feminine products, where now you’ve got your lady parts being contaminated with fragrances from pads. Holy smokes. We’re deep in this thing. It’s really stupid. Look at the [00:04:00] 1800s — there were no synthetic fragrances. So this is a very new problem in the grand scheme of human civilization. If you look at the existence of humankind on a calendar, fragrances didn’t exist until 11:59 PM on New Year’s Eve on the human-existence calendar.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. And it’s also the soup that we’re in, right? A lot of these studies that look at these chemicals aren’t looking at how they’re combined. So now we’re getting estrogens from plastic, estrogens from soy, different endocrine disruptors — whether it’s BPA, BPS, or phthalates from the plastic water bottle — and then exposure to the candles and the little trees. It just accumulates. It’s this bioaccumulation that happens, and there’s no peer-reviewed study looking at this cumulative effect that’s really happening in [00:05:00] our life.
Evan Brand: Isn’t that crazy? It’s death by a thousand cuts. I am not saying the plug-in air freshener is going to kill you. But when you stack in the fact that we’re not designed to be in a box — a vinyl box — you’ve got your LVP flooring off-gassing, maybe mold in your HVAC vents so every time the air conditioning comes on it spits out some mycotoxins. I’m not saying it’s one thing. It is death by a thousand fragrances that really is making us sick, and there are some endocrine effects that can affect your weight. So if you talk with someone who has a sleep issue, a mood issue, a weight issue, or depression — they’re overweight, not sleeping well — yet they have plug-ins and they’re using scent boosters in their laundry… I had a neighbor, luckily he’s open to listening to me now, but he said they use fragrance-free laundry detergent and then add scent beads at the end. I’m [00:06:00] like, “You defeated the whole purpose of the fragrance-free detergent.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct.
Evan Brand: It’s in your face everywhere. Marketing is the problem. You look at the aisle — luckily there are some more white bottles popping up, so if you’re shopping for laundry detergent and wondering how to find one quickly, generally if it’s a white bottle it’s going to be better than the colored stuff: the orange bottles, the green, the purple. That is all poison.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Also, there were some studies done, and this all connects, because we’re all in this sea of estrogens. There’s an interesting documentary you can watch on PBS called The Disappearing Male, and it talks about how this sea of estrogens is really impacting male development. And there was a study — you can get the PBS article, it’s a funny one called “Fooling with Nature,” and the title of the piece is “Teeny Weenies.”
Evan Brand: Oh.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I know. The [00:07:00] article is based on a study: “Developmental alterations as a result of in-ovo exposure to the pesticide metabolite p,p′-DDE.” This is in alligators, in General and Comparative Endocrinology. They were looking at male alligators in Florida’s lakes. The lake was Lake Apopka. There were reproductive problems in the lake due to pesticide contamination. Scientists found that the male alligators in Lake Apopka had a smaller phallus size, and due to very low testosterone there was abnormal development in the reproductive organs. So the concern was that man-made chemicals were disrupting the hormones. What happened was, in the 1980s, a chemical spill released pesticides, including DDT and dicofol — and p,p′-DDE, which breaks down from DDT. [00:08:00] The male alligators had a phallus size — that’s the scientific term for a male body part; I just want to make sure the sensors aren’t there — 25% smaller than the normal male, and the testosterone levels were incredibly low, closer to what you’d expect of a female. The testosterone wasn’t working properly in their bodies. The female alligators had higher-than-normal estrogen, the eggs from that lake were more likely to die before hatching, and the baby alligators showed abnormal development. There was strong evidence that pesticide pollution can act like a hormone disruptor, impact egg development, and even affect the desire of the female alligators to mate with the males. So this is an extreme example of what pesticides can do — more of an acute level — but it’s the cumulative exposure we’re having, because no one’s running a study on “you’re eating soy, you’re doing this, the plastics, the little trees.” All these things are [00:09:00] accumulating. That’s a big thing, and it’s hard, because studies hate not being able to control variables in a double-blind placebo-controlled design. So the more you can check the boxes across all the categories where estrogens, synthetic chemicals, xenoestrogens, and pesticides come in — because a lot of these pesticides are estrogenic as well — the better. When we talk about fragrances, there’s usually an estrogenic component in both.
