this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2025
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I posted the following: "I am trying to make a shower gel that has a scent but is not toxic to either humans or aquatic life. And I have a hard time finding anything for the latter. Essential oils and derivatives? Nope. Synthetic ones? Nothing. I could go the unscented route, but it’s going to be hard to sell. So, considering that most of you are better informed about this topic, is there a specific ingredient that I can use for a rose fragrance that’s truly non toxic? Thanks "

On fragrange, zerowaste and sustainability. The post got deleted by mods in a manner of minutes. What the hell is going on there? I am going to stay here for much longer since that place is turning very weird. Also, can anyone here actually help me find a fragrance ingredient that won't kill aquatic life when poured down the drain? Thank you in advance

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[–] nichtburningturtle@feddit.org 276 points 4 days ago (5 children)

Sadly any substances related to showering are percieved as dangerous by the stereotypical reddit mod. :D

[–] SamB@lemmy.world 63 points 4 days ago

This is the best comment I read all year. Thank you for the laughs.

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 22 points 4 days ago

Oof even all the way on Reddit they had to have felt that burn lmao

[–] rustyfish@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago

Watch out. They might send an bitcoin assassin after you. One who could run you over with a mobility scooter or stab you with an insulin pen.

[–] markovs_gun@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago

I think some mods are overly jumpy with chemistry type questions because uninformed morons will confidently answer the wrong thing and the mods are afraid it will get someone hurt. That or the subs in question just aren't geared for this kind of Q&A. You'd probably get better responses from a chemistry subreddit.

Scent compounds being potentially hazardous to some minor degree in their super concentrated form isn't a huge issue, because that's not how they're going to be experienced and it's hard to find anything that isn't harmful in some quantity. The alchemist Paracelsus, who pioneered evidence backed approaches to pharmaceutical medicine wrote the old adage "The dose makes the poison." Even water can kill you if you drink too much of it all at once, and pure oxygen is an extremely dangerous substance even though we need it to breathe.

That said, I happen to know a bit about chemistry and just did a bit of reading. It looks like rose oil comes in two forms - one produced by steam distillation, and one produced by solvent extraction. The one produced via solvent extraction is more common, more concentrated, and according to Safety Data Sheets (SDS) I was able to find, has more potential health hazards associated with it. The other form, known as Rose Otto, is produced via steam distillation and is less concentrated. This means you will need more and will need to adjust your formulation, but according to the SDS this is a pretty safe substance. If your concern is potential hazards of making your soap during manufacturing, then that may be a better option I guess. I still think that it's fine to use substances that are toxic in quantities that will never make it into the final product.

[–] BarrelAgedBoredom@lemm.ee 71 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Loving the reddit hate train here but to answer your question, there doesn't appear to be any non aqua toxic rose fragrances. Even rose water can be aqua toxic. This is due to the fact that geraniol (the compound primarily responsible for a roses' scent) is acutely toxic to aquatic life. Have you considered other light, floral scents OP?

[–] WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 86 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's all just bots masturbating other bots over there.

[–] KingPorkChop@lemmy.ca 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

30 years ago I expected this, but thought it was going to be sexier.

The future fucking blows.

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[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com 68 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If you have ever posted something vaguely critical of Trump, Elmo or nazis in another sub, then you may well have bots automatically remove your posts and comments on other subs

It turns out that there are plenty of people who are perfectly OK with nazis across many subreddits out there

Reddit has gone to shit

[–] SamB@lemmy.world 30 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I wasn’t vaguely critical, but very clearly critical. Although I doubt it had an effect on r/ fragrance, but who knows…

[–] FistingEnthusiast@lemmynsfw.com 20 points 4 days ago

You'd be surprised...

[–] Kyrgizion@lemmy.world 15 points 4 days ago

It's definitely that. I have had the "honor" of being IP banned for over a year. Any accounts associated with my ip (and there were quite a few) were nuked. I never posted anything worse than run of the mill criticism like I do here on Lemmy but I never kissed any mods' rings either.

