r/ChemicalSensitivities

Hey folks! I wanted to share with you a little DIY vent filter that I made. It’s still in its experimental phase but so far it’s been helpful. I live in the basement of my son’s home and my daughter in law uses a few fragranced products. While I wish they didn’t use any, they have made a ton of accommodations for me and I have no where else to live that is safe for me. The fragrances come thru the vents and I have tried a ton of things to filter the air and this is the most helpful by far. This one is my test model and my son said he will help me build one that can be attached more securely and is more a more durable material.

I essentially found a cardboard box the same size as my vent. I bought some small sheets of aluminum screen, activated carbon pellets and aluminum tape.

I cut a hole in the bottom of the box leaving a lip where the screen can sit. I cut the screen to size and put it in the bottom of the box in order to hold the carbon pallets in. I used two layers of screen for more strength. I strengthened the box flaps with extra cardboard and used the tape to also reinforce the box itself. Aluminum tape is great and relatively fragrance free. I then put an inch and a half of carbon pellets inside.

As you can see in the picture, I have used a lot of tape to adhere it to the ceiling. Ideally, I think having two or 3 inches of carbon in it would be best, but that will require a frame that mounts to the ceiling, which my son is going to help me with.

Aluminum tape is pretty strong and it’s not very damaging to other surfaces as other tape is. I do check it a couple times a day and make sure that the tape is still holding and besides adjusting it here and there over the past two weeks it’s held up pretty well.

Right now, my only option for changing out the carbon is to pull it off the ceiling, but I think I can just re-tape it back up and it should work out well.

I will say that this is not 100% effective, especially if the fragrance is strong, but it reduces it enough that I really can only smell anything when I’m standing super close to it when the vent has air coming thru it. I have another carbon filter in the room that has about 5 lbs of carbon in it, that takes care of the rest for the most part.

Again, there are still times where some fragrance comes through, but I suspect that’s when she has just used something. This has made it possible for me to be in that space unmasked. I always have my bedroom, which is my safe space but I can’t just exist in here all the time. This has also made it possible so that I can be in my bedroom with my door open for better air circulation, as it can get pretty stagnant in my room, regardless of the amount of fans or the 25 pounds of carbon air filter I have in there.

I think these could very easily be modified to be put over floor vents, where the screen part could sit right over the floor vents and then you’d pour the carbon on top of that. I don’t know about vents on the wall, but I’m sure it’s possible to make something with some creative experimentation. I initially bought those carbon filter sheets, but only found those to be effective for a few days and it would become too expensive to replace them all the time. My thought is needing to replace the carbon on this every two weeks. I mean, maybe the cost will be the same, but this box seems to be way more effective.

The key thing though is that you need to use carbon pellets. The more crushed kind is just gonna blow carbon dust everywhere.

Let me know if you have any questions or any thoughts on how to modify this. Ideally, I would like to have it so that you could just slide a tray out, dump out the carbon pellets, put new carpet pellets in and then slide it over the vent again. I will update as this experiment continues.

Short version: There's going to be some people in my home. They won't be wearing anything extra, but there will still be laundry detergent in their clothes, soaps, etc.. Suiting them up or providing other clothes isn't really an option.

Thinking about using this setup to get it out of the air, but would like to know if it'd work before spending the money. Anyone tried it?

They'll be in my bedroom's bathroom quite a while too 😞

On the International Day Against Electromagnetic Pollution, CONFESQ will present its Green Book on Workplace Adaptation for People with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity and/or Electrohypersensitivity in an international online event on June 24 at 18:00 (CEST)

CONFESQ stands for Confederación Estatal de Sensibilidad Química y Salud Ambiental — the Spanish National Confederation for Chemical Sensitivity and Environmental Health.

This is the umbrella organization in Spain representing people with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS), Electrohypersensitivity (EHS), and related environmental illnesses. It advocates for recognition, workplace adaptation, research, and public policy improvements.

Excerpt -

a) General principles

• Individual assessment and active participation of the worker

. • Reversible and reviewable measures depending on the evolution of symptoms.

• Coordination between prevention services, management, and the affected person.

b) Environmental conditions

• Air and ventilation: constant renewal, HEPA and activated carbon filters, CO2 control, controlled humidity, and stable temperature.

• Cleaning products: exclusive use of eco-friendly and fragrance-free products, with specific maintenance protocols.

• Materials: avoidance of volatile organic compounds; prioritization of natural wood, stainless steel, or glass.

• Electromagnetic fields: reduction of unnecessary emitters, use of shielded cabling, wired networks, and application of the ALARA principle.

• Safe zones: fragrance- and radiation-free spaces for work or rest.

c) Organizational adjustments

• Partial or total teleworking with preventive monitoring.

• Flexible working hours and prioritization of compatible tasks.