Evan Brand: Yeah, this is crazy. We could pick apart studies all day — there’s so much here in PubMed. It doesn’t take long to find it, but if you’re here listening to us, you can just let us help you sort through it. This is another one I found — another perfume and cosmetic product paper. It talks about how, sure, in ancient civilizations there was a history of natural extracts and oils used for beautification and ritualistic purposes — frankincense, [00:10:00] rosemary, and all these ancient oils and herbs used thousands of years ago, which is beautiful. But now in the modern world, we’ve taken things that are supposed to smell like vanilla that aren’t even real vanilla. And as you mentioned, pesticides. There’s also the issue where heavy metals are often used. So there’s the VOC issue, the paraben issue, the phthalate issue, and then it discusses, once again: respiratory issues, skin irritation, endocrine disruption, reproductive problems, elevated risk of certain cancers. For instance, phthalates and parabens used as preservatives and stabilizers have hormone mimicry. Similarly, VOCs from these fragrances are implicated in neurological effects. The presence of heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury in cosmetics is another issue. So it’s wild. If you go ask someone wearing perfume, who has a plug-in air freshener at home [00:11:00] and puts on deodorant with synthetic fragrance right in their armpits, “Do you want breast cancer?” — obviously their answer is no. But when you tell them they have to simply give up their toxic fragrance, they battle you. I had family members years ago try to prank me. They knew I was anti-fragrance, so they lit some candles and added plug-ins to a birthday party, and the prank was, “Let’s see how long it takes for Evan to come in and say something.” I opened the door — I didn’t even enter — “Nope, I know what you guys are up to. I smell it from here,” and I walked out. “I’m going to go party on the back patio by the pool. You guys can breathe in this poison.” That was over a decade ago, but now you can see the split of health — the people who’ve focused on their health and the people who haven’t. So today, you have the opportunity to be that fork in the road. Are you going to go toward health, or toward toxicity?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: This looks like a beautiful graphic. Break this down. [00:12:00]
Evan Brand: I think you’re muted. I can’t hear you right now.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You’re right. So these are different household chemicals — whether it’s a fragrance, phthalates, VOCs, or other issues. Some of the symptoms you may see: headaches, brain fog, anxiety, racing heart, flushing, sinus congestion. Just go walk through any major mall or makeup store into the perfume section, or the cleaning section where you’re getting laundry detergent. The fogginess and low energy that come upon me are insane. I’ll literally walk through those aisles and it’s like I’m six years old driving across a graveyard — you used to hold your breath, right? You’ve got to hold your breath driving through a graveyard. Same thing — I walk through the aisle, hold my breath, get through. So: headaches, brain fog, anxiety, racing heart, flushing, sinus congestion — all super common. Now, fragrance is not one ingredient. [00:13:00] When it says “fragrance,” it can be a lot of other synthetic things. Why are phthalates used? Because phthalates help the smell last longer. So your body may be able to handle a little bit of this stuff — this is why we always want good detoxifying nutrients on board, because you may get exposed at some point. It’s the inundation with the plug-ins and the detergents — the cumulative effect, where a little bit may be okay. And here’s the big thing to highlight: it’s the detox demand that a lot of these volatile organic compounds and synthetic estrogens put on your body. Your antioxidant reserves, your methylation, your N-acetylation, your glucuronidation, your glutathione pathways get depleted and used. It’s not at the same level as a Tylenol overdose — we’ve known since the 1960s that with a Tylenol overdose you can go into extreme liver failure, and in ERs across the country they’ve used IV N-acetylcysteine to bring people out of Tylenol [00:14:00] failure because it depletes glutathione to that degree. This isn’t that — but it’s at a micro level, starting to deplete and lessen your glutathione. How do we know? We run organic acid tests, looking at compounds like pyroglutamate that give us a window into glutathione demand and/or levels indirectly, and that’s very helpful. We see people with elevated liver enzymes all the time — mostly from high blood sugar and high fructose — but you can start to see elevated ALT and AST greater than 30, and that becomes a problem. And then we’re overstimulating our mast cells. Our basophils in the blood, when they go into the tissue, become mast cells and can produce histamine. So when we’re exposed to these things, the body responds with chronic histamine — and now we have brain fog, headaches, flushing, heart-rate stuff. Histamine’s a good thing; it’s a neurotransmitter that helps vasodilate and does these things acutely. You bump your elbow and it blows up, but that’s your body trying to [00:15:00] heal it. It’s the chronic overreaction we have to be wary of, and this is a big concern out of the gate. Any questions or comments on that, Evan?
