This is the part of the fragrance story the industry least wants you to read closely: what some of its ingredients do to hormone signaling in lab tests, what’s been measured in products and in people, and how much has never been tested at all. “Not proven harmful” is doing a lot of work for them.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
The phthalate hiding behind “fragrance”
An FDA laboratory survey concluded that phthalate esters found in most cosmetic products most likely enter via the fragrance ingredient itself, where they function as a solvent/fixative rather than for some other purpose. Moderate evidence. Hubinger & Havery 2006
FDA's own testing of 48 consumer cosmetic products found the fragrance solvent diethyl phthalate (DEP) in all 5 fragrance products tested, at levels up to 38,663 parts per million (3.9% by weight), and in 27 of 48 products overall, though phthalate esters were named on the ingredient list of only some nail products, never on fragrance. Moderate evidence. Hubinger & Havery 2006
Canada’s regulator found the same thing. Health Canada's own testing of 252 Canadian cosmetic and personal care products found the fragrance solvent DEP in 70% of fragrance products, at levels up to 2.6% by weight, yet every DEP-positive product was labeled only with the generic term "parfum" — never DEP or any phthalate. Strong evidence. Koniecki 2011
In lab tests of 213 US household and personal-care products, not one label listed a phthalate, yet the phthalate DEP, a common fragrance solvent, turned up in half of the pooled conventional product samples. Strong evidence. Dodson 2012
“Unscented” on an air freshener didn’t rule it out either. A 2007 NRDC test found one or more of five phthalate esters (DBP, DEP, DIBP, DIHP, DMP) in 12 of 14 US air fresheners, including some labeled all-natural or unscented, and none of the 12 positive products listed phthalates as an ingredient on the label. Moderate evidence. EPA 2007, citing NRDC 2007
Perfume users had more of its phthalate in them
Women who had used perfume in the previous day had nearly 3 times as much of a phthalate breakdown product (from diethyl phthalate, a chemical used to carry fragrance) in their urine as women who hadn't. Moderate evidence. Parlett 2013
Perfume was the strongest single predictor of diethyl phthalate exposure, so skipping perfume and fragranced personal care products is the most obvious way to lower it. Moderate evidence. Parlett 2013
More on what’s been measured in blood, urine, and breast milk: perfume in your blood.
In lab tests, fragrance chemicals act on hormone receptors
In a 2025 lab screen of 42 everyday perfumes, almost all contained compounds that damaged bacterial DNA, killed cells, blocked the hormone-making enzyme aromatase, or acted on human estrogen or androgen receptors in test organisms, regardless of price or whether the perfume was marketed to men or women. Moderate evidence. Morlock & Heil 2025
One German lab tested 25 deodorants, then 62 of the ingredients found in them. In a lab test of 25 commercial underarm deodorants, 9 (36%) showed measurable estrogen-like activity in a human breast-cancer-cell assay, concentrated almost entirely in sprays (7 of 10) versus roll-ons (1 of 9) and sticks (1 of 6) from the same product lines. Moderate evidence. Lange et al. 2014
Among 62 individually tested deodorant ingredients, only fragrance chemicals (plus one insect-pheromone contaminant) showed any estrogenic activity; no carrier, stabilizer, emulsifier, plasticizer, antitranspirant, or other active ingredient (including triclosan and BHT) tested positive. Moderate evidence. Lange et al. 2014
Testing 62 individually purchased fragrance-related ingredients found in the deodorants, 8 were estrogenic in the same cell assay – including the musk HHCB/galaxolide and benzyl salicylate – at potencies the study describes as comparable to parabens, a preservative class with well-documented weak estrogenic activity. Moderate evidence. Lange et al. 2014
These are cell tests, and the researchers are clear about what that does and doesn’t show. These estrogen-receptor effects only appeared at concentrations tens of thousands to millions of times higher than the natural hormone estradiol needs to produce the same size effect — this is laboratory-dish evidence that these chemicals can act like a weak estrogen, not evidence that normal skin or cosmetic use delivers enough of them to the breast to do so. Moderate evidence. Charles & Darbre 2009
The industry’s 2007 safety review of benzyl salicylate never checked for this. The fragrance industry's own 2007 safety review of benzyl salicylate assessed allergy, toxicity, and cancer risk in detail but never tested it for hormone-like activity at all; the first test came two years later, from an independent lab with no fragrance-industry funding. Moderate evidence. Charles & Darbre 2009