• Redistribution of functions to avoid exposure. • Internal communication and awareness protocols.

This event passed but the Green Book is available for download free at this link- almost 400 pages, I did not read it but a brief look seems like it is ok.

.https://esc-info.eu/fr/green-book-on-workstation-adaptation-for-people-with-multiple-chemical-sensitivity-and-or-electrohypersensitivity/

My fiance and I are testing a fragrance removal method for stubborn, toxic, nightmare air freshener from hell that is unlike anything I encounter so far. I don’t remember ever running into one this bad. I want to share the steps with you so far. It’s still a work in progress. We are successfully removing it from his sentimental polyester shirts.

Some background info about the fragrance we are trying to remove:

- came from Borgata casino air freshener in Atlantic City and is so harmful and so persistent spreading that I seriously contemplated an injury lawsuit against them. Instead I entered them in the Cole & Van Note class action lawsuit form (they have class action lawsuits in progress against businesses who use signature scents, which makes the business inaccessible to people with chemical sensitivity - see https://colevannote.com/fragrance-experience-form/)

- this stuff made my own HOME unsafe for me even though I avoided the business where it originated. (my fiance brought it back on a single outfit)

- over the course of several weeks it has given me a series of different awful symptoms since its arrival in my home - intense nausea, vomiting, headaches, throat burning, sinus burning, and nonstop asthma. Even though I didn’t even go to this casino.

- it spreads to EVERYTHING IT TOUCHES and we will probably need to throw out a huge number of belongings because of how much it spread.

- it continues to give me awful symptoms even after 3 or 4 hops from item to item, long after the original outfit was removed from the house. Horror movie stuff, really.

- because of how aggressive spreading it is, it contaminated many things: everything else in the suitcase, his suitcase itself, then when he got back to our house it spread to the laundry hamper, then spread to almost his entire wardrobe in the washing machine, multiple pieces of furniture that clothing rested on, multiple closet shelves, spread to his skin where it didn’t come off with soap, spread to our bed when he got into the bed, then spread to our guest bed that I moved to in the middle of the night to try to escape this hellish poison.

- it has low volatility at room temperature (doesn’t seem to spread much through the air) and this has pros and cons because thank God it didn’t get into our AC system. But it’s also very difficult to identify where remaining contamination is coming from. I can only smell it if I’m less than 6 inches away from a contaminated item - but it still gave me all the terrible side effects even from many feet away.

- slightly higher volatility at warm temperatures, but is not fully removed by airing out in summer outdoor heat.

- my fiance says he can’t smell it at all, so I assume it includes some chemicals in the “some people can smell it and some can’t” category like ambroxan and galaxolide.

- it stubbornly resisted ALL commonly recommended fragrance removal methods that I have read about in the past, including sunlight, heat, ozone, vinegar, baking soda, washing soda, borax, detergent, enzymes, you name it, they all failed to remove it.

- it comes off of skin and nonporous surfaces with oil, followed by soap or shampoo to wash off the oil. This was our only hope to remove it from clothing items.

Why bother trying to remove it at all, why not just throw everything out? Honestly I was tempted. But my fiance had worn extremely sentimental and irreplaceable clothing to this particular event - clothing he got as souvenirs from travel locations that he is unlikely to ever be able to return to. So I threw the kitchen sink at this as a research problem.

Anyway, THE STEPS.

Actually first the supplies:

- small steel or glass mixing bowl about 2-4 cups in size, must be stovetop safe. I prefer a round bottom mixing bowl here so I can scrape the sides with a spoon.

- steel or glass soaking container about 2-4 quarts in size, doesn’t need to be stovetop safe but it must not be plastic. Must be chemically insert; plastic would be destroyed. Shape doesn’t matter but size does - ideally fits the clothing item you want to decontaminate, without too much extra room.

- isopropyl myristate from Amazon

- polysorbate 80 from Amazon

- sunflower lecithin from Amazon (soy lecithin should work as a substitute, but our house has soy allergies so I played it safe)

- water

- spoon or butter knife for stirring and scraping down the sides of the mixing bowl (this utensil must not be plastic)

- measuring spoons (again not plastic)

- spray bottle with a coarse spray, not too fine

- (optional, but helpful) an immersion blender. Substitute with a whisk if you don’t have one.

Overall strategy:

Similar to how we got this awful stuff off of skin and nonporous surfaces - the fabric will be soaked in something oily, and then the oil will wash off with surfactants. Isopropyl myristate is the oily role in this. It was chosen because it will bond very strongly to the fragrance from hell - an even stronger bond than the fragrance formed with polyester. Isopropyl myristate then becomes the new puzzle of how to remove it. Polysorbate 80 and lecithin will form an extremely efficient emulsion, allow the isopropyl myristate to dissolve into rinse water and wash out of the clothing - taking the fragrance from hell with it.

