The "Sweet" Smell of Chemicals

It's been about three months since we got rid of the chemicals in our house - poisons, cleaners, shampoo, non-natural soaps, etc.  I haven't really noticed how the smell of our house has changed in that amount of time.  But apparently, my nose has been noticing.

Thanks to FlyLady, I've been decluttering my house for the past week.  I'm finding things that I haven't seen in years (and we've only lived in this house 3.5 years).  In particular, I found three little TSA-approved bottles full of soap, shampoo, and something unidentifiable (more soap or shampoo?).  Since we aren't using these products anymore, I dumped them down the drain in the tub so that I could reuse the bottles.  Immediately, the smell of these three little 3 oz bottles overwhelmed me.  My bathroom smelled so bad.  It was a sickly sweet and decidedly chemical smell.  I couldn't wash the stuff down the drain fast enough.  The bottles have been soaking and drying for the last day and my bathroom still smells bad.  It gave me a pretty bad headache.

I'm now acutely aware of other people's perfumes, soaps, and deodorant.  When ever my future sister-in-law (*A*) holds Miss F, she smells like *A*'s perfume for the whole day.  There are some women in my exercise class who reek of deodorant - not perfume, deodorant.  I never would have noticed that smell before.