[–] Hudell@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago

They may have a rule to delete any mention of essential oils automatically. Or they deleted due to the criticism of it. Hard to know which way any sub might swing.

[–] Sandbar_Trekker@lemmy.today 56 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Given the trend of recent posts in here. I'm going to guess that the word "toxic" triggered the automod.

[–] SamB@lemmy.world 29 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I actually think you may be onto something.

[–] Arcka@midwest.social 1 points 2 days ago

Based on that logic, maybe reworking it to use 'toxin' instead would get it boosted...

[–] cosmicrookie@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago

We left Reddit because of the drama. Dont bring it over here. Instead, just place your question on lemmy

[–] undefined@lemmy.hogru.ch 25 points 4 days ago

Who knows? This is Lemmy

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago (5 children)

Yup, just get the hell off Reddit. And Twitter. Both of those cess pools.

I deleted my Reddit account of, was it 11 years? More? Anyway, sometimes I miss being able to comment there whenever I come across someone kind, or some idiot. But then I think, boy, morally, I feel better not partaking. Lemmy is the future for now. I'll abstain from the cancer.

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[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Reddit doesn't need you. Use to be a place for small communities to collaborate. Now its focusing all it's efforts on being a proprietor and distributor of information. Any function those small communities serve is not important anymore because their user base is so large and entrenched the only thing that can sink them is gross mismanagement. As we saw with Twitter, even then, the road to broke is long and spiraling.

[–] VinesNFluff@pawb.social 35 points 4 days ago (1 children)

If it is any consolation -- It was most likely a robot.

Like 99% of large reddits are almost entirely moderated by a modbot, and the modbot is stupider than your average LLM assistant (and LLM assistants aren't very smart), while also being extremely strict.

[–] Sergio@slrpnk.net 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Let us rejoice, for that error rate creates new fediverse members.

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[–] Defectus@lemmy.world 4 points 2 days ago

Aleppo soap? It's made of olive oil and lye. As simple as it gets. Probably not good for aquatic life but better than most I would belive. It's got a distinctive scent, at first I didn't like it but it grows in you. Done wonders for my hair and skin.

[–] GrayBackgroundMusic@lemm.ee 36 points 4 days ago (1 children)

On fragrange, zerowaste and sustainability.

/r/soapmaking might have some advice. There is a lemmy equivalent !soapmaking@sh.itjust.works but it doesn't look very active.

The post got deleted by mods in a manner of minutes.

I've always struggled with Reddit's arcane rules. I rarely know why my stuff is deleted. shrugs I don't really post there anymore, just lurk.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 points 2 days ago

i got shadowbanned recently, just from a simple comment removal from a mod. but the reddit-wide filters immediately banned people, if thier posts gets removed.

[–] TheDeadlySquid@lemm.ee 7 points 3 days ago

I was making the most innocuous comments in Reddit and getting banned. I finally gave up and here I am. #RedditRefugee

[–] HubertManne@piefed.social 19 points 4 days ago

Just fyi, most people came here to get rid of reddit. There are a few communities that revolve around reddit for those with nostalgia. Might be the best plae to ask as much as this community is about asking questions.

If have I had to guess... a combination of well meaning rules built up over time that no one actually thought out, chronically online weirdos corrupted by the little bit of power afforded by moderating (which seems common in online communities) and cabals of state actors who moderate multiple subreddits in order to control and direct the narrative.

On the other hand, with how popular reddit has become and with how many bots are out there, it might be worse without the rules.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.world 8 points 3 days ago

Just look at the subscriber count of those subreddits. Try to moderate that.

[–] match@pawb.social 17 points 4 days ago (1 children)

could you use embedded flower petals?

[–] SamB@lemmy.world 17 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I could, but I need to check whether this is a perfectly safe option since the aim is fragrance and zero toxicity to water life. I didn’t consider this option before, so thank you.

[–] AmidFuror@fedia.io 20 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Organisms have incredibly complex biochemical makeup. Flowers will contain minute levels of formaldehyde and other toxic compounds. If there is no floor on what it takes to be "toxic," then only 100% purified chemical compounds could be included.

