When Sarah Chen felt dizzy and disoriented among the roses at her Minneapolis flower wholesaler in December 2024, she knew something had to change. After eight years of building her floristry business from a one-woman operation into a thriving 10-person team, the 30-year-old made a devastating decision: she had to close her doors.
For years, Chen had struggled with relentless fatigue, pounding headaches, and waves of nausea. Her mind felt clouded, her memory unreliable. She now believes these symptoms stemmed from daily exposure to pesticides lurking on the flowers she loved working with.
“To find out that I feel this bad because of my job is horrible and stressful,” she explains. “And also, why is no one talking about this?”
A Toxic Reality
Most people admiring a beautiful bouquet never think about pesticides. But according to Pesticide Action Network, a UK charity, cut flowers are laden with them. While casual buyers face little risk, the real danger falls on growers and florists who handle what experts describe as “toxic bombs” for hours each day.
These chemicals serve a purpose—protecting flowers from disease and pests while keeping them looking flawless year-round. Research shows the pesticides can easily penetrate skin or be inhaled by workers exposed daily.
Here’s the alarming part: unlike food products, flowers face no upper limits on pesticide residue levels in the EU, UK, or US. While this distinction makes some logical sense—we don’t typically eat flowers—the lack of regulation creates serious risks for workers. Despite a growing sustainable flower movement in Britain, roughly 85% of UK flowers still arrive via murky supply chains from countries like Ecuador, Colombia, Kenya, and Ethiopia, where pesticide oversight is often minimal.
When Tragedy Strikes
The issue gained tragic visibility in France. Florist Sophie Dubois lost her 11-year-old daughter Emmy to cancer in March 2022. In a groundbreaking decision, France’s Pesticide Victims Compensation Fund officially recognized a connection between Emmy’s cancer and her mother’s pesticide exposure during pregnancy.
“If someone had warned me, my daughter would still be here,” Dubois told French media.
Researchers Jean-Noël Jouzel and Giovanni Prete have been investigating connections between parental pesticide exposure in floristry and childhood diseases. They’ve interviewed three florists whose stories share disturbing similarities—two lost children to cancer, while a third has a five-year-old with neurodevelopmental disorders.
“The relationship is never clearcut,” Jouzel acknowledges. “In these three cases, it’s very plausible that there is a link, but, of course, no certainty.”
The Evidence Piles Up
What limited research exists paints a troubling picture. A 1990 study found approximately 9,000 Colombian flower workers exposed to 127 different pesticides, with pregnant workers potentially facing higher rates of premature births and birth defects.
More recently, a 2018 study analyzed 90 bouquets and identified 107 pesticides—70 of which appeared in florists’ urine despite workers wearing two pairs of gloves. Exposure to one pesticide, clofentezine, exceeded acceptable thresholds by four times. US authorities classify it as a possible carcinogen, and the EU declined to renew its approval in 2023 due to its endocrine-disrupting properties.
Professor Michael Eddleston, a clinical toxicology expert at the University of Edinburgh, points out that industries like cotton have made genuine efforts to reduce chemical usage. But with flowers, nobody’s monitoring, so there’s no incentive to change long-standing practices.
A Workforce in the Dark
Many florists remain completely unaware of the risks. James Mitchell, who owns Kensington Blooms in west London and has worked in the industry for over twenty years, says the topic has never even come up. When he wears gloves, he’s thinking about protecting his hands for playing music, not shielding himself from chemicals.
Chen’s health problems began a few years into her career. Working five days weekly, eight hours daily surrounded by flowers, she cycled through mysterious illnesses each month—stomach bugs, flu-like symptoms, persistent nausea. Blood tests eventually showed elevated liver enzymes, which can indicate poisoning-related liver damage. Her naturopathic doctor suggested pesticides as the culprit.
The revelation hit her like lightning. Reading the Belgian study about pesticides in florists’ urine despite double gloves shocked her—she’d spent five years working barehanded.
She immediately started wearing protective equipment, installed air purifiers in her studio, sourced more locally grown flowers, and took liver-supporting supplements. Yet her condition worsened. She remembers one wedding job where she could barely lift her head during the car ride to the venue.
