The good and bad of it
Perfume alcohol not only preserves, blends and stabilises the ingredients to a certain extent, but it helps the scent molecules to disperse in the air
Methyl and ethyl alcohols are two different types of alcohol not only in their chemical formula but also in the usage and good and bad effects. The common man should be aware of the difference in these alcohols and their usage in daily life.
Citrus oils have light molecules that are quite volatile and fade quickly, but heavier, base oils like sandalwood, amber, etc, are heavier and don’t disperse much but you’ll only really smell them very close to the skin.
Perfume alcohol not only preserves, blends and stabilises the ingredients to a certain extent, but it helps the scent molecules to disperse in the air, which is why if you take a scented oil and dab it on your wrist, the smell may be strong and long lasting but you won’t smell it unless you’re relatively close.
Take the same oil and blend it with perfumers alcohol, and it will create a ‘trail’of scent, and an aura of the fragrance that can be detected from a distance and even after you are gone.
Methanol, also known as methyl alcohol, is wood alcohol. It is the simplestalcohol, and is a light, volatile, colourless, flammable, liquid with a distinctive odour that is very similar to but slightly sweeter than ethanol(drinking alcohol).
Methanol has a high toxicity in humans. If ingested, as little as 10ml can cause permanent blindness by destruction of the optic nerve and 30ml is potentially fatal although the usual fatal dose is typically 100–125ml (4 fl oz). Toxic effects take hours to start and effective antidotes can often prevent permanent damage.
The initial symptoms of methanol intoxication include central nervous system depression, headache, dizziness, nausea, lack of coordination, confusion, and with sufficiently large doses, unconsciousness and death. The initial symptoms of methanol exposure are usually less severe than the symptoms resulting from the ingestion of a similar quantity of ethanol.
Methanol poisoning can be treated with the antidotes ethanol or fomepizole. Both these drugs act to reduce the action of alcohol dehydrogenase on methanol by means of competitive inhibition, so that it is excreted by the kidneys rather than being transformed into toxic metabolites.
Further treatment may include giving sodium bicarbonate for metabolic acidosis and haemodialysis or haemodiafiltration can be used to remove methanol and formate from the blood or folic acid is also administered to enhance the metabolism of formate
In the early 1970s, a methanol to gasoline process was developed byMobil for producing gasoline ready for use in vehicles. During World War II, methanol was used as a fuel in several German military rocket designs, under name M-Stoff.
Methanol is also used as a solvent, and as an antifreeze in pipelines a,windshield washer fluid, an automobile coolant antifreeze in the early 1900s.
Methanol is mixed with water and injected into high performance diesel engines for an increase of power and a decrease in exhaust gas temperature. This is called water methanol injection.
Ethanol also commonly called alcohol, ethyl alcohol, and drinking alcohol, is the principal type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, produced by thefermentation of sugars by yeasts. Ethanol is the alcohol that is used for perfumery also.
It is a neurotoxic, psychoactive drug, and one of the oldest recreational drugs. It can cause alcohol intoxication when consumed in sufficient quantity.
Ethanol is a central nervous system depressant and has significant psychoactive effects in sublethal doses. Based on its abilities to alter human consciousness, ethanol is considered a psychoactive drug.
The amount of ethanol in the body is typically quantified by blood alcohol content (BAC), which is here taken as weight of ethanol per unit volume of blood. Small doses of ethanol, in general, produce euphoria and relaxation. At higher dosages (BAC > 1 g/L), ethanol acts as a central nervous systemdepressant, producing at progressively higher dosages, impaired sensory and motor function, slowed cognition, stupefaction, unconsciousness, and possible death. When alcohol reaches the brain, it has the ability to delay signals that are sent between nerve cells that control balance, thinking and movement.
Alcohol stimulates gastric juice production, even when food is not present, and as a result, its consumption will stimulate acidic secretions normally intended to digest protein molecules. Consequently, the excess acidity may harm the inner lining of the stomach.
Ethanol-containing beverages can cause urticarial skin eruptions, systemicdermatitis, alcohol flush reactions, exacerbations of rhinitis and, more seriously and commonly, bronchoconstriction in patients with a history of asthma.
Alcohol consumption by women of child-bearing age who are not using birth control increases the risk of fetal alcohol syndrome.
Frequent drinking of alcoholic beverages has been shown to be a major contributing factor in cases of elevated blood levels of triglycerides.
Discontinuing consumption of alcohol after several years of heavy drinking can also be fatal. Alcohol withdrawal can cause anxiety, autonomic dysfunction, seizures, and hallucinations. Delirium tremens is a condition that requires people with a long history of heavy drinking to undertake an alcohol detoxification regimen.
Prolonged heavy consumption of alcohol can cause significant permanent damage to the brain and other organs.
Ethanol is used in medical wipes and most common antibacterial hand sanitisergels as an antiseptic, widely used, clinically and over the counter, as anantitussive agent (i.e. as a cough relieving medicine, commonly consumed as a recreational drug, especially while socialising, due to its psychoactive effects.
The largest single use of ethanol is as an engine fuel and fuel additive. Brazil in particular relies heavily upon the use of ethanol as an engine fuel, due in part to its role as the globe’s leading producer of ethanol.
Ethanol has been used as rocket fuel and is currently in lightweight rocket-powered racing aircraft.
World production of ethanol in 2006 was 51 gigalitres (1.3×1010 US gal), with 69pc of the world supply coming from Brazil and the United States.
Brazil supports this population of ethanol-burning automobiles with large national infrastructure that produces ethanol from domestically grown sugar cane. Sugar cane not only has a greater concentration of sucrose than corn (by about 30pc), but is also much easier to extract.
In the United States, the ethanol fuel industry is based largely on corn. Over time, it is believed that a material portion of the ≈150-billion-US-gallon (570,000,000 m3) per year market for gasoline will begin to be replaced with fuel ethanol.
Ethanol is also an important industrial ingredient. It has widespread use as a precursor for other organic compounds such as ethyl halides, ethyl esters, diethyl ether, acetic acid, and ethyl amines.
It’s wise to be aware of good and bad of everything we encounter in our daily life.
“There is this to be said in favour of drinking, that it takes the drunkard first out of society, then out of the world”