Evan Brand: Yeah, that was me years ago, unfortunately. I definitely had mast cell activation. It was probably triggered primarily by Lyme co-infections and mold exposure that all happened in one summer. I couldn’t go in certain stores — I’d try, but the dizziness, the headache, the brain fog, and these weird feelings of feeling drunk would hit. There are a few different terms, and they all mean essentially the same thing. One is MCS, multiple chemical sensitivity. Another is TILT, toxin-induced loss of tolerance. And the biggest umbrella above TILT and MCS is truly MCAS, mast cell activation. Just to be clear, if you’re listening: maybe for the first 20, 30 years of your life you used toxic products and overloaded your system, and now you’re very reactive — you can’t get near the laundry aisle, you get headaches from the [00:16:00] fragrances. There’s likely something underneath the hood keeping your mast cells elevated. We saw this after the virus — a lot of people developed new-onset chemical sensitivity. Some people never gained back their smell, and they think that’s good; I think it’s a problem — you should try to keep your smell if you can. You want your senses. But if you’re reacting to these chemicals, avoidance is key. Go fragrance-free with everything in your life. The chemical sensitivity is also a clue. Some people may make fun of you — “Oh, he holds his breath in the laundry, he’s just a sensitive modern man.” No — he’s being smart, because these things can trigger long-term impacts on the mast cells. And if your mast cells are already dealing with car exhaust on the highway and EMF — there’s a cell tower blasting you every 500 feet — these things add up over time. So there’s this evolutionary mismatch, if you will. We have this biology that’s designed for a world that no longer exists. If you go down to the [00:17:00] Amazon or visit tribes in Africa, sure, you can get close to that primitive way of life. But if you’re living in a so-called modern world in a modern city, there are so many new triggers that keep these mast cells activated, and the fragrance could just be the final dagger that puts you over the edge. So we’re not saying the plug-in is going to kill you — it’s everything else in your bucket. Your histamine bucket is already so full, this could be one of the last straws. And truthfully, just out of respect for other people, I don’t want to smell. I don’t want to come into a room and have everybody know this guy put on six sprays of cologne today. I don’t want you to smell me at all. As you detox and improve your body — using these functional labs when we look at the data — you shouldn’t need to cover yourself up, because you won’t smell. As you get healthier, you’re not going to smell so bad naturally that you need to cover up.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Correct. I remember in high school my football team did a football camp, [00:18:00] and we all put our equipment in the corner — shoulder pads, helmets — and we had this big bottle of Febreze, and every day someone would spray everyone’s stuff down. I remember thinking, “Oh, this is so great.” I had no idea. I just thought it was neutralizing the smell — I didn’t realize it was just covering it up like perfume. I thought it was a good thing, because I’m a teenager totally ignorant to what’s happening. And once you get used to being around clean air, cleaning your clothes the right way, not using fragrances, not covering yourself every day, and your body isn’t inundated by fragrances — how good you feel. Then when you go around it again, the differentiation is so stark, and you’re like, “Man, I just want to feel good.”
Evan Brand: It’s like ding-dong-ditch.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: It gets you really addicted to feeling good. Your intuition is totally dialed in, if you will.
