What's in YOUR fragrance? The Toxic Ingredients Hiding in your Personal Care Products

Parabens, phthalates, oxybenzone, oh my! Consumers have become increasingly aware of the health effects of these compounds—such as the accumulation of parabens inside the body and their possible estrogen-mimicking and tumor-promoting properties—present in their personal care and cosmetic products. However, there are many other harmful ingredients lurking in our cosmetic and personal products. One such “ingredient” is fragrance. The word fragrance may seem flowery and sweet just as the smells it bestows on beauty, hair and cleaning products, but, it is one of the most harmful additives to these products.

What is "Fragrance"?

"Fragrance" is not one ingredient. Rather, it is normally comprised of around 50-250 ingredients—most of which sound like they belong in an organic chemistry lab instead of a flower-filled meadow!—chosen from a toolbox of around 4,000 ingredients. Companies are not required by federal or state law to disclose the ingredients in fragrance. Due to the lack of legislation on mandatory fragrance disclosure, customers are not aware of the potentially harmful chemicals that are hidden behind this label—chemicals that they are inhaling and spraying daily on their bodies. 

In September 2018, Breast Cancer Prevention Partners (BCPP) published a report called, “Right to Know: Exposing toxic fragrance chemicals in beauty, personal care and cleaning products,” which detailed the dangers of fragrance in consumer products. The report focused on personal care products (lotions, body sprays, hair gels, shampoos, deodorant, perfumes), and cleaning products, analyzing them for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and chemical composition.

The BCPP report found 338 distinct fragrance chemicals in a sample of 25 personal care products. Of these 338 chemicals, 29% were linked to chronic health concerns, such as cancer, endocrine disruptions, reproductive and developmental toxicity, neurotoxicity, respiratory effects and skin irritation. The authors used this data to rank the products based on health hazards. Shockingly, the most toxic product was Just for Me shampoo, a children's shampoo. 

Scanning the list of tested products, I was alarmed to discover the toxic chemicals present in products that I use—such as Aveeno Body Lotion, which contains benzyl chloride—classified as a "probable human carcinogen" by the FDA. In the past, I was also a daily user of Organix Shampoo. You could imagine I was not thrilled when I read that this product was ranked in the top ten products in terms of health hazard, with 14 fragrance chemicals linked to chronic health effects.... 

Transparency Initiatives

Over 150 companies have voluntarily agreed to disclose their fragrance ingredients, including Aubrey Organics, California Baby, W.S. Badger Company, Inc., and Yes To, Inc. Larger corporations have also taken steps to disclose fragrance ingredients to consumers. Unilever (producer of brands such as Degree Deodorant, Dove and St. Ives) has voluntarily launched an initiative using Smart Label technology that allows consumers to search online and in-store, via smartphone apps, product ingredients that comprise over 0.01% of the total composition. Proctor and Gamble (producer of brands such as Olay and Tampax), along with L'Oreal, have also committed to disclosing fragrance ingredients above 0.01% in beauty and feminine hygiene products sold in the United States and Canada using Smart Label technology beginning in 2019. The timeline for L'Oreal's initiative, however, has not been made public.

What’s Next? 

While this increased transparency on the part of corporations is a step in the right direction, I believe that to be fully transparent, companies should list these fragrances on their packages, and not just on the internet or on an app. Not everyone has access or the time to actively search for ingredients on their smartphone while they are shopping, and making it easier for consumers to access information about these ingredients will improve these transparency missions even more.

Further, while having access to this information is important, just as important is an understanding of the health effects that they have. Smart Label provides consumers with the function to find out the ingredients in products, but not on the toxicity levels of these ingredients. As an example, a quick search for Dove’s 24H Invisible Solid Antiperspirant Deodorant provides active ingredients (aluminum chloride—a topic for a whole other blog post), and inactive ingredients, such as fragrance. Fragrance is then further broken down to around 30 ingredients. Upon clicking one of these ingredients, butylphenyl methylpropina (a synthetic fragrance), I get a description such as “a fresh and floral scent." No possible health effects are listed, but upon further internet searches, I found that butylphenyl methylpropinal causes dermal sensitization, ie. an inflammatory skin reaction that causes a rash. To make the most use out of this Smart Label technology, the platform must also list the side effects, or else these long scientific names of compounds will be of no use to the average consumer. 

It is up to the consumer to make educated decisions regarding the products they are lathering in their hair, rolling on their arms, spreading on their face and spraying on their wrists and necks. With increased transparency into the ingredients of personal care products, including those hidden behind "fragrance", as well as the possible health effects of these ingredients, consumers will have the power to make these decisions. 

 Other resources:

·       Made Safe: a non-profit organization that certifies products as nontoxic after screening ingredients for behavioral toxins, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and reproductive toxins, among others

·       Silent Spring Institute’s list of mammary carcinogens

·       Breast Cancer Prevention Partners’ list of “Chemicals of Concern”