Autumn has all the best fragrances. The scents of holiday baking, crisp fall mornings, fresh-cut wood for the fireplace — all of these represent happy times with family and friends from years past.

Our sense of smell is closely tied to the memory center of our brain, so it’s no wonder some of these smells inspire nostalgia when we recognize them.

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There’s nothing wrong with the pure scents of the holiday season — but you might want to steer clear of their consumer product counterparts. Air fresheners and candles come in all shapes, sizes, and scents. New research from the University of Melbourne shows, however, that they can be surprisingly hazardous to your health.

More than half of all Americans prefer fragrance-free work spaces and health care facilities.

More than a third of Americans experience serious health problems — including asthma attacks, congestion, seizures, rashes, and migraines — when they are exposed to fragranced products, according to Dr. Anne Steinemann. She studied how the air pollutants in a range of fragranced products affected a random sampling of 1,136 Americans across all demographics and age groups.

The range of products that Steinemann studied included air fresheners, deodorizers, personal care products, cleaning supplies, laundry products, and perfumes — basically anything with any smell.

“This is a huge problem,” Steinemann told LifeZette. “It’s not just asthmatics; it’s everyone. I did the national population study across all demographic categories, all age groups of adults, both males and females all across the country, and the prevalence was uniform. So that’s what I think is important — this is affecting everybody.”

More than half of all Americans prefer fragrance-free work spaces and health care facilities. Fifteen percent of the population reported losing workdays because of adverse reactions to fragrances.

The science of why these fragrances cause problems isn’t clear yet, said Steinemann. She’s working on that. “[These products] emit a range of volatile organic compounds, and many of these compounds are considered hazardous air pollutants, like formaldehyde or acetaldehyde. Candles, specifically, have combustion products.” These products, she explained, generate ultrafine particles, so these products create a certain amount of indoor air pollution.

[lz_bulleted_list title=”Health Effects of Fragrances” source=”http://www.national-toxic-encephalopathy-foundation.org”]Fragrance is a known respiratory irritant and neurological toxin, and one in five people in the U.S. experience adverse health effects from synthetic fragrance exposure. For many people, exposure to perfume can pose serious health risks such as migraines, nausea, tightening of the throat, and respiratory impairment.[/lz_bulleted_list]

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Candle sales peak during this season in the U.S., helping to rake in an annual $2.3 billion in sales a year. These sales vary a great deal with economic stability, since they’re a highly discretionary purchase. There are more than 400 major candle companies in the United States, which use more than a billion pounds of wax to create their products. That’s not including the air freshener industry and other seasonally scented products.

The problem is widespread across the spectrum of smelly goods. “Even fragranced products that call themselves green, natural, or organic, or with essential oils — they emitted the same hazardous pollutants as the regular fragrance products. So basically if it had a fragrance, it caused health problems, and it didn’t matter if the product itself called itself green, organic, or natural,” she said.

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You don’t need to rely on fragranced products to give your house the seasonal feel. “An air freshener is not designed to disinfect or clean the air. It doesn’t do anything to remove the pollutants. It’s a combination of chemicals, including potentially hazardous chemicals, that mask the problem,” Steinemann added.

She recommends opening up windows for more ventilation instead.

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“People think they need an air freshener to make a pleasant air environment,” she said. “What my study has found is it’s actually the opposite — that more than twice as many people would prefer an environment without a fragrance than with a fragrance.”