Evan Brand: I think about it like ding-dong-ditch. If I were to put on body spray or some nasty stuff today, I’d know pretty much immediately, because I live so fragrance-free. But if you have 20 different hits you’re taking [00:19:00] and then pull those out, all of a sudden your system can resensitize. Unfortunately, most people are desensitized to it. I went to look at a farm property not too long ago — it had this little old junky house, and we could smell the Fabuloso coming out from under the crawl space. We didn’t even have to go in the house, that’s how potent the fragrance is. Even the realtor said, “Evan, this is going to be a no-go for you.” And I said, “Well, we’d tear it down anyway, this is a piece of junk.” But wow, amazing that people live like this, where the fragrance is pumping out of the crawl space. And now you might be listening and go, “Yeah, but you’ve got to be rich to have the good products.” No. You can do laundry with vinegar — a gallon of white vinegar might cost you five bucks. So this idea that the better products are more expensive? Not necessarily. It could be an organic bottle of soap for 10 bucks and a bottle of vinegar, and you’re set.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, I’d say get some Borax. Borax, vinegar, and washing soda. I still think washing soda is the absolute best thing. Washing [00:20:00] soda and Borax will get almost anything out. I remember I went to an Airbnb, and the blanket was so fragranced out. I went and got vinegar and washing soda, put it in the washing machine, let it soak for two hours, and then it was so much better. But I’m like, “This is bad.” That’s why — I have an Airbnb, and we only use hypoallergenic stuff in there, because people are too sensitive to fragrances. So, a couple of things — where do I start with all this? The first thing is start with your laundry and start with your bedroom. A good high-quality air filter, HEPA at least. If you can get an Austin Air that has the 20-plus pounds of zeolite and activated charcoal, it’s better. Make sure your pillowcase is fragrance-free. What do I use? Either All Free & Clear or Seventh Generation Free & Clear. If you want a detergent, make sure it’s free and clear. I recommend Eczema Society approved, because the Eczema Society is very sensitive to fragrances and it takes a pretty stringent approval to get that, so that’s a good way to go. And then I always do washing soda with [00:21:00] it and do a soak, because that lets it absorb a lot of the junk — the baking soda is an absorbent, so it pulls stuff out. And always have an extra rinse, so at the very end there’s zero residue. That’s what I like out of the gate. And then you can get those little static balls — a static ball that acts like a dryer sheet to take away a lot of the static. And if you want to be more natural: vinegar and Borax. I’ll throw Borax in if my kids are extra sweaty or dirty, and I’ll pre-treat stains with a little Dawn soap and a soft-bristle brush before I put it in. That’s how I pre-treat stains.
Evan Brand: Yeah, this is good too. If you’re contaminated — like you mentioned, you travel, you go to an Airbnb, you bring your stuff home — I had to put my suitcase out in the sun for a week after my last trip, because even the suitcase contained fragrance, which then impregnates into your clothing. So I have a whole decontamination protocol I’ll run my clothing through when I bring it back from a fragranced place. A lot of times you don’t smell it until you get back in your [00:22:00] clean environment with an air filter and no fragrance — then you smell it and you’re like, “Wow, I had no idea this smelled this bad.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: When I come home from a trip, I go right to the laundry room — everything gets dumped into the laundry. You dump in a whole cup of washing soda, soak it for an hour, and do it that way. And then you can always do a light spray of diluted vinegar on the outside of your suitcase, or even a light oxidizer. I use an oxidizer called Eco 88, which is a pH-neutral peroxide, and that just takes away the odor and the smell. It’s really good. And then you can always get a little ozonator too — have it go in a room for 10 minutes, and that will kill a lot of junk and a lot of fragrances.
Evan Brand: Yeah, that’s a good idea. If you’re listening and going, “Hey, I’ve already listened to you guys, I’ve cleaned up, we’re fragrance-free with all our products, but we’re renting or vacationing in a home,” those are good strategies. Also, you could travel with a bag of charcoal. Just look up “charcoal bag” — you can find them online, 5 or 10 pounds. They work great. [00:23:00] You can throw it in if there’s a really smelly bedroom or bathroom. Obviously, the solution to pollution is dilution, so if you can open a window or a patio, or you’re going to a nice climate where you can get fresh air, do that. But I’ll also take these little charcoal bags — and that applies too if you’re buying a used car. Put them on top of your air filter, so that way when the air comes out it goes through the carbon.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, that’d be cool. You could do that.
