Cologne, perfume, deorderant, lotion, make-up.

[Dana Sheets]

I doubt if any dojo has a formal policy on this, but I'd bet everybody has had an experience or two.

I remember one white belt guy that used sooo much cologne that I'd take a shower after class just to get his scent off me. Yick.

It kind of goes along with fingernail and toenails being clean and clipped.

I also think is more of a burden for women than men who want to train. Belive me, those white uniforms are a pain to clean of you've been wearing base or lipstick, or any eye makeup. I don't know who game up with white - but personally I'd have much less laundry to do if we'd wear any other color gi besides stark white.


Dana

[candan]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I remember one white belt guy that used sooo much cologne that I'd take a shower after
class just to get his scent off me. Yick.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
Guys like to "mark trees" (Primal instinct )
I often came home smellin like Channel#5 ..worst yet I looked quilty, know where your coming from on that one

[sunsu8]

This may be completely irrelevant but IS interesting. :


In the early 1950's, Sensei C. returned from Okinawa, Japan to his Marine Corps station stateside. He began to teach what he had been taught. His wife sewed the loose-fitting training uniforms with the most readily available material- Marine Corps sheets which were white. He joked later that had Marine Corps sheets been another color ( i.e. blue or green) that traditional gi today would have been that color instead of white.


MAKES FOR A GREAT after-class dojo STORY!!! ~ SJR

[tunetigress]

Few perfumes or fragranced products on the market these days are made of natural compounds. Our indoor air is made more and more toxic by consumers' growing use of the myriad of chemically based scented products lining the store shelves. Multinational Petrochemical Corporations only get richer if their chemicals sell well, so they have the media moguls use advertising techniques to brainwash people into believing that their smells, appearance , or well-being will not be as good without their products, and companies compete to sell you confidence and beauty in a bottle.

Some people, including a former Karate instructor of mine, feel that their fragrances are a reflection of their personality, and are therefore incomplete without it. Thus, chemically based products can become tied to a person's self-esteem, and have taken their place as an accepted and unquestioned part of modern life.

Unfortunately for me, the toxins in any chemically generated fragrance or cosmetic cause me to experience numerous immediate and violent 'allergic' reactions which include asthma attacks, migraines, nausea, vomiting, loss of motor control, memory loss and cognitive dysfunction, and severe pain from muscle spasms caused by several days of violent coughing.

It is because public places such as dojos, gyms, and even doctor's offices do not promote a fragrance free, as well as smoke-free indoor air environment, that it is dangerous, perhaps even fatal, for me to leave the safety of my home.

The issue is not one of 'liking' or 'disliking' the use of those products. IMHO it is an issue of the continual and willing poisoning of our workplaces, homes, and recreational facilities. Until a year ago, I never actually realised the issue was that big a problem. Then I was poisoned by breathing toxic vapours from petro-chemically based building products used in my presence in my workplace, and the neuro-toxins immediately began to disrupt my body's organ functions.

The formal policy I would like to see put into place is precisely what has been already been done to control people's exposure to another chemically-ridden health destroying product, tobacco. Those days are coming too, with more and more people coming down with so-called 'environmental illnesses, Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, and Sick Building Syndrome. One of the first things to make these patients ill is fragrance. I know that I am a severe case, but suggestions have been made that I am merely the 'canary' down in the mine, and now that I've fallen from my perch, do you think people will recognise the warning?

I'd LOVE to see the Martial Arts community step up and be leaders in the pursuit of pure and healthy indoor air quality. Right now I feel like an army of one, but I will continue to fight for my right to continue breathing.

------------------
Respectfully, _(_)_ Tune

[This message has been edited by tunetigress (edited April 17, 2002).]

[Allen M.]

I resolve to ban the Ban.

I vow to refrain from using underarm deodorant in the dojo again.

I promise not to hit my gi with a quick spray of right-guard to mask nature's beautiful scent, even if it has started growing fur and mushrooms.

No more aroma of the roll-on, just good old-fashioned he-man sopping-wet, eye-stinging fragrance.

Healthy indoor quality air gets my vote!


------------------
Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera

[2Green]

Years ago I discovered two products I love, and are not offensive to even the most scent-sensitive people I have encountered, either at home or at work.
For underarm: Mitchum unscented.
For aftershave: (I'm a daily wet-shaver): I use Williams "'Lectric-Shave" as an aftershave.It has alcohol and oil, no after-scent at all, and re-oils the skin. It's normally a prep for using an electric shaver.
Most people who use cologne or perfume don't seem to be able to smell it themselves and use way too much of it. I find a lot of it kind of stenchy in fact.
I prefer being "invisible"...at least, THAT way.

[Allen M.]

I need to apologize if I sounded callous, Tunetigress. Sorry if a make a little fun above, tunetigress, I wasn't laughing at you, rather at my own maladies and human frailness.



I also have sniffer problems. One extremely bad season I couldn't breathe, literally couldn't breathe and was living off inhalers. I'd wake up at night gasping for breath realizing that I'd stopped breathing.

Certain chemicals that are put in some foods are very acrid smelling to me and actually hurt my nose.

Certain womens' perfumes, aka usually the cheap kinds, cause me to break out into sneezing fits. I don't know why some people think they smell pretty.

Forget about getting near the soap isles in a supermarket. From simple acridity to unbreathability.

I can tell when it is going to start when I walk past he bread aisles at the supermarket, all supermarkets. The bread smells moldy to my nostrils -- but it's fresh bread. THAT's when I have to watch out for pollens and stuff.