It would be better to determine what "safe" levels are based on regulatory body recommendations and then try to stay under those.

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[–] Barley_Man@sopuli.xyz 12 points 4 days ago (3 children)

When it comes to toxicity to water life you have to think of the dose. If a rose bush sheds a few petals and it falls to a lake will anything bad happen to the life in the lake? No absolutely not. That happens naturally. The petals will quickly decompose and become nutrients that will feed the ecosystem in the lake. However if someone would drop a dozen truckloads of petals in the lake then that would be way too much organic matter for the ecosystem in the lake to handle. But some shower gel is never gonna come close to that. It's more gonna be on the magnitude of the bush shedding some petals naturally in the lake. Same with the essential oil. Concentrated essential oil can be quite toxic to both human and other life. But in dilution it's something else completely. A natural rose bush will evaporate tonnes of essential oil straight into the air during its whole life time and nothing takes damage from it. That's why you can smell a rose plant when standing next to it. Dilution is sometimes actually the solution. A single drop of essential oil into the sewer drain once a day would not cause any negative effect at all when it's diluted with tonnes of shower, toilet, sink and even industrial waste water. Diluted it won't damage any life, especially since essential oils are biodegradable.

Also think what else gets down into the sewer. In most places your toilet and your shower are connected to the same system. The poop you put in your toilet is multiple magnitudes worse than anything you could use while showering. If your waste water treatment plant can't even treat the poo then you have bigger problems then anything you could put into your shower gel. If it's good enough to treat poo however then it's good enough to treat whatever's in your shower gel.

[–] SamB@lemmy.world 8 points 4 days ago

I admit I got quite a bit worked up with the constant greenwashing found everywhere and got a bit paranoid about contributing to the problem. I will have to talk a bit more with some specialists from the labs that I will be collaborating with (hopefully they won’t tell me what I want to hear, but be honest) and perhaps I find a solution. If all fails, then fragrance free it is..

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[–] LandedGentry@lemmy.zip 14 points 4 days ago

Fuck reddit

[–] Squorlple@lemmy.world 13 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

In general, Reddit has made the move that all big name old social media have made (except maybe like Snapchat? I can’t think of any other exceptions) and kowtowed to corporate advertiser money, rightwing misinformation and bigotry, and the egos of oligarchs such as Elon Musk. This is essentially done to make the fat cats in the corporation richer.

I was able to find your deleted Reddit post [EDIT: understanding now that you were referring to posts across multiple subs]. My best good faith guess [for r/frangrance] is that the mods may have considered it to be within the scope of the “No medical advice or health questions” sub rule? Navigating to even find the sub rules was difficult since the mods have attached them via a link that immediately redirects to an account sign-up page. My workaround to even read the rules was to copy the link and change the “www” to “old” and it worked.

[EDIT, continued: For r/zerowaste, the only good faith issue I can see — and it’s a stretch — is the verb tense of “[Crafting] Posts must be something that you have made yourself.” Since you haven’t yet made the fragrance in full, maybe they don’t allow WIPs or for others to help with WIPs?

I don’t see anything with r/sustainability’s rules that would apply. They do have a “No Surveys” rule but there are other posts that do solicit input and advice, so that apparently doesn’t apply to your post.]

You might find Lemmings who are happy to help with your fragrance situation on any of these communities:

https://lemmy.world/c/askscience

https://lemmy.world/c/science

https://aussie.zone/c/environment

https://mander.xyz/c/science

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[–] ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 9 points 4 days ago

Reddit Mod:

Uh oh... You showed empathy to animal life.

Deleted for being Woke!

[–] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 11 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Reddit is owned and operated by assholes. Don't even try to use it.

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More commonplace than you think.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Reddit is being moderated by an AI now

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Low karma or account too new.

So cringe tbh. I was depressed and wanted to vent, they fucking automod-deleted my post because "karma too low", like bitch, why did you think I'm making a throwaway?

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[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 4 days ago

Subs be deleting shit left and right lately, it's becoming unusable

Lot of it is bots, but lot of it is also shit mods. And lazy mods letting the bot do shit without any review.

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