Evan Brand: There’s also chlorine dioxide, which is a little more controversial, but it’s very effective for cars. So if you buy a car that has fragrance — the last person used an air freshener, put it in the vents, had a little tree hanging, who knows — when you’re buying a used car, it’s a crapshoot. I’ve been surprised too. I’ve looked at some pretty nice cars over the years and they smell horrible. You’d think a nicer car would be less fragranced, but no, it’s not the case.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: When I got my car last year, I told you, I got an ozonator and just put it on for 10 minutes. High for 10 minutes, let the vents run, then air it out. And the big thing is just go upgrade your air filter. [00:24:00] Double-check the air filter and get one that’s HEPA quality with baking soda and charcoal. So I got one for my car with baking soda and activated charcoal at HEPA quality. Just make sure it works for your car — double-check that, because if the filter is too thin, it could wear out the filtration or the motor. So make sure it’s compatible. That way, when your air is filtering, it’s going through a HEPA and through activated charcoal and baking soda, which is good.
Evan Brand: Yeah, the chlorine dioxide is amazing. It may make your car smell like a pool for about a month — there’s a slight residual. Chlorine is just one of those potent things; even at one part per million you can still smell it. So there’s that slight residue, but sunlight generally gets rid of it. If you had a sunroof, you could put your windows down and air out your car after that treatment. But if you look at a car detail shop, or a dealer who bought a car from an auction, they’ll typically use a combination — the ozone, run overnight. I talked with a dealer about how they do it. They’ll put the ozone machine outside [00:25:00] the car, crack the window, with a little tape setup that leaves a bit of a crack to feed more fresh air in — because once the ozone eats everything up in the car, there’s nothing left to work with; there’s no gunpowder, so to speak. So they crack the window, pump in the ozone so they can continually get fresh air to create more ozone, and do it overnight for like 24 hours. Then they may follow up with the chlorine dioxide. This could apply for smoke, fragrance, mold, bacteria — it’s that combo. So it’s geeky. It’s a whole other conversation, how to detox fragrance, but the main thing is remove the source.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The problem with a lot of cars — I see it a lot — is they have a junky filter that hasn’t been changed. So my car had fragrance in it. I checked the filter out, it stunk.
Evan Brand: Yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And I’m like, just go in, watch a video on how to do the car filter yourself — it’s five minutes. Get the higher quality, get the HEPA. And I’d recommend you don’t even have a filter in when you do the ozone. Just do a 10-minute thing, keep everything ventilated so it goes [00:26:00] through everything — permeates through — and have it go for 10, 15 minutes. You don’t want to do it too long because it can dull the plastic — the plastic can lose that luster and shininess if you have a trim piece or something. There are some videos on it, like 10, 15 minutes. Make sure it’s ventilating. Go in, hold your breath, crack the windows, let it air out. That’s a good way to do it. So less is more, then just upgrade the air filtration and give everything a good wipe-down. Get a good clean car cleaner with a microfiber, wipe all the surfaces down as much as you can, because that can be a big source as well.