Eddleston notes that Chen’s symptoms vanishing after leaving the industry strongly suggests they were pesticide-related.
The Proof Problem
Establishing direct causation remains incredibly difficult. Investigations of Kenyan flower farm workers—where pesticide use is extensive—have documented alarming health issues ranging from vomiting to organ damage, limb function loss, and even death.
“You can’t single things out,” explains Nick Mole from Pesticide Action Network. “You know, I touched this bunch of flowers in 2013 and I’ve got cancer down the line.”
Skin problems are also widespread among florists. A 2016 study found that skin allergies, irritations, and itching were the dominant complaints among 25 interviewed florists. While pesticides can easily cause these symptoms, other flower components can too, making identification tricky.
Education Gap
One point nearly every florist interviewed agreed on: the industry has a serious education and awareness problem around pesticides. I can personally confirm this—when I trained as a florist earlier this year while working as a journalist, I went months without wearing gloves, completely unaware I should.
Some UK floristry courses approved by City & Guilds do teach that employers should provide personal protective equipment. But these courses are expensive and not mandatory—many florists simply learn on the job.
Beyond that, no publicly available occupational hazard guidelines exist for florists, according to Angela Oliver, CEO of the British Florist Association. The BFA publishes health and safety information, but only paying members can access it.
Slow Progress
French guidelines from a few years ago mentioned risks like cuts and cold working conditions but virtually ignored pesticides. Following public outcry over Emmy Dubois’s death, that’s gradually changing. The government launched a study assessing flower worker pesticide exposure, though conclusions won’t arrive for several years. French media reports suggest it should lead to regulatory proposals, potentially including maximum pesticide residue limits for flowers. Meanwhile, French consumer organization UFC-Que Choisir is demanding immediate action, including compulsory labeling about chemicals on flowers.
Many florists only learn about risks through word of mouth or news reports. Emma Harrison, a Durham-based grower and researcher raising awareness on TikTok, says the chalky film covering her hands after touching imported flowers is obvious to her. She knows to wash thoroughly before eating. “But if you had no education in this, your baseline as a florist is maybe thinking: it’s just dust,” she explains. “It’s not dust. It’s chemicals.”
Gloucestershire florist Rachel Webb, 35, only became aware after reading about Emmy Dubois’s death. She now always wears gloves. “I just thought, I’ve definitely been ingesting whatever pesticides were on these flowers,” she reflects. “It is unsettling.” She’s seen florists cut pizza with scissors that had already touched hundreds of stems that day.
Supply Chain Opacity
Unlike fashion and food industries, where increased scrutiny has improved traceability, floristry supply chains remain deeply opaque. While large buyers like supermarkets can set standards and source directly from farms, most independent florists buy “blind” from wholesalers. Labels on imported flowers typically lack clear information about chemical usage, origin, and labor practices.
Jessica Martinez, founder of London-based Petal & Stem Studio, wants more information about her job’s risks. “By the time I’m handling these flowers with gloves, what is my exposure level? It’s just impossible to find that research,” she says.
Oliver says she’s never encountered pesticides affecting florists’ health before—and the BFA isn’t planning further discussion on the issue.
For Eddleston, data is essential. “What you’re telling me makes me think we should be recruiting 1,000 florists and studying their health. Do we find that 10 years later, they all die from cancer? It surprises me that this hasn’t been picked up before and it hasn’t been recognized as a problem. But I think it’s something to worry about.”
Moving Forward
With cut flower prices soaring and margins shrinking, florists’ reluctance to address something as invisible as pesticides is understandable. You can’t see them, making it easy to pretend they’re not there.
Though Chen is among the rare voices speaking out in an industry that seldom discusses this issue—or perhaps doesn’t realize it should—she’s careful not to spread panic. Her advice is straightforward: wear gloves, use air purifiers, open windows when possible, and try sourcing more locally grown flowers to reduce exposure.
“If you love what you do, it’s worth continuing, as long as you can do it in a healthy way,” she says. “Floristry is beautiful, and there’s so many people that have amazing careers and make amazing things. I don’t want to demonize the industry, but I do think there’s a really dark side to floristry that is just not talked about.”
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