I have a portable air filter that is in use during certain parts of the year.



------------------
Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera

[Allen M.]

Definitely not in the laundry detergent aisles

------------------
Allen Moulton from Uechi-ryu Etcetera

[Guest]

Few fragrances or scented products on the market these days are made of natural compounds.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tunetigress, We must thank our friends in Greenpeace and the other " the sky is falling" Eco/cults for this.

I remember a time when we would crawl into our bed rolls at the end of the day and explore a book by the light of the lamp.

On the wall behind the old wood stove the musk glands from many beaver hung drying. The last trip of the season these natural scent glands were packed and carried out of the bush to be sold as a by-product at the annual fur sale. They were used to manufacture quality fragrance.

Today the price of fur has driven most of us from the bush. I fact this is the first year in 182 years a member of my family has not spent the winter on the land. Natural products like fur, leather, wool, have been replaced by more environmentally friendly petroleum based products.?????????????????

I don't pretend to understand it. Then again I never understood women spraying concoctions manufactured from beaver scent glands on their bodies either. (Hormones, pheromones, who knows!) I thought this might be an effective potion if one wanted to be attacked by a randy beaver.

Our society's reliance on chemical products is perplexing. I once managed a restaurant in which a waitress developed allergies to stainless steel, nickel, silver, copper, chlorine, smoke, and just about every cleaning product invented by man.


Her clothing even attacked her. I don't think she ever worked again. Her home attacked her. She had problems with the paint on the walls. She had problems with the fibers in the carpets. Her immune system pretty well tried to kill her whenever she was exposed to man made products. An extreme case.I moved from the area and do not know the end of her story. Who knows in another 20/30 years we may all get to live with this response to our creations.

Sorry to rant, it's close to my heart!

Laird



[This message has been edited by uglyelk (edited April 18, 2002).]

[tunetigress]

Well I guess I must be an extreme case then, and sure, my life would totally be a nightmare if I allowed it to be one. I must live in complete isolation in order to survive, and lucky for me I live in an 'old-fashioned' wooden house on the pristine coast of British Columbia that has never been 'upgraded.' All of my air and water must be filtered. I have no 'social life.' I do not go out, even to train anymore, and few people want to be bothered to deal with their 'chemical field' issues in order to share my airspace. Sounds gloomy doesn't it???

Well, for some people it would be terribly depressing, but after the hectic career I've had, I'm kind of enjoying it! I have been able to adapt my study of Kenpo to my situation, and have ample time to read, study, practice, and even post! I would never have had the opportunity to explore this side of myself if I was still working. My disability is only as much of a disability as I allow it to be. Granted I did have to find myself a new instructor who was sensitive to my needs and willing to train me regardless of my present condition. My mode of instruction has changed from 'dojo' to 'distance' and I did have to switch from Tracy's to American Kenpo to acquire the level of training I felt that I needed, as well as an instructor who felt up to the challenge of dealing with the likes of me. ( LOL a brave man, is Dennis Conatser!)

The reality is, that I discovered that I would have had to change the attitudes of the entire population (as well as the Multi-National Corporations that own this planet) regarding the use of chemical products and fragrances in order to stay alive out there, and that is simply too big of a job, even for me.

------------------
Respectfully, _(_)_ Tune

[This message has been edited by tunetigress (edited April 21, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by tunetigress (edited April 21, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by tunetigress (edited April 21, 2002).]

[Guest]

[QUOTE]Originally posted by tunetigress:
Well I guess I must be an extreme case then
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Tune, I appologise if my post came across as not carring , I must admit that I perused your post and missed most of the medical issues. Yes when compare to the average person, your allergies are extreme. I fear that over time your condition may be all to common.


I must live in complete isolation in order to survive, and lucky for me I live in an 'old-fashioned' wooden house on the pristine coast of British Columbia that has never been 'upgraded.' All of my air and water must be filtered. I have no 'social life.' I do not go out, even to train anymore, and few people want to be bothered to deal with their 'chemical field' issues in order to share my airspace. Sounds gloomy doesn't it???
----------
You live in a special place, I've missed the west coast many times. The cemical issues, I have a story.

When I was a young man, a teen actually. Three friends and I decided to drive from Nova Scotia to Ontario. When we got as far as Fredricton New Brunswick we saw a friend from our school hitch hicking on the side of the road. Small world

We picked him up, about 20 minutes later he started scratching,and scratching,and scratching. He asked to be dropped off on the side of the road. Turns out he was alergic to the laundry soap one of my friends used. We didn't abandon him we stoped in the next town and went to the landramat and washed all of the offending cloths.

Twenty five years later I discover the women I married has the same reaction to this same soap. As the years go by and thousands of compounds are introduced each year this kind of thing will increase in IMHO.


Well, for some people it would be terribly depressing, but after the hectic career I've had, I'm kind of enjoying it!
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Having experienced the solitude of the bush I know the joy's of solitude, it is not for everyone. I'm glad you can find the benifits
I have always found it uplifting.


My disability is only as much of a disability as I allow it to be.
--------
This speaks volumes as to your character Tune! I think there is a warrior in your house!


Laird

[Cecil]

I have minor allergies. I deal with them through keeping my dairy intake to a minimum, drinking lots of water, and eating foods that open the nasal passages. And I avoid the most severe allergen. Sadly, the dust one is everywhere that is indoors, even on the pillows at home.

My guess is that our diets are combining with environmental toxins to make us miserable.

I need to go. I'm itching just thinking about this topic (LOL).