Evan Brand: Yeah. And if you’re like, “That sounds like too much work,” then go to your local oil-change place. They’ll swap a filter for you, no problem. They might charge you 10, 20 bucks of labor to swap it if it’s too complex — some of these systems are really annoying, you’ve got to take apart a lot to get to the filters in some cars. So if you don’t even want to deal with it, get your oil-change person to do it. And if you have a car detailer, you can provide the products. If you’re getting your car detailed, who says you have to use all this garbage stuff? Give them a good organic soap [00:27:00] and let them wipe down your car. There’s no need to use anything slippery — if they put those oils on your dashboard, a lot of that’s fragranced as well. Just look at your leather conditioner — that’s often going to have added fragrance. So once again, it’s death by a thousand fragrances. We’re not saying one thing is the end-all be-all, but it’s all of it, and everywhere you go you’re getting hit every single day.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep. You can get the good activated carbon, like little beanbags. Those go under my chairs. In my car I have two beanbags underneath there. And then — I haven’t gotten it yet because I changed the air filter in mine and it’s pretty good — but you can get a Philips. They have one for the car where you plug it into the 12-volt and put it on the dash or center console, and it does some filtration stuff. If I were an Uber driver, I’d definitely have a manual filter cleaning stuff out, no doubt. Another pet peeve of mine — the scents in the Uber cars is just insane, man. I’m just like, “Holy God.” I’ll pay extra just —
Evan Brand: I did a petition — I remember that, a couple years back, [00:28:00] maybe a decade ago. I did a petition to the CEO of Uber. It got at least 5,000 signatures, and once it hit a certain number they were going to deliver the petition to him. I recently saw a video — a celebrity talking about how they’re actually talking directly to the CEO of Uber and how they need a fragrance-free option. They said their wife got a headache in an Uber, and the CEO said, “Oh, I never thought about that.” Really? You never thought about the air of the car? Your whole business is an air bubble of toxins. What do you mean you never thought about it? But anyway, I hope he listens, so maybe one day there will be a toggle switch on your Uber — or how about default? Default is fragrance-free. Why should you have to get hit with that? Especially if you’re on a trip, maybe you don’t need or want to rent a car. Unfortunately, I’ve had some sensitive clients who are like, “Hey, I’m trying to get to a clinic to get well, but I got poisoned on my ride, and now I have a headache for the rest of the day.”
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But wouldn’t you spend $2 more per Uber ride just to have fragrance-free, and let the driver make the $2 extra?
Evan Brand: Oh, yeah.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just for being fragrance-free. That’s a totally good [00:29:00] deal. I’d do that all day long. Also, easy one — in my fridge, just get an open box, $1 of baking soda, sodium bicarbonate. Let it sit there. That absorbs smell. It’s the same thing — washing soda is sodium bicarb for your clothes. You can get a five-pound container on Amazon for like five bucks. Or my cat litter box — guess what I have? The baking soda ones that stick to the wall. We have an inner litter box in a hutch area — she goes in the hole — and we put a baking soda thing that sticks to the side of it. And I also have an Air Doctor in that exact room. So just be smart. You can get decent little air filters and put a little baking soda in there. That really knocks out a lot of the smell.
Evan Brand: And don’t poison your kitties. They don’t want “fresh breeze” in their clay. Get unscented clay — it exists, it’s not that hard to find. I promise. One thing at a time. Look at your labels, flip stuff over, and just start now. Don’t say, “Oh, when I finish the Tide, I’ll switch over.” Just switch over now. It’s easy. It’s not going to cost you a ton of money. So we could rant on this all day. I’m so passionate about the [00:30:00] fragrance issue. I’m amazed how many people still smell in the modern world. In 2026, you’ll walk by someone and they still smell that bad? Haven’t you come across at least one social media video? There are like a million health influencers talking about chemicals. You haven’t seen one of those videos yet? Really?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 110%. Do you see my thing on screen real fast?
Evan Brand: I don’t.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Do you see it? I don’t. Where are you? Hold on, I’ve got to find you here.
Evan Brand: Now, if you’re listening to this and you want to get deeper testing — we can test you for phthalates and a lot of other chemicals. Dr. J and I use labs across the country that can test metals, pesticides, all sorts of chemicals, phthalates, things that come from these endocrine-disrupting compounds in your makeup. So if you’re someone who’s like, “Hey, I switched over to natural products, but I’m not 100% sure if I’ve detoxed it” — let us help you. We can do the proper testing to show you what’s under the hood, and that can be done worldwide. So it’s super easy to do, and most of it’s done via urine. [00:31:00]
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.
Evan Brand: All right. What do you got here?