The phthalate in perfume: thin evidence isn’t a clean bill
The phthalates with the strongest evidence against them are mostly plastics chemicals. A 2018 US EPA systematic review found robust evidence that two common phthalates, DEHP and DBP, are linked to male reproductive harm (lower sperm quality; shorter anogenital distance in baby boys exposed before birth) at everyday exposure levels. Strong evidence. Radke 2018 (US EPA)
In FDA’s 2010 testing, one of those two still turned up in nail polish. FDA's own follow-up survey found dibutyl phthalate (DBP) persisting in nail products at concentrations essentially unchanged from its earlier 2006 survey (max 62,607 vs 59,815 ug/g), even as the share of DBP-positive nail products fell, complicating the assumption that phthalates were fully phased out of US nail polish by 2010. Moderate evidence. Hubinger 2010
The fragrance phthalate is a different story. In the same EPA review, diethyl phthalate (DEP), the phthalate used in fragrance, had only 'slight' evidence of male reproductive effects, the weakest of six phthalates, even though people are exposed to it the most. Strong evidence. Radke 2018 (US EPA) In the same large study (N=753), urinary levels of diethyl phthalate (DEP), the phthalate most strongly and consistently tied to perfume and fragranced personal-care product use, showed no association with anogenital distance in baby boys — the largest and best-controlled human test yet of this specific fragrance-phthalate reproductive claim, in the same boys where DEHP did show an effect. Moderate evidence. Swan 2015
Weak evidence of harm is not strong evidence of safety, and some of the key tests have never been done. Diethyl phthalate (DEP), the phthalate used as a fragrance solvent and fixative in colognes, perfumes, and nail polish, has never been tested alone for transgenerational (multi-generation) reproductive effects; the only relevant animal study exposed pregnant mice to a five-phthalate mixture that was 35% DEP, and could not separate DEP's contribution from the other four phthalates. Moderate evidence. Brehm & Flaws 2019
Mixtures, and a huge testing gap
Endocrine disruptors can combine to produce a 'cocktail effect': a mixture of several endocrine disruptors, each too dilute on its own to cause a detectable effect, can still produce an adverse effect together. Moderate evidence. EU Commission 2018
Only 2 of the 20 tested perfumes contained no suspected endocrine-disrupting chemical (EDC) on their declared ingredient list; the other 18 contained at least one. Moderate evidence. Tegengif 2022
In South Korea, an ingredient-list study flagged the same kinds of chemicals in household products. Matching the ingredient lists of 7,603 Korean household chemical products (cleaners, synthetic detergents, fabric softeners, air fresheners, deodorants) against a hormone-disruption hazard database found 293 flagged chemicals, and nearly two out of three products listed more than one of them. Moderate evidence. Lee & Ji 2022 In a database analysis of Korean household chemical products, the most prevalent chemicals flagged as endocrine disruptors were compounds added as fragrance ingredients or preservatives (e.g. linalool, D-limonene, hexyl cinnamaldehyde), not the product's main functional ingredient. Moderate evidence. Lee & Ji 2022
The report states that the vast majority of chemicals in current commercial use have never been tested at all for endocrine-disrupting activity, and that unlike active ingredients in pharmaceuticals and pesticides, most materials, articles, and consumer goods are not required to declare their full chemical make-up, leaving many sources of hormone-disrupting exposure simply unknown. Moderate evidence. WHO/UNEP 2012
Timing matters
Health agencies say this about hormone-disrupting chemicals in general. The European Commission's 2018 endocrine disruptor framework names fetal development and puberty as the exposure periods of greatest concern, stating that exposure during these windows may cause permanent effects and raise disease susceptibility later in life. Moderate evidence. EU Commission 2018
The Endocrine Society's 2025 position statement calls for EDC regulations to be designed to protect the most vulnerable populations, explicitly naming fetuses, children, pregnant women, and adolescents, because critical developmental windows such as fetal development and infancy affect vulnerability to EDC effects on later-life outcomes. Moderate evidence. Endocrine Society 2025
What’s been measured in pregnancy, breast milk, and childcare air: fragrance and babies.