Note on the amounts:

Note these amounts are scaled to what worked for me on 1 polyester polo shirt. You could need more for big items. I recommend trying this for 1 clothing item at a time in case of learning mistakes. Overall I have 7 sentimental shirts to decontaminate - and even with learning mistakes so far I have successfully decontaminated 2 of them in 2 afternoons. After that I will move on to decontamination of the rest of his wardrobe. But very large items like bedding will need replacement most likely because I don’t see a cost effective way to scale this for very large items.

STEPS:

1. Spray the contaminated clothing item with isopropyl myristate. I recommend doing this outside because then you don’t need to worry about how to get isopropyl myristate off your countertop. I successfully removed it from my countertop by melting it with a Dupray Neat steamer, followed by a towel wipe. But spraying outside is just less hassle.

When you spray the shirt, aim for full even coverage inside and out. I used about 3 fluid ounces for a polyester shirt. It will feel very oily. Leave the oily clothing item to soak in the glass or steel soaking container for about an hour while you do the next few steps. It should come off your hands with soap and water but you might need some repetition.

2. Make sure the stovetop safe small mixing bowl is clean and bone dry, and then heat the empty bowl on the stove on ultralow heat. The ideal temperature is hot to the touch, but still very touchable. Starting with a warm and dry bowl is more important than it seems; several my attempts failed to fully remove the isopropyl myristate from the cloth because I started with a room temperature bowl or a wet bowl.

The next few steps are slow because you should always allow the bowl contents to warm up again, each time you change its contents. Don’t move too fast - the heat helps so that you can remove the most isopropyl myristate in the end. But learning mistakes are still solvable with repetition.

3. Add 2 tablespoons of polysorbate 80 to the warm dry bowl, and then add 2 teaspoons of lecithin powder. Mix them with a spoon or butter knife - no plastic mixing utensils. This stuff will destroy some types of plastic. The consistency should be like thick honey with grainy pollen in it.

4. Stir it for a few minutes, continuing to heat it on ultralow heat. Allow it to warm up before continuing to the next step.

5. Add only one teaspoon of water at a time, and after each addition, stir it thoroughly and allow the bowl contents to heat up again. This is a slow process so be patient. If you do it again right, the mix will become oddly thicker with each addition of water - eventually like thick peanut butter. It might also take on a pearly, lighter color.

6. As you add water one teaspoon at a time, you will eventually pass the peanut butter consistency and reach a “gel blob” stage. The mix will start to separate from the sides of the container and it won’t mix as easily with water as the previous few spoons of water did. It is important to continue mixing it anyway. Stir it and continue heating it with ultralow heat. It will eventually mix even though it didn’t want to at first.

7. Continue adding water one teaspoon at a time with heat and stirring. Eventually, you will notice that it’s mixing with water more easily.

8. When it has the consistency of half & half (thicker than water, but very liquid) you can add about 1 cup of water and use the immersion blender on it - or a whisk. The liquid at this point is light amber colored.

9. Pour it over your clothing item in the soaking bowl.

10. Massage and squeeze and dip the clothing item for several minutes, keeping as much of the liquid as you can in your soaking container. Watch the color of the liquid. If you are getting successful removal of isopropyl myristate, then it will turn rather quickly from yellow or amber to gray. After it turns gray you can add some more water if you need more. If you’re getting dye bleed then it will start to take on the color of your clothing item. If you do get dye bleed then go early to the next step (if dye bleed is concerning). Otherwise, spend about 5-10 minutes massaging and squeezing and dipping it.

11. Pour out the dirty water and rinse the clothing item very thoroughly under running water. Rinse and squish until it’s mostly clear.

12. Put the clothing item to the washing machine with some cheap towels to aid agitation in the wash. Wash with cold water and your usual detergent. Avoid hot water because you don’t want to set the isopropyl myristate if there is any remaining. Avoid the dryer too for the same reason - air dry it.

13. After air drying, check to see if the item is still oily. I did this by swiping it on a matte countertop and looking at it with back lighting to see if I made the countertop shiny. If isopropyl myristate remains, then repeat the process starting with step 2. If no isopropyl myristate remains then the clothing item can re-enter normal usage 😊

End result: this process is quite honestly wayyyyy more time and effort and expense than I personally would ever choose to spend. I personally would rather see businesses selling products that don’t impact human health like this. But my fiancé was sad about losing sentimental value clothing items. So I researched this until the plan was solid, and tried it until my learning mistakes were ironed out. And IT WORKED! It rescued my fiancé’s irreplaceable sentimental shirts.

It seems to leave a slightly chalky smell compared to my usual laundry, but nothing that irritates my chemical sensitivity. It removed all of that fragrance from hell 🥳