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%. Okay, so, interesting article here: “Do synthetic fragrances in personal care and household products impact indoor air quality and pose health risks?” This is the Journal of Xenobiotics, 2023. So fragrance molecules may trigger various acute and chronic pathological conditions because of repetitive human exposure. Remember, it’s the repetitive stuff — the car, the cat litter box, the dryer sheets. It’s everywhere. In indoor environments, the negative impact of fragrance chemicals on human health includes cutaneous, respiratory, and systemic effects: headaches, asthma attacks, breathing difficulties, cardiovascular and neurological problems. Pathologies related to synthetic fragrances and perfumes are associated with allergic reactions and potentially with perturbations of the endocrine-immune-neural axis. This is important — this is the gonadotropin-releasing hormone, GnRH, FSH, LH feedback loop. Our hypothalamus makes gonadotropin-releasing hormone, [00:32:00] then we have gonadotropins like FSH and LH released from the pituitary, and that goes to the gonads — whether the ovaries or the testes — and you’re producing hormones. LH stimulates progesterone, FSH stimulates estrogen. In men, FSH stimulates the Sertoli cells to make sperm, and LH stimulates testosterone. So it’s interfering with this neuro-immune-endocrine axis, and that’s going to impact your hormone production. So the present review aims to critically call attention to odorants, VOCs, and synthetic fragrances and their associated formulated components of PCHPs in potentially impacting indoor air quality and negatively affecting human health. So, good study. We know this is a thing — it’s just that people don’t make a lot of money by exposing it. That’s the difference. So there are studies out there that show it, and the best thing you can do is start with your room, start with your pillowcases — unscented, fragrance-free, Eczema Society approved — or do the Borax, the baking soda, and the [00:33:00] vinegar. These are all great options out of the gate. A good-quality air filter — we recommend Austin Air, Air Doctor. If you can get something with VOC filtration on it as well, that’s great. And then get rid of all the fresheners. And if you want a perfume — for men, cedar oil is going to be really good; cedar is great. From a female standpoint, you could look at lavender. A good neutral one is frankincense. There are some really good essential oil fragrances. Maybe something more on the citrus side too can be nice. Any other comments on that, Evan?
Evan Brand: No. Reach out to us if you need help. If you want to look at your chemical toxicity load, we can help you measure that. Obviously, we’re going to evaluate mitochondria, gut microbiome, nutrient levels, amino acids. There’s a lot we look at when we do a workup, but one thing we can do is look at some of these environmental chemicals and see what’s left. So reach out to Dr. J at justinhealth.com — you can get consults and testing worldwide. And me, Evan Brand, at evanbrand.com. Let us know how we can help. We’d be happy to geek out with you, and we love doing this stuff. Let’s get you clean. This is all about longevity, quality of life, [00:34:00] mood.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: 100%.
Evan Brand: Everything can be amazing, but you’ve got to get rid of the poison. It’s that simple.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes. And the first thing, when we look at patients, is stop adding toxins and stress to your system, and then we can focus on what we need to do to detoxify or support the healing. So the first thing, when you’re digging a hole, is just stop. We can worry about how we fill in the hole later, but just stop digging. And the digging — stop digging — is all the external exposure things. There’s a lot we can do, but we want to assess, not guess. There are a lot of tests we can do to look at how good our hormonal system is. And remember — part of how we detoxify, which we haven’t really talked about much, is that healthy gut function is very important for detoxification. That’s where you absorb the nutrients to run these detox pathways, and most of them are sulfur-based amino acids and good B vitamins. So gut function is so important — we didn’t talk about it, people are going to forget that, so we want to get your gut looked at, especially when you have these kinds of gut stressors. So evanbrand.com for Evan, Justin Health, Dr. J here. We’re here to support you guys. [00:35:00] Anything else, Evan?
Evan Brand: No. Take care, and we’ll do a part two on detoxification —
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.
Evan Brand: — maintain, get rid of the source, but we can dive more into the gut piece next time.
Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Love it. All right, man. Take care. Peace.
Evan Brand: Take care. Bye-bye.
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