Fragrance doesn’t stay on your skin. Researchers keep finding fragrance chemicals in people’s blood, body fat, urine and breast milk. Nobody agreed to carry them around. Here’s what’s been measured, what it does and doesn’t mean, and how to bring your own levels down.
Evidence key Strong Moderate Weak How we grade
It was in most people tested
Synthetic musks are scent chemicals used in perfume, lotion and detergent. In blood tests of 100 healthy young adults in Vienna, the synthetic musk galaxolide was found in 91% of samples and musk xylene in 79%; only 7 of the 100 people had no synthetic musks in their blood at all. Strong evidence. Hutter 2009
Musk ketone, a synthetic musk used mainly in cosmetics, was found in the body fat of every German tested in the 1990s and in breast milk at up to 240 µg per kg of milk fat. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
It’s in breast milk
Synthetic musk fragrance chemicals were found in the breast milk of every one of 39 Massachusetts mothers tested in 2004; the most common, galaxolide (HHCB), was in 97% of them. Strong evidence. Reiner 2007
An older nitro musk (musk ketone), after European industry had moved away from nitro musks, was still in 85% of US mothers' milk in 2004. Moderate evidence. Reiner 2007
Musk scent chemicals used in perfumes, deodorants and detergents turn up in mothers' milk fat; a breastfed baby takes in an estimated ~2 micrograms of galaxolide a day. Strong evidence. Reiner 2007
No study here found that these traces harm babies, and none of this is a reason to stop breastfeeding. It is a reason to ask why scent chemicals end up in milk at all.
How it gets in
Synthetic musks reach mothers and babies mainly through the skin (cosmetics and clothes washed in scented detergent), not through food. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
In one study, people who used more lotion and perfume had more of two musks in their blood. How often someone used body lotion and perfume was directly linked to how much of the synthetic musks galaxolide and tonalide were in their blood, giving direct human evidence that switching to musk-free lotions and perfumes could lower blood levels of these fragrance chemicals. Moderate evidence. Hutter 2009
The chemical that carries the scent
One of the chemicals used to carry fragrance, diethyl phthalate (DEP), shows up too. Pregnant women who had used perfume or cologne in the past day had 167% higher urine levels of MEP, the breakdown product of the fragrance solvent diethyl phthalate (DEP), than women who hadn't (177 women, Boston). Strong evidence. Braun 2014
Pregnant women who used perfume in a 48-hour window had 2.3 times higher urinary levels of MEP, the breakdown product of the fragrance solvent diethyl phthalate (DEP), than non-users, in a study of 186 low-income African American and Dominican pregnant women in New York City — independently replicating the same finding in a Boston fertility-clinic cohort (Braun 2014, 167% higher) and a postpartum cohort (Parlett 2013, 2.92x). Moderate evidence. Just 2010
In US national biomonitoring, MEP, the breakdown product of the fragrance solvent DEP, was the most abundant phthalate in people's urine (average 181 ug/g creatinine). Moderate evidence. Crinnion 2010
To be fair about it: 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)
And then it goes down the drain
About 60% of the fragrance used in homes goes down the drain into rivers and lakes, and wastewater treatment removes little of it; polycyclic musks such as galaxolide turn up in rivers, lake air, mussels and human milk. Moderate evidence. Khalid & Abdollahi 2021
Levels can come down
This is the hopeful part. Levels can change when product use changes, though these studies can’t single out fragrance alone. After German industry stopped using musk xylene in 1993, its level in breast milk fell about 70% in four years, but the related musk ketone, which was not phased out, did not fall. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
The phthalate most linked to fragrance (diethyl phthalate) fell by 27% in 3 days when girls avoided products listing fragrance unless labeled phthalate-free. Moderate evidence. Harley 2016
Fragrance-free cosmetics and laundry products cut the main routes by which synthetic musks enter the body: skin contact and washed clothing. Moderate evidence. Schmeiser 2001
What this does and doesn’t mean
These studies measured exposure, not harm. Nobody has shown what a lifetime of carrying these chemicals does, because nobody has studied it properly. We list that gap, and others like it, on what the science doesn’t know yet. In the meantime, you get to decide how much of it you carry.
What you can do
- Switch the products that stay on your skin first: lotion, perfume and deodorant. Look them up in EWG Skin Deep.
- Switch your laundry detergent and softener to fragrance-free. Check them in EWG’s Guide to Healthy Cleaning.
- Paste ingredient lists into our label decoder, and read our fragrance-free shopping guide.
- Pregnant or breastfeeding? See our guide for parents.
Every claim above shows its evidence grade and names its source, with a link wherever one exists. See the claims we won’t make. Information, not medical advice.