Yes, it s very hard for the average person to understand my wife and I s sensitivities, ... - a1Jim
Not Me, I understand completely. Have dealt with seasonal, chemical, and food allergies for decades.
1) There is big difference between something that makes you sick, and something annoying due sensitive olfactory glands. One is related to body immune response which requires whole body solution, and careful protection. The second can be cured with some menthol/peppermint salve, or some scented oil rubbed under your noise to keep the olfactory glands occupied.
2) Solving allergy problems has a simple analogy. Your body is bucket. When the bucket is too full of stuff you are allergic too, it runs over; and makes a mess. With nasal related allergies, the issue is usually histamine reaction.
Reducing problems created by allergies, requires emptying the bucket; or making it bigger. You empty the bucket by removing common everyday things from your life that contribute to the problem. Make the bucket bigger with controlled exposure to every increasing levels of the allergens that create issues, AFTER completely removing exposure for 1+ month
Chemical allergies are much more common than people realize. Most common source of initial problems occur when folks have new carpet installed, inside of house freshly painted, or even hanging vinyl wall paper. The residual formaldehyde, glycols, silicones, and other volatile organic chemicals can take a years to dissipate; which also causes allergy bucket to spill over the entire time.
To focus on your deodorant sensitivity comment: Most antiperspirants contain volatile organic siloxanes, propylene glycol, and 2-Butoxyethanol (forget about fragrance for minute). If you smear this stuff on your arm pit every morning, just added more chemicals to help the bucket overflow.
BTW - Some allergy suffers, don't have allergies, but actually have histamine intolerance. You absolutely must visit an allergy specialist for proper testing, if you want quality of life to improve. It took me over 7 years working with allergy professional to learn my dangerous allergy triggers, and ways to control/combat the problem. Example - Have respiratory allergy reaction to alcohol; so now I drink in moderation 1-2 times a week; instead of enjoying a good buzz everyday. ;-)
3) Odor Free finishes?
- Don't think your issue is odor (fragrance), but chemical sensitivity.
IMHO - The only way to learn which chemicals are bad, is to buy them ALL as raw materials and do some testing at home (if you don't want to hire a professional). If you lived close to me, would offer to let sniff around my chemical supply cabinet(s). Spent many years as polymer applications development specialist, and even mfg polyurethane materials at home. Even in retirement, have all kinds of stuff, usually only found in laboratory.
- All the big box store retail oil finishes contain solvents (usually petroleum based due cost). BLO has cobalt 'salts' and mineral spirits. Cobalt is very reactive and many insensitive folks can have reaction to it and other organo-metals used as catalyst in all finishes; even if they don't have allergies. As a result, suggest will need to focus on less common oil finishes to find one that does not have solvents, and MAY work for you.
- Many people are allergic to raw materials used to make oil finishes. Some cheap oil finishes are derived from soy beans (legume). Safflower oil is another cheap drying oil used in finishes, but is also popular as cooking oil, despite people are allergic to the plant. Then you have nut oils (Tung, Walnut), which are popular. While rare, some people even have allergies to flax seed, which is the source of linseed oil. (ouch) If you have allergies to any of these raw materials, or the fatty acids after processing; may not be able to use ANY oil finish.
- Another challenge with oil finish could be related to person's diet.
Drying oils consist of glycerol triesters of fatty acids. These esters are characterized by high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acids. If you diet is overloaded with fatty acids, this will make you more sensitive to using oils as finish. Remember, the old adage: 'you are what you eat?'
- Water based finishes can be huge challenge to anyone with chemical sensitivity.
The challenge being that the chemists need to use small amounts of many different solvents to make the polymer and curatives water miscible, and stay in suspension during storage. Most WB finishes are based on poly alcohol (glycol) solvent systems, but can still contain petroleum solvents making allergy determination challenging.
One of the most troublesome being 2-Butoxyethanol. You can find it everywhere, including your household cleaners, soaps, shampoo, deodorant, etc. It is 'special' for being soluble into both oil and water. It is not cancer causing, is considered a 'safe' solvent; but it reacts havoc on respiratory systems of over half of people exposed. I buy 2-Butoxyethanol by gallon to use as a retarder for finishing, it drives my noise crazy without a respirator.
+1 Tried and True Danish oil is one of the least offensive oil finishes I have found. It is only polymerized linseed oil. The polymerization process cross links volatile acids many find objectionable in raw linseed oil. It has a very light sweet odor, and only with continuous direct contact to wet finish will I have minor skin reaction (itching). After 24-36 hours in warm garage, the odor is gone, and direct contact gives me no reaction.
Chemical allergies are complex topic. Thanks for reading too the end of this long post. Hope it helps.
Wish you luck finding a viable finish!