1 in 3
adults report health problems from fragranced products.
The rest of us just hate it. You don’t have to wear it to look professional, and you’re not the only one holding your breath in the elevator.
Ingredients
Water, Alcohol Denat., FRAGRANCE*, Glycerin
*In lab tests of 42 fragranced baby products sold in Australia, 95% of the chemicals they released into the air weren’t listed on the label, safety sheet, or company website. Moderate evidence. [Nematollahi 2018]
You’re not alone
818 people on TikTok say fragrance makes them sick, or that they’re done with it. Hear it from them.
“pov: you all of a sudden became allergic to all your perfume”
“Fragrance is the first one that comes to mind.”
“you may end up getting cancer”
“I was in there for about thirty seconds before I had to evacuate my car.”
“it just makes me sick to my stomach to smell it at all no matter what the scent is”
“buying perfume is quite literally buying the C-word in a bottle”
Free tools
Don’t just hold your breath. Do something.
Tool 01
Label decoder
Paste, scan, or look up a barcode. See the fragrance, allergens, and banned or hormone-disrupting chemicals the front of the bottle doesn’t mention.
Tool 02
Letter builder
A polite, specific letter to your boss, your kid’s school, a clinic, your landlord, or a neighbor, in about two minutes.
Tool 03
Shopping guide
How to spot real fragrance-free products, and the label words that don’t mean what you’d think.
Tool 04
The pledge
Promise to ask for fragrance-free air once this year: at work, at school, at the doctor’s, or where you live.
32%
of adults in national surveys in the US, Australia, the UK, and Sweden said fragranced products cause them health problems.
Moderate evidence: self-reported, any symptom from any product. [Steinemann 2019]
42%
of Danish adults in a population study said fragrance products gave them eye, nose, or breathing symptoms in the past year.
Moderate evidence: self-reported symptoms, not allergy. [Elberling 2005]
53%
of US adults would prefer a fragrance-free workplace. Only 20% would not.
Moderate evidence: opinion survey. [Steinemann 2016]
Read the label they don’t print
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We tested 6 ingredient-scanner apps for fragrance
We scanned the same “Fragrance Free” body wash in six scanner apps. It lists heliotropine, which the EU’s ingredient database lists with…
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We tested the Think Dirty app for fragrance: consent, sign-up, then padlocks
Think Dirty asked for our location, made us accept every consent preference, and wanted an account before we could search. Then it…
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We tested the PureCheck app for fragrance: the right setting, the wrong answers
PureCheck is the only app we tested that lets you mark fragrance to avoid for free. Then it called a perfume a…
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We tested the INCI Beauty app for fragrance: a perfume scored 19.2 out of 20
INCI Beauty gave a men’s eau de toilette 19.2 out of 20 and put the filter we needed behind an account or…
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We tested the Yuka app for fragrance: pay to search, and “Fragrance” rated low risk
Yuka wanted an account before it showed us a single product. Searching by name cost money, most beauty rankings were locked, and…
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We tested the SkinSAFE app for fragrance: a useful free filter behind a sign-up wall
SkinSAFE’s free Fragrance Free filter works. But the app makes you create an account before you can look at anything, pushes a…
Latest videosWatch doctors and researchers, fact-checked
Employee Wearing Too Much Perfume at Work #HRNina14 fact-check notes
What to Know About Fragrance-free Products: Dr. David CohenDavid E. Cohen, MD6 fact-check notes
How to Make Your Home Smell Good Without Toxic ChemicalsYvonne Burkart, PhD9 fact-check notes
Endocrine Disruptors and Kids: Risks, Everyday Sources, and How to Reduce ThemDr. Mona Amin9 fact-check notes
Free tools
Check a product before you buy
The Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit, rates products on the hazards of their ingredients and on how openly companies list them. Both databases are free to search.
Personal care
EWG Skin Deep
Shampoo, lotion, deodorant, makeup, sunscreen, and baby products: over 150,000 of them. Each gets a hazard score from 1 (lowest concern) to 10 (highest), plus a rating of how much safety data exists, so a good score backed by little research is easy to spot.
Household
EWG Guide to Healthy Cleaning
Laundry detergent, dish soap, all-purpose cleaners, and air fresheners. Products are graded A (lowest concern) to F, and the grade also reflects how fully the company discloses its ingredients.
Tip: read the ingredient list, whatever the front says. Look for FRAGRANCE, PARFUM or AROMA. In the US, “unscented” and “fragrance-free” have no legal definition, and some unscented products contain a masking fragrance. [Rodriguez 2024]
Or paste an ingredient list into our label decoder →
EWG rates products from their listed ingredients, so it can’t see chemicals hidden under the word “fragrance,” and in 2022 about a third of the products people actually used weren’t in Skin Deep at all. [Barrett 2025] Treat the ratings as a starting point, and read what the scores leave out, and who pays EWG. We’re not affiliated with EWG.
Start here
Guides and tools
01 / At work
Ask for a fragrance-free workplace
Your rights, a letter builder, a doctor’s note checklist and the pledge. Plus a guide for employers.
02 / Everyday air
What’s in your air, room by room
Home, laundry, childcare, classrooms, offices, cars, and restrooms.
03 / Parents
Fragrance, pregnancy, and kids
What’s in kids’ products and childcare air, and the lavender question.
04 / Tools
Label decoder
Paste or scan an ingredient list and see the fragrance, allergens, and banned or hormone-disrupting chemicals it hides. Then look the product up in EWG Skin Deep or EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning, or read our shopping guide.
05 / Print
Fragrance-free signs
Free PDFs for your desk, meeting rooms, and classrooms, plus the 1 in 3 symbol to wear or share.
08 / The gaps
What the science doesn’t know yet
What’s never been tested, and why that’s no comfort.
Community
Find the other 1 in 3.
The ihateperfume.com Discord is open. Swap fragrance-free products that actually work, get help making the case at work, vent, and share your wins.
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