Pesticides face a ban. Cosmetics get the softer rules.
The EU's 2018 endocrine disruptor policy Communication states that endocrine disruptors are regulated completely differently depending on the law: under pesticide and biocide rules, once a substance is proven to be an endocrine disruptor it can in principle no longer be authorized at all, with very limited exceptions, but under the EU's main chemicals law (REACH) and under cosmetics, toys, and food-contact-material rules, an identified endocrine disruptor is instead assessed case by case and can still be allowed at a managed exposure level. Strong evidence. EU Commission 2018
As of November 2018, EU rules for cosmetics, toys, and food-contact materials contained no provisions specific to endocrine disruptors at all; those chemicals were covered only by each law's general safety requirements. Strong evidence. EU Commission 2018
The EU's cosmetics regulator treats chemicals suspected of disrupting hormones the same way it treats other health-concern chemicals: through a risk assessment weighing exposure level, not an automatic hazard-based ban. Strong evidence. SCCS 2021 (SCCS/1628/21)
In 2006, the FDA found too little data to call it a hazard and took no action. FDA's own 2006 testing concluded there was insufficient data to find a human health hazard from phthalate esters in cosmetics and took no regulatory action, even though the phthalates were already known to be common and concentrated in fragrance and nail products. Moderate evidence. Hubinger & Havery 2006
Hormone specialists want stricter rules for these chemicals in general. The Endocrine Society's April 2025 Position Statement defines an endocrine-disrupting chemical as "an exogenous chemical, or mixture of chemicals, that can interfere with any aspect of hormone action," and states that because non-monotonic dose responses are common, it cannot be assumed there are non-zero thresholds below which EDC exposure is safe. Moderate evidence. Endocrine Society 2025 The Endocrine Society calls for EDC regulation generally to be hazard-based and precautionary rather than risk/threshold-based, the same hazard-based approach the EU currently applies only to pesticides and biocides and not to cosmetics, toys, or food-contact materials. Moderate evidence. Endocrine Society 2025
What to do
You can’t read your way around this one. Because diethyl phthalate (DEP) was found in essentially all fragranced cosmetic products FDA tested (5 of 5 in 2006, 11 of 11 in 2010) but is never named on the label when added via 'fragrance,' choosing unscented or fragrance-free products is a more reliable way to avoid it than reading a fragranced product's ingredient list. Moderate evidence. Hubinger 2010
Choosing fragrance-free cosmetic and personal care products is an effective way to cut DEP exposure, since fragrance is consistently the most DEP-dense product category across three independent national surveys and DEP is never named on a label when present via fragrance. Strong evidence. Koniecki 2011
- Start with perfume, cologne, and body spray, then work through lotion, deodorant, and laundry products.
- Pick products labeled fragrance-free, and check the ingredient list with our label decoder or EWG Skin Deep.
- Skip air fresheners. In one small 2007 test, even some labeled “natural” or “unscented” contained phthalates.
- If you’re pregnant or have young kids and want to cut back, start here. See our guide for parents.
- Tell companies and lawmakers you want ingredients named, not hidden behind “fragrance.” Here’s how.
More on why the label can’t help: the fragrance loophole.
Every claim above shows its evidence grade and names its source. See all the phthalate facts and the claims we won’t make. Information, not medical advice.